Trump isn't going to shut down the federal Department of Education.

I'm reading "Trump Chooses Longtime Ally Linda McMahon to Run Education Dept./A friend and financial backer of Donald J. Trump’s, Ms. McMahon, who led the Small Business Administration during his first term, remained close to him during the campaign" (NYT):

While Mr. Trump has repeatedly called for an outright dissolution of the agency, any effort to shutter it would require congressional action and support from some Republican lawmakers whose districts depend on federal aid for public education....

So it's just something to talk about, not actually do. So what is McMahon really going to try to do? She's the chairwoman of the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action.

[T]he America First Policy Institute has set out a more immediate list of changes it says could be achieved through vastly changing the department’s priorities. Those include stopping schools from “promoting inaccurate and unpatriotic concepts” about American history surrounding institutionalized racism, and expanding voucher programs that direct more public funds to parents to spend on home-schooling, online classes or at private and religious schools.

"A sweeping proposal giving control of the lowest-performing schools in Milwaukee to a commissioner who could fire all the teachers and administrators..."

"... might also apply to other large, racially diverse school districts in Wisconsin, including Madison."

Under the Republican-backed proposal, an independent commissioner would be able to convert the three lowest-performing schools to private voucher or independent charter schools in the first year and then up to five more schools each of the following years.

MEANWHILE: In New York:

The state Education Department has rejected all 15 applications for new charter schools, including 12 in New York City, claiming they failed to meet academic standards....

The decision, which was made in the past week, comes at a time when Gov. Cuomo and the Republican-controlled state Senate are pushing to raise the cap for charters allowed in the state from 460 to 560. But Mayor de Blasio and the teachers unions oppose charter school expansion, as does the Democratic-run state Assembly....

"For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families..."

"... according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation...."

Schools, already under intense pressure to deliver better test results and meet more rigorous standards, face the doubly difficult task of trying to raise the achievement of poor children so that they approach the same level as their more affluent peers....

Many Republicans also think that the government ought to give tax dollars to low-income families to use as vouchers for private-school tuition, believing that is a better alternative to public schools....

The report comes as Congress begins debate about rewriting the country’s main federal education law, first passed as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and designed to help states educate poor children.

"Anybody think this sort of shit would pass muster in a school system in which students and parents chose which schools to attend?"

"And while we're at it, anyone think we'd still be wasting as much time and  resources on phys ed if the education of children (rather than catering to the needs of existing teachers and other interests) was the primary goal of K-12 schooling?"

"Nevertheless, the Justice Department suggests that the choice schools discriminate because they do not do something they do not have the resources to do."

"That is, they do not offer the panoply of services that public schools, with ample state and federal funding, offer to children with special needs. With sanctimony commensurate with their hypocrisy, school choice opponents borrow language from the era of Brown v. Board of Education to accuse Wisconsin of sanctioning a 'dual school system.' The federal government is attempting to order the state to require the choice schools to choose between the impossible and the fatal — between offering services they cannot afford or leaving the voucher program. Closing the voucher program is the obvious objective of the teachers unions and hence of the Obama administration. Herding children from the choice schools back into government schools would swell the ranks of unionized teachers, whose union dues fund the Democratic Party as it professes devotion to 'diversity' and the downtrodden."

Writes George Will in "The Justice Department becomes a schoolyard bully in Wisconsin."

"Milwaukee's long-running school voucher program... has saved Wisconsin more than $238 million since its inception in 1990..."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on a new study, which it says is not surprising, since the voucher students get to go to private school is less than is paid to cover their public school education. (Vouchers are less than $8,000 per student, while public school is about $10,000 per student in Milwaukee.)

The [Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice] that conducted the study operates in the spirit of economist Milton Friedman, a 20th century free-market advocate who believed allowing public dollars to follow the child would expand personal freedom, improve achievement and save money.

The $238 million number predates a recent expansion of the voucher program. The question of further expansion of the program is a current issue in the Wisconsin gubernatorial election, something the linked article doesn't mention. The 2 candidates take opposite positions here, as you can see in this Sept. 3rd Journal Sentinel article. The Democratic candidate, Mary Burke — who is a member of the Madison school board — opposes expanding the voucher program (though she says she won't eliminate the programs in Milwaukee and Racine). The Republican candidate, the incumbent Scott Walker, is enthusiastic about vouchers.