One of former President Donald Trump's proposed education policies should he win a second term in the White House has been panned by one of the most influential conservative voices in Washington, D.C.
Earlier this year, Trump announced a plan to roll out a new federal credentialing system for public school teachers, stating on his website that he wanted to "take back control from the Radical Left maniacs indoctrinating our children," and implying that a state-approved curriculum should be replaced with "quality, pro-American education."
However, Kevin Roberts, who is president of the Heritage Foundation, told the Wall Street Journal that he wasn't enthusiastic about the policy.
"I hate it. It’s a terrible idea," Roberts told the Journal.
In a Washington Post column, Jim Geraghty — a senior political correspondent for the conservative National Review — wrote that it "takes a lot to get the Heritage crowd to be critical of the former president these days."
He noted that in addition to Heritage ditching its Reaganite ideals for Trump-style MAGA philosophy, the think tank has also taken a leading role in Project 2025, which is a comprehensive plan to staff the federal service with tens of thousands of MAGA loyalists to help a Republican administration effectively end-run traditional checks and balances in order to more effectively accomplish far-right political goals.
Geraghty wrote that in addition to opposition from Heritage — which opposes all forms of teacher certification at the state level — the U.S. Constitution itself may be at odds with Trump's plans to overhaul public education credentialing standards.
"Right now, states set their own standards for certification of teachers; it is unclear what would happen if a teacher had state certification but not Trump’s new federal certification, or vice versa," Geraghty wrote. "Nothing in the Constitution gives the federal government the authority to determine who is eligible to teach in public schools. But, given what we know of Trump, he isn’t going to let some little detail such as that stand in his way."
In the days leading up to the 2020 presidential election, then-President Trump's White House issued a statement promoting what it called "patriotic education," saying "some versions of American history offer a misconstrued and one-sided account of our founding in an effort to paint America as a systemically racist country."
The Post's Valerie Strauss said Trump's education initiative "attempts to excuse Founding Fathers who enslaved people."