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The National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are mobilizing against the education policies of the new Trump administration which include abolishing the crucial Department of Education, giving access to the private data of millions to an unaccountable billionaire, and expanding private education at the expense of the vast majority of American students.

Billionaire and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment tasked with dismantling the Department of Education

On February 12, teaches and support professionals came together in Washington DC to protest on the day of the confirmation hearing of Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education.

McMahon is a longtime Trump ally and became a billionaire as CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment. Lacking any experience in public education, she has aligned herself with Trump’s extreme “Project 2025” plan to defund public schools. During her hearing, she presented a plan to dismantle the Department of Education by carving out key functions and transferring them to other agencies.

The U.S. Department of Education plays an essential role in ensuring that all students have access to quality education. The agency coordinates federal funding to supplement the budgets of schools in lower-income communities and help states educate students with special needs. The department also manages a $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio that funds education for 45 million Americans and enforces civil rights in education.

Dismantling the Department of Education means that public schools, where 90 percent of American children and 95 percent of students with disabilities are educated, would face massive funding shortfalls. Rural communities will be especially hard hit.

“We can’t [be silent]. We will stand up to McMahon and every other anti-public education politician, elected or anointed who tries to harm our students and educators in our communities,” stated Becky Pringle, NEA President. “With legal action, we will protect our students; using legislative action, we will protect our educators; organizing people action, we will rise up in every community across this nation”, she stressed.

During the protest, speaker after speaker shared the negative impact that shutting down the Department of Education and nominating McMahon would have on students, educators and public schools across the country. These and other deliberate acts are a part of a broader strategy by the Trump administration to manufacture crises that justify consolidating power, dismantling federal agencies that help people, and reallocating public tax dollars to fund tax breaks for his CEO and billionaire donors.

Unions take action against gross overreach by Elon Musk and his minions

On February 10, the AFT joined two other unions to sue the Department of Education, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Treasury Department for violating the Privacy Act by improperly disclosing millions of Americans’ sensitive records, including Social Security numbers, bank records and medical data, to Department of Government Efficiency staff under the leadership of Elon Musk.

AFT President Randi Weingarten said: “Inside the Education Department, the world’s richest man and his minions have been rifling through 45 million people’s private student loan accounts and feeding the data into artificial intelligence in one of the biggest data hacks in U.S. history. The department is effectively one of America’s biggest banks—if there was a breach of this magnitude in the private sector, it would rightly be a national scandal. Social Security numbers, financial data, home addresses, and personal demographic data about student borrowers and, in many instances, their parents, spouses or other family members are being illegally vacuumed up by Musk. This lawsuit is being filed to bring an end to his heist before he does irreversible damage to millions more American lives.”