Feb. 13, 2026
DEEP DIVE: The First Year: Looking Back (and Ahead) at the Trump Administration’s Education Priorities and Actions
Throughout the last year, the Trump Administration consistently focused on education by advancing a range of priorities and actions that have significantly shifted the current federal role in education and in many cases caused confusion, disruption, opposition, and impact across early childhood, K-12, and higher education. In the year ahead, the Administration is likely to continue and deepen its efforts.
In The First Year: Looking Back (and Ahead) at the Trump Administration’s Education Priorities and Actions, we update and expand on our earlier six-month analysis to summarize the last year in federal education policy. We continue organizing information across the following ten overlapping Trump Administration priorities that remain the core areas of its focus thus far:
- Eliminate the U.S. Department of Education and Reduce Capacity of Other Agencies
- Minimize the Federal Role in Education and Transfer Responsibility to States
- Reduce Federal Education Funding and Programs for Public Schools and Safety Net
- Expand Funding for Private School Choice, Including for Religious Schools
- Dismantle DEIA and Reverse Civil Rights Enforcement
- Redefine Gender Equity Rights
- Disrupt and Remake Higher Education
- Decrease Immigrant Students’ Rights and Benefits while Increasing Immigration Enforcement
- Limit Education R&D and Data
- Advance Additional Education Priorities
For each priority, we provide a brief overview of the Trump Administration’s goals, a factual list of related executive (and sometimes legislative and legal) actions, and a brief prediction of how the Administration may approach the priority over its second year.
Click here to access The First Year.