Trump created a mock classroom in the White House to announce he was dismantling the Department of Education

Analysis: In signing an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, Trump was assigning homework that will never get done, Richard Hall writes.

Donald Trump gathered school children in a mock classroom scene at the White House on Thursday afternoon to witness the signing of an executive order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education.

As the children watched from their small desks, each with their own replica executive orders to sign along with Trump, the president began his remarks with an update on the horrors of Ukraine’s war.

“Hopefully we can save thousands of people a week from dying. That's what it's all about. They're dying… so unnecessarily,” he said grimly, forgetting his young audience.

It’s not uncommon for teachers to veer off-topic in the later days of the week, but the president was quick to return to the matter at hand.

Trump said that the department set up in 1979 to ensure equal access to education would be dismantled because “we're not doing well with the world of education in this country, and we haven't for a long time.”

President Donald Trump signs an executive order to begin to shut down the Department of Education, during an event in the East Room at the White House on Thursday (REUTERS)

Criticizing what he perceived to be wasteful spending, he appeared fixated on the number of buildings that belong to the Department of Education around the nation’s capital.

“It employs bureaucrats and buildings all over Washington, D.C.,” he said, emphasizing another point likely not captivating the schoolkids.

.“As a former real estate person, I will tell you I ride through the streets of Washington and it says Department of Education, Department of Education. I said, How do you fill those buildings? It's crazy,” he added.

He then painted a grim picture of the U.S. education system, citing its poor performance as justification for eradicating the department.

He noted that “70 percent of eighth graders are not proficient in either reading or in math; 40 percent of fourth graders lack even basic reading skills. Can't read. Students in our public elementary and middle schools score worse in reading today than when the department opened,” he went on.

Trump interacting with a child during the bizarre set-up for the signing of the dismantling order (Reuters)

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis looks on as he attends the signing of an executive order to shut down the Department of Education by President Donald Trump, during an event Thursday in the East Room of the White House (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

What he failed to mention, crucially, is that the Department of Education currently has no control over the curriculum in schools. That’s already set by states. Funding is also mostly provided by states and local governments.

Most of the problems students face today have very little to do with the Department of Education. In other words, the president’s order is akin to treating a patient’s broken toe by punching them in the face.

The president continued with a speech that proved you don’t have to have an education to stop others from getting one.

Lamenting China’s apparently superior schools, he noted with a trademark grammatical flourish: “We can't now say that bigness is making it impossible to educate, because China is very big.”

The last Republican president to reform education also had a way with words. George W. Bush famously asked: “Is our children learning?”

But where Bush set out to expand the department’s responsibilities, Trump was here to remove them.

President Donald Trump is applauded after he signs executive orders in the East Room of the White House Trump. He signed an order to begin dismantling the Department of Education, fulfilling an election campaign pledge and a long-held dream of American conservatives. (AFP via Getty Images)

The president’s argument, in short, is that all the decisions on this matter should be decided by states. That was an ominous proposition when he made it regarding reproductive laws during his first term as he stacked the Supreme Court with anti-abortion judges. A rise in infant deaths and life-threatening sepsis followed the end of Roe v Wade as Republican states passed a wave of restrictive new abortion laws.

This time around it’s a complete diversion. States already decide almost every facet of a child’s education. What will be lost is funding for students with special needs, be it financial or educational. It will also remove the protections provided by the department that ensure no group of students can be discriminated against based on race, gender, or disability.

Under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, the department launched a series of investigations into schools that had banned books on topics related to LLGBT relationships and race.

Some of the biggest proponents of those bans were in the audience to see Trump’s order signed. Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis, Kim Reynolds, and Gregg Abbott — governors of the three states with the most books banned in the 2023-24 school year — applauded politely as Trump spoke, perhaps breathing a little easier.

Concluding his speech, Trump walked to sit at his own desk amid the children.

“Look at those beautiful bright-eyed faces. They are so smart,” he said, pointing at them as he walked.

“Good-looking people here,” he added.

As Trump signed the order, the students all signed their own replicas in unison and held them aloft.

There may be a bump in the road, however. Trump may have signed an executive order, but to dismantle the department will require an act of Congress, which he doesn’t yet have the votes for.

He won’t be the first teacher to assign homework that will never get done.