How Education Has Changed Under the Trump Administration Since the 2016 Election

In this op-ed, John B. King Jr., president and CEO of The Education Trust and former U.S. Secretary of Education, explains how the state of education in America has changed in the year since Donald Trump was elected president.

This school year has not been ordinary. One year after the election of the 45th president, students are in schools and on college campuses during a time when this country may not seem to be living up to its ideals.

We have watched while Nazis and KKK members marched across a college campus. Instead of calling out domestic terrorism, President Trump chose to condemn athletes who silently took a knee to protest injustice with more anger than he did toward white supremacists. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is attempting to return the nation to the ineffective and discredited policies of mass incarceration. Our country has experienced countless incidents where police have wrongly killed unarmed victims without any consequences, and we have witnessed all too many senseless mass shootings. Students can only hope such violence never happens to them, their families, their friends, or their classmates.