Project 2025: Attack Regulation to Promote Christo-fascist Education
Because "any lawful education purpose" is code for "Christian Nationalist educational indoctrination" (Scroll to the end to listen)
Funding from the US Department of Education is conditional. States and school districts must meet stated regulatory requirements to qualify.
By examining Project 2025’s suggested regulatory rollbacks, we can glean more about how they plan to remake American education into Christian Nationalist education.
Current Regulations Promulgated by or Relevant to the Agency That Should Be Rolled Back or Eliminated
While the next Administration works to distribute department programs across the federal government, it will need to thoroughly review the many education-related regulations promulgated by the Biden Administration.
There are five primary regulatory targets (as of December 2022) that require the next Administration’s attention: regulations on
(1) Charter School Grant Program Priorities;
(2) Civil Rights Data Collection;
(3) Student Assistance General Provisions, Federal Perkins Loan Program, and William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program Final Regulations;
(4) Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance (Title IX);
and (5) Assistance to States for the Education of Children with Disabilities, Preschool Grants for Children with Disabilities (Equity in IDEA).
Project 2025, page 331
Today, we cover Charter School Grant Programs.
Charter School Grant Programs On March 14, 2022, the department published a notice concerning proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and grant selection criteria relating to the award of federal grants to applicants in CSP. This proposal increases the federal footprint in the charter school sector by ignoring statute and adding to the list of requirements imposed on charter schools. The new Administration must take immediate steps to rescind the new requirements and lessen the federal restrictions on charter schools.
Project 2025, page 331
Have a day or several? Peruse the charter school requirements published on March 14, 2022 HERE.
For context, these new federal requirements went through the standard public comment process. To formulate these additional regulations, DOE combed through over 25,000 public comments. The charter school regulatory changes were a direct result of public input and commentary.
Why are these new requirements so abominable to the framers of Project 2025?
The new requirements call for more rigorous peer review of applications for charter schools.
According to the Federal Register, 14.5 percent of proposed charter schools (930 total) either never opened or closed shortly after taking grant funds since 2001. This represents over $174 million in lost taxpayer funding.
Where did those monies go? Nobody knows. Except the groups who received them. And they aren’t telling.
And because we don’t know, the Department of Education made these changes to require much more information from grant applicants for proposed charter schools. The Department is trying to ensure that taxpayer funds are going toward the providing of charter school education.
It is curious for the framers of Project 2025 to call for the removal of strict peer review. Seems like they’d want to know what happened to those funds. Isn’t it appropriate to make sure taxpayer dollars aren’t being misapplied or accessed fraudulently? Shouldn’t a group have to return our taxpayer monies if they fail to open their charter school?
It provides guidelines for more community engagement.
Commenters expressed concern about lack of diversity in charter schools, and the Department made changes to recommend more community engagement to encourage diversity. It also pushes charter schools to promote ongoing community engagement rather than limiting it to the start-up process.
Why is this a problem? Isn’t community engagement the essence of the so-called Parents’ Rights movement?
Or is their objection to diversity? Because these guidelines aim to enlist feedback from people of all backgrounds, colors, and faiths in order to create a more inclusive charter school community.
This definitely violates Christian Nationalist ideals, where the only people who should have a voice are those who agree with them and practice the Christian Nationalist faith.
It requires more collaboration between traditional public schools and charter schools.
The Department sifted through thousands of public comments weighted toward increased collaboration between traditional public schools and charter schools. Their research also found the best educational outcomes for students in both educational modalities when strong collaboration existed. Collaboration includes curriculum-sharing, joint field trips, shared professional development programs, and more.
Isn’t the goal of education to create the best possible educational outcomes? Why would the framers of Project 2025 oppose sharing curriculum? Or having charter school students mingle with traditional public school students?
Unless they object to how that collaboration may dilute their iron grip on religious indoctrination in Christian charter schools. From my own experience, “being in the world but not of it” is a big tenet of Christian Nationalism. They don’t want students to be exposed to anything that makes them curious enough to question Christian authority or the Bible.
We’ve only covered three of the charter school regulations Project 2025 wants to roll back, and I’m already exhausted. But the other regulations have similar themes.
If Christian Nationalists remove these requirements, they can establish more Christian charter schools without federal oversight. Or they can apply for funding, pocket the money, and never open their Christian charter school.
As we saw yesterday, they want any state to apply taxpayer funding toward any lawful education purpose. Where each state defines any lawful education purpose.
Could any lawful education purpose be used for segregation? Absolutely. They can keep their students segregated from those they deem “undesirable” or “bad influences” or poor, Black or Brown. Could it be used to provide more targeted religious indoctrination in schools with large Jewish or Muslim communities? Yep. Those students will require more focused indoctrination, oversight, and control to undo their religious programming at home.
They want zero requirements on charter schools! But of course they want the tax dollars and the money from the feds, but they want to teach their fake history and their indoctronization.
Regarding the charter schools that took $175M in Federal grant money but never stayed open or even opened at all - that is fraud. Do you know if they were investigated? What's to stop me from running this grift with literally no intentions of ever actually opening up the school? It's like the law school based on biblical law that Moscow Mike Johnson tried to start in Louisiana but it could not get accredited, so they shut it down after they took millions of dollars. But I don't feel bad because I think this money only came from evangelist donors.