How would education in Utah be affected if Department of Education is abolished?

SALT LAKE CITY — With President Donald Trump moving to abolish the Department of Education, how does that affect each state? If he is successful, how will it impact Utah’s public and higher education systems?

Rep. Val Peterson, R-Orem, has worked with Utah Valley University for the past 38 years and has served on the education committee for his entire tenure in Utah legislation. He told Dave & Dujanovic that education is already primarily a state responsibility.

“The Department of Education really has responsibility for four main programs, Pell Grants and student loans, Title I, special education and then special educational issues,” he said. “So, I think when the president talks about this, most of those main programs would be directed to other departments to administer.”

He speculated those four programs would departments such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture or the Department of the Treasury.

Special education in Utah receives a large amount of funding from the federal government. If the responsibility goes back to the state, Peterson said that funding would likely come from federal block grants.

Utah State Auditor Tina Cannon told Dave & Dujanovic that Utah likely will not miss out on that funding.

“We’re hearing from our federal delegation that that money won’t decrease, but the federal restrictions on it will go away,” she said.

This means, according to Cannon, Utah will have to self-monitor that federal money to make sure it’s not underfunding any educational programs. That, or it will have to supplement it through local funding.

The Department of Education has been challenged before

Peterson said President Trump working to abolish the Department of Education isn’t a new idea. People have been calling for its abolishment since it was first established.

“And if you remember, the the formation of the Department of Education was quite controversial when President Carter created it in 1979,” he said. “President Reagan right after that said he wanted to abolish it. So this is not a new discussion that we’re talking about here.”

If this were to happen, Peterson said he doesn’t think students or parents would notice a big change within classrooms.

“If you look at our state, … we really have the primary responsibility for education,” he said. “We have local school boards, we have school districts, we have the State Office of Education [and] the State Board of Education who are all overseeing our education system here in the state.”

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