What is Trump’s administration doing to eliminate achievement gaps between minorities, English learners, socioeconomically disadvantaged students, and children with learning disabilities? Arguably, the administration is promoting policies that worsen these issues. The Department of Education (DOE) has expressed concerns about data representing the declining academic outcomes of these subgroups, but it continues to pursue policies that have proven ineffective and detrimental.
The curricula and subjects taught are being adapted to prepare students for the workforce and provide them with skills to succeed. For example, schools are promoting AI literacy and preparing students for an AI workforce, but the administration is not addressing the needs of students with learning disabilities and varying limitations. Large Language Models (i.e., ChatGPT) generate responses based on datasets of neurotypical users, which do not accommodate individuals with dyslexia and challenges with reading comprehension. Additionally, voice models are not optimized for users with non-standard speech patterns. Students with non-verbal learning disabilities also struggle to interpret AI language, which uses abstract phrasing and indirect expressions, and people with ASD excel with more concrete language and visual supports.
On July 22, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon released a letter on leveraging federal grants for teaching AI as a supplement to the education of students who are “gifted and talented.” This reflects the commonly expressed sentiments within the administration that students with disabilities or learning challenges have less potential to excel in school or have successful, meaningful lives. For example, RFK's widely circulated, debunked, and inaccurate claim about people with autism, that “they’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never go on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) placed a one percent cap on students with learning disabilities who could take an alternative assessment; however, states have discretion to weigh subgroup testing scores lower than those of non-disadvantaged students when reporting school performance. Furthermore, Trump signed a CRA that repealed the accountability provisions in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Previously, when states were expected to exceed the one percent cap on students taking alternative tests, they were required to submit waivers with plans to address subgroups that were disproportionately taking the alternate assessments and report to the Secretary the percentage of learning-disabled children in their districts; states requesting extension waivers were required to demonstrate progress toward achieving the milestones previously detailed in their plans. The CRA eliminated federal guidelines classifying who qualifies as “learning-disabled,” states could now independently set criteria for determining proficiency standards, and they were not required to intervene when there were persistent achievement gaps. Waivers have been granted more leniently, and a greater number of underperforming students have been classified as having learning disabilities. These measures, which weigh underperforming students less than their higher-achieving counterparts, do not require states to address barriers to education for minorities and subgroups, perpetuating educational inequality and structural barriers to receiving an equitable education.
The CRAs signed by Trump in 2017 have already negatively affected underperforming subgroups, such as minorities and Special ED students. The Nation’s Report Card shows that the performance of lower and middle-percentile K-12 students is declining in math, English, and reading. The DOE classifies performance in three categories: Basic, Proficient, and Advanced. In 2022, English learners and students with disabilities both scored below basic in mathematics; scores were lower in 2024. Black and Hispanic students scored less than basic. Even the 75th percentile of students with low socioeconomic status barely met the standards for basic learning outcomes. The same holds in English and civics, as well as other classes.
In response to these concerning disparities, the DOE is extending these ineffective policies. The Office of Elementary and Secondary Education released a statement on July 29, transferring more decision-making power to the states. According to the statement, states can now apply for four-year waivers (and extensions), implement alternative assessments in some schools or Local Education Agencies (oversight agencies that monitor public schools), and create entirely new schooling systems, such as microschools or classical schools (education often rooted in Christianity, teaching languages such as Greek or Latin, and studying classical philosophy). Congress must respond to protect underperforming groups and maintain national proficiency standards, define substantially similar curricula across states, and intervene when state policies are failing to address achievement gaps.
The Trump administration's response has worsened the already failing model of extending state control to address the underperformance of subgroups. Congress and representatives at the state and national levels must raise awareness about these alarming policies and take action to counteract their negative effects.
Luke Harris is an op-ed author who writes about the US, UK, and international politics, policy, and culture. He has been published in outlets like the North American Anglican and the Conservative Woman.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.