Now that we鈥檝e had a few days to digest last week鈥檚 election results, let鈥檚 talk about what they mean for education. Rather than wade into policy wonkery, though, I want to discuss the implications for the zeitgeist that鈥檚 shaped K鈥�12 schooling over the past half-decade or more鈥攐ne that鈥檚 featured an embrace of progressive nostrums regarding racial identity, diversity, equity, social justice, gender, and inclusion. My bottom line is that Donald Trump is, in important ways, a vehicle for a cross-section of Americans to push back against the kinds of out-of-touch dogmas that I believe have fueled so many culture clashes over the past half-decade, especially around schools.
I want to be straight about where I鈥檓 coming from. Unlike most in the realms of education leadership, research, and advocacy, I鈥檓 firmly on the right. While I鈥檓 no great fan of President-elect Trump, I was heartened by Tuesday鈥檚 results, which included Republican victories in the Senate and, as I write, likely the House. I believe they hold big opportunities for educators across the board. Given that perspective, I鈥檒l share a few thoughts that may (or may not) be useful to those in our field who feel very differently about what to make of those outcomes.
While the reaction to last week鈥檚 election in schools and colleges has been far more muted than in 2016, I don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 a stretch to say that Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin spoke for many in education when she , 鈥淥ur fellow Americans voted for him鈥� because they embraced Trump鈥檚 鈥渞acism, misogyny, willful ignorance, cruelty [and] contempt for democracy.鈥� Rubin appeared to have shared talking points with the president of Families in Schools, who blasted out an email declaring that she was 鈥渉eartbroken鈥� by the election results but insisted that 鈥渢here is no denying that half the nation had aspirations for a more inclusive and promising future for all.鈥� The obvious implication is that the majority who voted for Trump oppose an inclusive and promising future for all.
Despite such accusations, the polls make clear that Trump won millions of votes from those who say they disapprove of him personally. Keep in mind that large (sometimes surprising) swaths of people who did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020 opted to so in 2024. Trump improved on his 2020 performance in , , , and by double digits. Trump won Miami-Dade County, long a Democratic stronghold in red Florida (that Clinton carried in 2016). Nationally, he claimed of the Hispanic vote, including winning Starr County, Texas鈥攖he most Hispanic county in the country鈥攊n the process becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to win there . Trump appears to have won the national popular vote and has swept all seven of the major swing states while running far better in states like New Jersey, New York, and Virginia than in 2016 or 2020. Compared to 2020, Trump his vote share among Asian Americans by nearly 20 points. He also took of the African American vote, a notable increase from the 6 percent he in 2016 and the best performance by a Republican presidential candidate .
It鈥檚 pretty remarkable.
After all, during the Biden-Harris era, Democrats have been ardent proponents of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Meanwhile, the right has mobilized against DEI, successfully eliminated race-based college admissions, and fought efforts supposedly designed to render American history more inclusive. Trump is routinely pilloried as a racist and a xenophobe. And, yet, Trump fared better with Black and Latino voters than any Republican nominee in memory.
What鈥檚 going on? Immigration and inflation played a big role, of course. But, given that Trump fared so much better despite being the same guy he was in 2016 or 2020, the postmortems also suggest that Democrats suffered from being seen as increasingly hostile to widely shared notions of patriotism, merit, fairness, and parental authority.
That tension maps onto so many of the recent culture clashes in education, which have been marked by emphatic pushback against freshly minted progressive doctrines, like the insistence that the slogan 鈥溾�� is a product of white supremacy culture, that race-segregated are a way to promote inclusion, or that schools or .
As , these exotic doctrines may predominate in schools of education and across the broad swath of K鈥�12 associations, advocates, activists, and funders, but they are received very differently by many outside the charmed circle. In recent years, my inbox has featured a steady stream of missives from teachers, school leaders, and college faculty who want to quietly vent about various dogmas but are hesitant to speak up for fear of being branded a reactionary or a racist.
The odd thing is how far these dogmas have spread given how antithetical they are to the shared views of most Americans. For instance, Black and white Americans sound an awful lot alike when about some of the values that have been judged 鈥渨hite supremacist鈥� by DEI trainers. A hefty majority of Hispanics that, in the United States, 鈥渕ost can get ahead with hard work鈥� and that, they鈥檇 鈥渞ather be a citizen of the United States than any other country.鈥� Indeed, back in 2020, shortly after Biden won, Politico interviewed moderate and left-leaning voters in swing states, , 鈥淭hey are up in arms over their school systems鈥� new equity initiatives, which they argue are costly and divisive, encouraging students to group themselves by race and take pro-activist stances.鈥�
The real mystery here, for me, is less about Trump鈥檚 appeal than how Democrats wound up embracing a weird, unpopular liturgy that resonates with few outside out a heavily pedigreed coastal elite. As Brianna Wu, the executive director of the progressive Rebellion PAC, recently on X, 鈥淚鈥檓 sure the Republicans are about to do a whole host of horrific stuff I will politically oppose. But it鈥檚 also true that a lot of our loss on Tuesday was because ordinary Americans are tired of being called racist, sexist, and transphobic at every single step.鈥�
Plenty of people get this. They鈥檙e just not in schools of education, education associations, education consultancies, or traditional education advocacy organizations. They鈥檙e in Moms for Liberty or Parents Defending Education, organizations whose leaders are invariably dismissed as 鈥渞ight wingers鈥� or 鈥渃ulture warriors鈥� (while their counterparts on the left are celebrated as impassioned champions of social justice). If you want to get a sense of how this asymmetry feels to those on the right, you can check it out , , or .
Now, in education today, one response to all I鈥檝e said thus far is, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what I鈥檇 expect an old, straight, white guy to say.鈥� So, in the spirit of trying to bridge that divide, let me note just a few of the Black and Latino thinkers who鈥檝e made similar points: Columbia University鈥檚 John McWhorter skewered social justice dogma at length in . Coleman Hughes, author of , has that race-conscious advocates sow racial distrust by teaching that society is 鈥渁 zero-sum power struggle between oppressed groups and oppressor groups鈥攁nd that a win for the former requires a loss for the latter.鈥� Virginia鈥檚 lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears, , 鈥淲hen are we going to say 鈥榳e can make it, we are making it.鈥� . . . Say that to Black and brown children and all other children. Say that to them instead of constantly being divisive.鈥� Ruy Teixeira, who the Center for American Progress in 2022 because of the 鈥渃hilling effect鈥� of CAP鈥檚 progressive orthodoxy on 鈥渞ace and gender and trans issues,鈥� that Democrats are suffering for the tendency to view 鈥渁ll issues through the lens of identity politics.鈥�
I could go on, but you get the point. So, what does this all mean for educators and those in education trying to find their way forward?
First, there鈥檚 an extraordinary opportunity here for those in and around K鈥�12 to reset the zeitgeist in a way that reflects shared values and turns down the heat. One of the things I鈥檝e been struck by over the past five or 10 years is how much more measured most practitioners are about all this when compared with the consultants, academics, DEI professionals, advocates, and funders. Time after time, I鈥檝e heard from teachers and school leaders who haven鈥檛 embraced the extreme stuff but have felt pressured (or bullied) to just go along with it, or superintendents who鈥檝e just entrusted this stuff to the equity 鈥減ros.鈥� Here鈥檚 a chance for school and district leaders to step back and ask whether all these programs, workshops, and instructional materials are actually promoting the shared values and mutual respect they鈥檙e seeking. In many cases, I suspect the answer is no. Transparently and professionally addressing that disconnect is a terrific opportunity to build community trust, reassure policymakers, and lower the temperature.
Second, while racial identity played a much reduced role in voting, . Harris won college graduates by double digits while Trump won the (much larger and historically Democratic) population of high school graduates by a similar margin. And that 鈥渆ducation gap鈥� is playing a huge role in our culture clashes as well as in our political ones. Education faces a problem similar to that in journalism鈥攚hich is that pretty much everyone (aside from custodians, bus drivers, paraprofessionals, and secretaries) has a four-year college degree, and often a graduate degree. This means that everyone in positions of authority, whatever their personal politics, is part of the 鈥渆ducated elite鈥� that鈥檚 viewed by populists with such suspicion. (For anyone wondering, 鈥淲hat about highly educated right wingers like you, Rick?鈥� I鈥檇 say, yep, folks like me are viewed with suspicion, too鈥攗nless we take great pains to embrace performative populism.)
This means that in huge swaths of the country, school officials are working in a culture of general distrust. In highly educated, blue-bubble communities, this isn鈥檛 much of an issue. And there are certainly school and system leaders who have strong local roots or a lot of success defusing some of these tensions. But for plenty of other practitioners and leaders wondering why their communities are rebelling against professionally endorsed, expert-derived strategies to promote opportunity and inclusion, this is a huge opportunity to reevaluate assumptions and find new ways to engage parents, critics, and community members.
Third, don鈥檛 use shame as a cudgel in debates over library books, youth sports, trans identification, social and emotional learning, and other parental concerns. Parents are justifiably concerned about who decides what happens to their children during the school day, whether it鈥檚 what they鈥檙e reading, whom they鈥檙e playing sports with, or who鈥檚 sharing the locker room with them. When parents express concerns about inappropriate materials in a middle school library or one鈥檚 daughter being at risk when playing field hockey, it鈥檚 ludicrous that so many find themselves archly dismissed as book banners or transphobes. There鈥檚 an excellent chance they鈥檙e actually just ... concerned parents.
The same holds when parents insist they have a right to know how teachers are addressing the gender of their child or whether schools are counseling their student for gender dysphoria (especially given that these parents would be routinely informed if the school gave their kid an aspirin, for heaven鈥檚 sake). And it shouldn鈥檛 surprise anyone that parents might support SEL instruction that emphasizes self-control, collaboration, or mutual respect while rejecting lessons that wade into microaggressions and privilege walks. Yet, these straightforward distinctions are routinely ignored, with sensible concerns dismissed as bigotry and ignorance. The refusal to have honest, open debates has justifiably infuriated parents and fueled the kind of frustration that resulted in ugly public disputes.
Fourth, I think the tension is elegantly captured by the controversies around American history. In private conversation, I find that thoughtful progressives readily acknowledge our nation鈥檚 remarkable accomplishments and contributions. They insist only that we also take care to offer students the complete picture, one that doesn鈥檛 shy away from discussion of America鈥檚 sins and stumbles. That strikes me as a sensible and popular stance. (And, by the way, it鈥檚 one that massive, bipartisan majorities ).
The problem is that, in practice, far too many PD seminars, ed. schools, and curricula seem bent on promoting a mindset that regards pride in the American story as evidence of ignorance and simple-mindedness. The result is that the 鈥淎merica sucks鈥� view has garnered the luster of sophistication. That may have something to do with why of U.S. high school seniors think their nation is the best country in the world. Meanwhile, most Americans their nation is a grand place and that most Americans are good people. (Tellingly, 90 percent of white conservatives, 70 percent of Latinos, and nearly 60 percent of Black respondents say they think the United States is the greatest country in the world. Among white progressives? The figure is 30 percent.) Americans pay for and send their kids to the nation鈥檚 public schools. Those schools should honor their shared views and values.
If you鈥檙e feeling betrayed by voters and find yourself tempted to insist that the only explanation is that most of the nation is racist, misogynist, xenophobic, and transphobic, you risk getting stuck. For one thing, it鈥檚 really hard to engage with or understand someone who you鈥檝e decided is a racist, misogynist, transphobe, or apologist for fascism. But, more fundamentally, public schools are charged with serving all Americans. This means according respect to all students and families, even those you regard as apologists for fascism. If you鈥檙e thinking, 鈥淲ell, I may think or only say those things in private conversation, but it has no impact on how I do my job or engage with my community鈥濃�擨鈥檇 encourage you to think again.
But I want to end on a more positive note. The great opportunity here is that I tend to think lots of the toxic stuff that鈥檚 so evident in schools isn鈥檛 actually very popular. I think Trump鈥檚 2016 victory and then the 2020 murder of George Floyd鈥攃ombined with the pandemic鈥攃reated a sense that educators needed to do something. And a lot of this stuff flooded in, promoted by the ed. school professoriate, funders, consultants, and advocates who inhabit a very particular bubble. As the shock of those events has receded, schools have nonetheless been burdened with the consequences of a lot of decisions made at a very peculiar moment. This is a chance to reexamine those decisions with fresh eyes and proceed accordingly. I hope we seize it.
