EducationWeek (12/12/25) announced their 2025 “Word of the Year” was “dismantle.” According to the education news outlet,
“Education is largely governed by states, and federal funding makes up about 10 cents for every dollar K-12 schools spend. So shifts in federal bureaucracy seem to pale compared to actions on the state and local level.”
“But Trump’s changes were unprecedented because of their scale and intensity, particularly affecting schools’ hiring and budgets.”
Back in 2014, when we first had the idea of creating a personalized learning lab school, it was imperative to keep the traditional K-12 system alive and supported. Houston A+ Challenge, the non-profit I was leading at the time, was created to improve Houston’s public schools, so it would have been immoral and unethical to shut down our improvement work while creating the lab school.
This was especially true for black, brown, and poor young learners. It would have been especially unfair to abandon support for them and their schools while attempting a personalized learning launch.
“Republicans have sought to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education since President Jimmy Carter signed the bill that established it in 1979. The agency was created to distribute federal funding; enforce civil rights and special education laws; and collect data on students, teachers, administrators, and classrooms that drive research on improving education.”
It seems Trump’s focus on dismantling the current structure of American education – at least when it comes to the federal government’s role – is missing a companion word – “creation.”
The dismantling of our current system of teaching and learning, beginning with our U.S. Department of Education, demands the creation of something better for kids stuck in sucky schools across America. Sadly, “creation” hasn’t been a word heard from Donald Trump or his education officials when it comes to providing a better learning program for all kids, but especially for black, brown, and poor young learners.
If the Trump administration was smart, they would take the money saved by downsizing and dismantling the U.S. Department of Education and apply it to the creation of a new learning system, focused especially on young learners currently struggling in today’s traditional school.
But there is no indication Trump, or his Secretary of Education Linda McMahon (best known for her “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble”/World Wrestling Federation background), or anyone else in the current administration, has any interest in working to create a new learning system to make kids better readers, writers, problem-solvers, and improve their character development.
Dismantling is one piece of the puzzle, but creating is the other. Without both, we just continue making it harder for kids to become smarter and stronger.
And that is immoral and unethical.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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