Op-Ed: Hayden Padgett: President Trump’s education policies are squarely within America’s Federalist tradition

As the Chairman of the Young Republican National Federation, I do my best to find the things that tie different factions of Republicans together. That job is more necessary now than ever before — in a world where everything from the sports you watch to the beer you drink is a political statement, young conservatives need a place where they can honestly debate our history, traditions, and heritage.

One such tradition which has fallen out of favor in the broader society but which binds Republicans together is our Federalist history. It’s one of the foundational aspects of our society which Conservatives instinctively understand: the best government is the one closest to the people. For decades we have watched as Washington has taken a greater and greater role in our lives. This hasn’t only had an impact on our liberties, but on the coarsening of our politics as the issues that would historically have been decided between neighbors now play out in vapid morality plays cheered on by cable news.

Conservatives should cheer whenever the federal government decides to relinquish some of that power and return it to the states. President Donald Trump’s decision to abolish the Department of Education and return that regulatory authority to the states is an absolute slam dunk for the Federalist political tradition and should be cheered on by every Republican, even those who have been critical of other aspects of President Trump’s second administration.

But here’s the catch, if the funding and regulation for education is being sent back to the states, those same Republicans need to make educating our kids a top tier priority. Federal disentanglement means that the control of funding and accountability is returning to the people. For decades the Republican base has had an antagonistic relationship with education funding, seeing it often as a taxpayer-funded windfall for the war chests of the eternally left-wing teacher’s unions. This is a mentality that we are going to have to change to make sure our kids have the opportunities we want them to have. With the Department of Education going away, the states have to pick up the slack.

One of the brighter examples of Republicans picking up the mantle of this new responsibility is in Texas, where Chairman Brad Buckley of the Texas House Public Education Committee filed two bills, House Bills 2 and 4, which do precisely what is necessary to make the Trump agenda succeed. HB 2, which passed earlier in April, expands the per-student allotment for public schools and HB 4 reforms Texas’ infamous STAAR test which has been a common source of grumbling for students and teachers alike for over a decade. The Texas Senate has also taken up this challenge and is considering similar measures.

These two bills, when taken together, offer a serious attempt to by Chairman Buckley to expand support for public education and reevaluate the standards previously mandated by Washington by which Texas’ students have been tested.

These bills are a critical part of upholding the Trump agenda. But both of these bills are being overshadowed by the more attention grabbing House Bill 3, AKA the school choice bill. Chairman Buckley is a sponsor of the school choice bill as well, but school choice alone is not how states can fill the vacuum created by the dissolution of the federal government’s education bureaucracy.

We need an all of the above approach when it comes to education funding. School choice has long been the white whale of conservatives focused on education policy, but we can’t focus on that to the exclusion of other improvements that can be made to our education system.

At a time when the world economy is increasingly competitive and Americans are having to fight harder to stand out in a globalized economy, investing in education is what will elevate our children and separate the American workforce from the rest of the world.

The world is changing and so is Washington. Republicans can’t stay stuck in the same thinking on education policy that we have been repeating for decades — we need to think bigger.

Maybe all of this is just to say that everything can be bigger in Texas.

Hayden Padgett is the Chairman of the Young Republican National Federation (YRNF) and has served in that role since August of 2023.