With President-elect Donald Trump winning the presidential election, a lot of people have been speculating about whether or not what he promised during his campaign trail will actually come to fruition. Some of those promises, for example, involve dismantling the Department of Education and the deportation of immigrant families.
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Since these two major policies will impact teachers, I asked them, “How are you feeling about the election results and the future of teaching in America now that Donald Trump will be president for the next four years?” and so many of them shared their thoughts. Here’s what they said below.
1.“I’ve been teaching in Florida for 16 years. A lot of my students have been from immigrant families. They are one of my biggest priorities; I love my immigrant students and families. My heart is hurting for them and the possibility of them being deported or separated if one of their parents is deported. I teach third grade, so I don’t know if they are fully aware of what is happening with the election and how it affects them. I’m also terrified of Trump’s promise to defund schools that teach CRT [critical race theory]. The problem is that they could decide teaching slavery, segregation, and civil rights is CRT. It’s basic history and cause and effect. I always try to get students to connect what we’re learning to their real lives; that’s an essential teaching practice. If having discussions about race, history, and their current lives is considered CRT, then schools will definitely lose funding.”
“Schools already don’t have enough money. If Trump gets rid of the DOE, then all the services our students with learning disabilities and language learners will lose support. More students will fall behind. Trump winning is the worst thing that could have happened to education. It’s heartbreaking. Teachers throughout my school after the Election were teary-eyed and defeated. It’s changed the culture of my school.”
—Jamesnell
Bradenton Herald / TNS
2.“As an elementary school substitute, here’s what I’ve seen (from grades 4-6, the little ones don’t understand yet, obviously): the boys are excited. The girls are terrified.”
—BB
3.“I teach at a college in the Rio Grande Valley. Some of my students are happy Trump won, but most are scared, angry, and sad. A lot of them have families who are immigrants/living on both sides of the border. They’re scared their family members will be deported. I’m trying to be reassuring and comfort them, but it’s so hard. A lot of my fellow professors are also scared.”
4.“I became a teacher because I wanted to help kids become successful. I wanted to help raise them up to be functioning members of society. I’m terrified that all public schools are going to go the way of Florida: no libraries and ‘success centers’ that are basically preparing kids for prison. Forget disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline — we’re just going to have kids who aren’t rich/smart/athletic/white enough to get accepted on vouchers and other ‘school choice’ programs grow up in the prison system!”
“I’m also really worried for all the students with disabilities who are serviced under IDEA. What happens to them without a DOE? What about the Title I funds and scholarships and grants?”
—Suspicious Elephants
5.“I teach AP Government in a blue state to a student body that is overwhelmingly Black and brown. (In three years, I have had three white students; I’m white, too). Part of the message I have tried to get across in my class is that there are ways of influencing the government and affecting change, no matter your race, age, income, or citizenship status. The last part is really important since I have immigrant students and plenty of children of immigrants (and it’s safe to assume some are undocumented). This year, I also have a Syrian refugee as a student who was granted citizenship as part of an asylum agreement. Helping him register and vote was one of my proudest moments in my 20 years as an educator. So, my first message to the students is that individuals can actually make change, and even though they feel disenfranchised (and rightfully so), there are ways of using their voices to enfranchise themselves. Now, I’m not so sure.”
“Obviously, an important part of the AP Government curriculum is checks and balances and separation of powers in our government. I had just given a talk at an assembly to lower grades about how the president is not a king/dictator and that there are many ways of checking his/her power. But now that Trump has been reelected, in part on a platform of ‘being a dictator for a day,’ ignoring civic norms, and now with almost carte blanche from the Supreme Court, I feel like I sold all these students a load of garbage.
With the Senate solidly in Republican hands, Trump will have an easy road in appointing his cabinet and federal judges. Big parts of Project 2025 now do actually have a path to implementation. In addition to just feeling terrible for my students, Trump’s reelection has me questioning if I want to keep teaching Government. I feel like I would have to keep referring to the ‘good old days’ when checks and balances were effective and the president wasn’t above the law.”
—tronchin
Visual Vic / Getty Images
6.“Reagan tried to kill the Department of Education, and he failed. I keep repeating that in my head. It helps me sleep at night. I’m currently a stay-at-home mom, but I have every intention of returning to the classroom in a few years. I love teaching. I love the classroom. I especially love the relationships I build. Honestly, I think some things need to change in education. Kids can’t read, they struggle with math, and what we’ve been doing isn’t cutting it. I don’t think Republicans are the ones to fix that, though. I sincerely believe they want to dismantle public education.”
—Cecm
7.“The education system has been broken for so long that I honestly don’t know if I’d even notice if everything Trump said he had planned happens. Until teachers are actually paid appropriately for the work they do, including the overtime we put in, I don’t think things will truly get better.”
8.“I teach at a Title 1 school in Southern California. About 60% of my students are from immigrant families — and the other 40% are mostly affluent. Some of my kids have been celebrating Trump’s win, while others have been afraid to come to school. I have three classes that are all girls. They had been excited at the thought of the first woman president. Now, they are nervous about what a Trump administration might do to their futures. I am afraid for my LGBTQIA friends, family, and students. I am afraid for my sons, who don’t have white skin. I am afraid for education. Living in California means I can rest more easily than friends and family in other red states. Mostly, I am sad. Heartbroken that so many women voted for a predator. Gutted that, by voting for a person with no morals, we have given permission to other Americans to behave in the same manner.”
—evilaardvark53
9.“Fantastic. The faculty I work with and I are looking forward to being able to afford supplies again. My students are hopeful and have learned a valuable lesson on free and fair elections. They understand that their families and neighbors are fed up, spoke their minds, and voted for change.”
10.“There has been a lot to process as a middle school teacher when it comes to the election results. My state passed a law that protects and expands rights for minorities, and many of my students, past and present, will benefit from this codification. However, a lot of what I see in school and with adults on social media is a lack of critical thinking or forming one’s own opinion instead of taking from echo chambers. The incoming administration wants to eliminate a lot of the institutions that support what I do as a public school teacher, and I’m concerned that there will be a sharper decline in thinking and civility. Don’t even get me started on the fact that I teach Spanish!”
—Anonymous, 30, Upstate NYS
11.“I am an English language development teacher, meaning that most of my students are immigrants, and the majority are legal immigrants. My students are scared regardless of their citizenship status. They have said that they were sure Kamala would win, but they can’t believe that Trump is going to be president again. As a side note, my students range from kindergarten to 4th grade! They are still SO aware. Teachers are not allowed to share their political views with students, so the most I can do is to say that we need to continue being kind regardless of what we see around us and to keep talking about their feelings. As a woman and a teacher, I feel that it is impossible to go to school and face the world. Teachers are scared about what this election means for public education and every student’s right to a free and appropriate public education.”
—Liz, 30, Pennsylvania, English learners K-4th
Maskot / Getty Images/Maskot
12.“Feeling hopeful for the first time in years! The administrators in my district have become increasingly radical over the last 10 years. We have kids that can’t read at a basic level or do simple math, but the push is always more radical social policies: LGBTQIA, DEI, CRT, and oppressor/oppressed classification. The policies being pushed on us are Marxist through and through. Someone at the top of the education department is being used to destroy the country from within. Our kids deserve better.”
—Rachel, 41, Middle school science teacher in Michigan.
13.“I teach government, and I don’t believe either candidate was any good. Sadly, we’ve come to a stage in America where the only way to run for office is to be a millionaire. I’m not worried about Trump being in office because he was the lesser of two evils, even though I don’t think he is a viable candidate, and he should probably be in a jail cell. She was even less qualified. As I have taught my students, with either candidate, we were going to have problems. You just have to pick your problems. As far as closing the Department of Education, it is not a problem for me at all. While we’re at it, how about laying off 51% of every school board and district office? Our district offices are so top-heavy. They are bleeding taxpayer funds. Schools should be decentralized, and the money should be handed back to individual schools.”
—Anonymous, 57, Arizona, High school
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14.“Teaching is already terrifying in the state of Arizona. Our Department of Education has literally set up a hotline for parents to complain about teachers they don’t like. The fusing for private and home schools is out of control and taking away from public schools. If Trump actually does what he said he would and puts schooling policies into the state’s hands, public schools and protections for students with special needs might be eliminated entirely in the state. There will always be a need for teachers, but I will not teach for a privately funded, biased, Christian-centric school, so when all of the rich, white, Christian companies are in charge of our schools, I’ll need to leave.”
—Rebecca, 33, Arizona, middle school math
15.“I’m a veteran teacher and administrator in Texas. We’ve been fucked for years. Things certainly got worse under the last Trump administration. Since then, our criminal of a governor felt empowered to withhold taxpayer funds as a ransom to get school vouchers passed. Trump won’t dissolve the DOE because he’s been grooming Greg Abbot for the role. Our teachers are doing the work of master’s level professionals for a pittance because of poor funding (we’re 49th in the Union). They sacrifice being there for their own families to make sure their students are taken care of. My batshit neighbors homeschool their kids because ‘God isn’t in schools’ when I see the real Jesus work magic in my teachers and students every day. Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”
“The world has turned upside down, and it’s not going to right itself anytime soon. But we continue our work in the hope that we can teach this next generation of voters to think more critically about the world around them. I can’t help but feel I’ve failed this group. Where did we go wrong?”
—Anonymous, 40, Texas, middle and high school
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Teachers, do you feel a particular way about the future of teaching in America? Tell us in the comments below.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-888-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.