Democrats are losing the battle for control over the U.S. education system after decades of mismanagement. But they don’t intend to go down without a fight.
Arne Duncan, who served as secretary of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) under former President Barack Obama, wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post published Monday urging Democrats to use the funding in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to pay for their plan to recapture our education system.
Duncan doesn’t pull any punches about the failure of America’s education system. Using national scorecards as a reference, he argues that the U.S. is in an education depression that cannot be blamed solely on post-pandemic declines. To his credit, he is right. However, he stops short of assigning blame to Democrats who hold responsibility for managing the widening education gaps.
“Over the past decade, Democrats have watched our party’s historical advantage on education vanish. The uncomfortable truth is that most of the states showing the strongest student gains are Republican-led,” Duncan said.
At the heart of his argument, he doesn’t want to end indoctrinating children into left-wing ideologies despite how terrible this has been for student learning. Instead, he argues that the left should endorse the federal tax credit scholarship program, which was funded by President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, to expand educational options for Democrats. (Sign up for Mary Rooke’s weekly newsletter here!)
“We want schools to be places of education, not indoctrination.”
Scarlett Johnson – the Wisconsin mom who called DEI teacher “woke”- scores courtroom win as defamation case gets tossed pic.twitter.com/msEc6ceIXl
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) November 2, 2025
The program, modeled on existing state-level initiatives in Republican-led states, allows taxpayers to receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donations to scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs). These SGOs then provide scholarships to families for private education, homeschooling supplies, or other non-public education options. Since this is operating as a nationwide program, it allows new SGOs to be established without legislative approval in Democratic-controlled states.
Duncan urges Democratic governors and lawmakers not to opt out of the program, which he sees as a chance to regain the “educational (and moral) high ground” by creating new SGOs that could establish or prioritize scholarships for schools (private or charter) that incorporate left-wing instructional elements.
“Governors won’t control the SGOs directly,” Duncan said. “[B]ut they can shape their impact by promoting transparency and accountability, spotlighting those organizations aligned with their values, and ensuring that the students with the greatest needs are prioritized.”
Since the federal program doesn’t mandate ideological neutrality in recipient schools, Democrats could use state oversight to steer funds away from conservative religious institutions toward secular or progressive ones. Within this reframing, Democrats could fund progressive private schools that emphasize social-emotional learning (SEL) or critical race theory in their curriculum. These governors and lawmakers could also easily require SGOs to allocate scholarships based on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), which would put race-based criteria over need in the scholarship-granting process.
Duncan argues that utilizing the federal tax scholarship program could mean billions in funding for states like California, which is among the worst offenders in pushing far-left ideologies onto its students.
/1🚨PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN — America First Legal just released a template letter that parents can use to opt out of radical classroom instruction and woke school policies. pic.twitter.com/I4z46KWAe6
— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) October 31, 2025
“The potential scale is significant. According to a recent analysis by Education Reform Now, even with just 30 percent taxpayer participation, the federal tax credit scholarship program could generate $3.1 billion in California, nearly $986 million in Illinois, and nearly $86 million in Rhode Island each year — funds that could expand tutoring, special services and learning time without reducing state education budgets by a penny,” he said.
And while Duncan was speaking to Democrats, his piece exposes the weaknesses in the federal tax scholarship program, providing Republicans with a clear path to address this issue before it arises.
State-level Republican governors and lawmakers need to impose strict regulations on SGOs, such as requiring curriculum reviews. So, while the One Big Beautiful Bill Act allows the creation of SGOs without state approval, incorporating curriculum reviews could help prevent taxpayer money from funding Democratic recapture. (ROOKE: Democrats Wasted Billions. Republicans Trying Different Way With Homeless)
The Trump administration can enact guidelines from the DOE for SGOs to operate under ideological neutrality or face the DOE withholding their tax credit approvals or even revoking their tax-exempt status.
Republicans created a Trojan horse, and Duncan is telling Democrats exactly how to get it past the gates.
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