BOULDER, CO (April 21, 2026) — The first year of the second Trump administration has seen a radical break from six decades of federal education policy, discarding the longstanding vision of equal access and human capital development in favor of a new, and as yet undefined, approach to American educational governance.

In a new policy brief, Studying the First Year of Trump’s Second Term: The Renewed Importance of Participatory Governance, Dr. Derek Gottlieb, a leading scholar of education policy, examines the educational purposes that administration officials have publicly articulated across a variety of platforms, along with the actions that the federal government has taken over the past year to achieve its goals. 

Citing the supposed need to align education policy with “Presidential priorities,” the administration has expanded executive authority over federal spending and legal rules. Meeting little resistance from either Congress or the Supreme Court, it has altered antidiscrimination enforcement, redirected congressionally approved funding, and revised university research contracts.

Yet no single unifying vision has emerged. Instead, a patchwork agenda includes expanding parental choice through charter funding and a federal tax-credit scholarship, curbing grade inflation and campus activism, and reducing federal capacity for research and data.

Much of these changes have at their core a sweeping reinterpretation of Equal Protection and Title VI and IX enforcement. The administration has applied these interpretations to limit initiatives supporting minoritized and vulnerable populations, while also targeting what it characterizes as ideological “indoctrination” in schools. At the same time, it has advanced a definition of “merit” that excludes consideration of structural inequality.

Among the results are that educational institutions face heightened uncertainty, inclusionary practices risk federal investigation, funding streams have become less predictable, and public resources are increasingly diluted across both public and private sectors. More broadly, the executive branch now exerts unprecedented influence over institutional decision-making.

Because educational institutions are operating under increasingly arbitrary rule, protecting mission-driven work will require stronger engagement with local constituencies – from civil-society and business groups to voters. Although federal authority rests on funding and enforcement, it has historically been constrained by state and local resistance. In this context, Dr. Gottlieb suggests that education leaders must build public trust through strategies such as participatory budgeting and stakeholder engagement to sustain institutional missions and navigate ongoing federal pressure.

Find Studying the First Year of Trump’s Second Term: The Renewed Importance of Participatory Governance, by Derek Gottlieb, at: 
https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/policy-review