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Graphic Truth: Losing the numbers game
The Trump administration is working to dismantle the Department of Education, a long-time conservative goal rooted in the belief that education is best managed at the state and local levels. Most decisions — especially regarding curriculum — already are made locally, but the department plays a key role in setting standards, assessing student performance, and supplementing where states are falling short. Critics worry that eliminating it could widen educational inequalities.
This could hurt US competitiveness, which is already slipping. In 2022, the US ranked 34th in global math performance, according to the OECD PISA assessment of 15-year-olds in 81 countries. Canada ranked ninth, despite also seeing a decline. The impact is evident in other surveys as well. In IMD Business School’s 2024 Competitiveness Report, the US dropped to 12th place among global economies, its lowest ranking ever — down from 1st in 2018.
The US and Canada aren’t alone. Math scores have been trending downward globally since the OECD PISA assessments began measuring them in 2002 – falling between one to three points every four years. But scores took a sharp tumble between 2018 and 2022, falling an alarming 16 points globally, likely because of education disruptions and school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A protester stands near the US Department of Education headquarters after the agency said it would lay off nearly half its staff.
The battle over Department of Education cuts intensifies
The US Department of Education, which Donald Trump has sought to dismantle, is laying off roughly half of its 4,100-strong workforce. Education Secretary Linda McMahoncouched the layoffs in terms of “efficiency,” “accountability,” and deploying resources to serve “students, parents, and teachers.” Critics say otherwise, arguing that cuts are part of a long Republican battle to eliminate federal involvement in education, including its mandate to enforce civil rights protections in schools, and leave the matter to state and local governments – or to private schools and families themselves through homeschooling.
A majority of Americans oppose shuttering the department – and a mere 26% support it. Closing the agency requires an act of Congress, but the Trump administration has the power to limit its resources and, thus, its capacity to operate. The White House, including its Department of Government Efficiency, is already at work doing just that, including freezing nearly a billion dollars in spending last February.
The National Education Association warns that losing the department or gutting its funding will harm low-income communities that rely on it for support while undermining civil rights protections for race, gender, and disability. They warn that 180,000 teaching jobs could go and billions in federal funding, a loss that would hit poor and disabled students particularly hard. Student loans could also be at risk, making college accessibility even tougher than it already is. Cuts will also put national education performance assessments at risk, worrying some that education standards will fall.
On Thursday, 21 Democratic attorneys general sued the Trump administration in response to the layoffs, arguing that they were “illegal and unconstitutional.”
A person walks in front of the Department of Education building in Washington, DC, on Feb. 4, 2025.
GZERO Explains: How did the US Department of Education become so controversial?
When was it established and why? US President Jimmy Carter created the department in 1979 as a Cabinet-level agency. It consolidated educational functions that were previously the responsibility of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now the Department of Health and Human Services).
The department had a broad mandate, overseeing elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education, vocational training, special education, and civil rights compliance. Carter wanted to centralize programs and ensure equal access to education, which he considered “a fundamental right.”
Why was this significant? Historically, education in the United States has been primarily a state and local responsibility. The US Constitution does not explicitly mention education, and the 10th Amendment reserves powers not delegated to the federal government to the states.
At the same time, however, the 14th Amendment mandates equal protection under the law. In 1954, the case of Brown v. Board of Education gave the 14th Amendment precedence, upholding federal intervention in cases of legal discrimination, such as bussing to combat school segregation.
Eleven years later, as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It does not mandate direct federal oversight of schools but offers states funding based on meeting federal requirements, including safeguarding civil rights. These funds were later administered by the Department of Education.
How have Republicans viewed federal involvement in education? In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan wanted to abolish the department, citing concerns about federal overreach. George Bush Sr. took a more activist approach, styling himself as the“Education President,” and leveraging the department’s powers to improve education quality.
What is Trump’s position? President Donald Trump has criticized the department for imposing a race and gender agenda on schools that encourages children to “hate” their country. He has said the federal government should not have control over schools and that it’s staffed with “people that hate our children.”
On Feb. 14, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the Department of Education Craig Trainor issueda directive that all schools receiving federal funding rescind their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies within two weeks or “face a loss of funding.” Trump has also nominated Linda McMahon, cofounder of World Wrestling Entertainment and former head of the Small Business Administration, as Secretary of Education. At her confirmation hearing last week, McMahonstated that her first assignment as Secretary would be to “put herself out of a job” by dismantling the department, shifting control of education to the states and curbing federal oversight.
McMahon also proposed reallocating programs from Education to other federal agencies, such as moving the enforcement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to the Department of Health and Human Services and transferring the Office for Civil Rights to the Justice Department.
How can these changes be made? All these changes would require congressional approval. At her confirmation hearing, McMahonsaid “President Trump understands that we will be working with Congress …We’d like to do this right. We’d like to make sure that we are presenting a plan that I think our senators could get on board with, and our Congress to get on board with.”A heart is shown on a computer screen
Hard Numbers: Deepfakes and pig butchering, Murati starts fundraising, Checking students’ work, The nuclear option, Perplexity’s money moves
100 million: Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, one of the biggest names in artificial intelligence, is expected to raise $100 million for a new AI startup with few public details. Murati, who briefly served as interim CEO of OpenAI last year following Sam Altman’s short-lived ouster, resigned from OpenAI last month. Murati said she wanted to start her own “exploration” of AI when she resigned and will reportedly serve as CEO of the new venture trying to do just that.
68%: About 68% of middle and high school teachers report using an AI checker for students’ work, according to a survey from March 2024. But Bloomberg, pointing to a rising number of students who claim to have been falsely accused of writing with AI, reports that popular AI checkers have a 1-2% error rate, calling into question their reliability.
99: Nuclear energy stocks are surging because of increased demand for power by AI companies in search of new energy sources. Oklo, a US-based small modular reactor developer – which counts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as an investor – saw its share price pop 99% last week. Nuclear energy is considered a “clean” energy source because it has no carbon emissions.
8 billion: The AI search engine Perplexity is seeking to raise $500 million in a new funding round that would value it at $8 billion. Perplexity has positioned itself not only as a rival to OpenAI and Anthropic — leading AI chatbot companies — but also to Google, the longtime leader in the search industry.A statue of McGill University founder James McGill is seen on the campus in Montreal, October 2, 2009.
Trouble on the northern border
Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Millerwarned Canada on Sunday of an “alarming trend.” Foreign students are making asylum claims – the latest issue to confront his government as it struggles to get the immigration system under control.
In recent years, Canadian universities and colleges have increasingly relied on foreign students, who pay higher tuition than Canadians, to deal with funding shortfalls. But the wave of students – more than a million were admitted in 2023 – is being blamed for everything from a shortage of rental accommodations to security fears. A Pakistani national arrested as he was allegedly en route to New York to conduct a mass shooting at a Jewish centre came to Canada on a student visa.
Miller has twice decreased the number of visas available to foreign students, but more than 70,000 already in Canada are now facing deportation when their visas expire. In the next three years, 396,235 foreign student work permits will expire. If Canada gets tougher on students and other temporary foreign residents, a think tank warns that some could try their luck in the United States, increasing tension on the border.
The Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Center for North American Prosperity and Security wrote in the Wall Street Journal that a surge of migrants is already starting to enter the United States, crossing into New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont. There were 180,000 interactions with U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents on the northern border between January and August, up from 27,180 in all of 2021.
The Canadian side may want to redouble its efforts to get a handle on the problem. Polling shows immigration is one of Donald Trump’s strongest issues, so any influx along the normally quiet northern border could give him a boost in the swing states where he and Kamala Harris are locked in a razor-close race.
And Canadians may want to avoid that. A report released Thursday from the Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated that Trump’s tariffs would cost the Canadian economy US$60 billion over the first three years.
Graphic Truth: The state of cellphone bans in schools
Should smartphones be banned in schools? Three-quarters of US schools already restrict the use of cellphones during lesson hours, but only a handful of state governments have imposed blanket restrictions. Florida became the first one last year, followed by Illinois and Virginia, where bans will take effect this school year. In Canada, half a dozen provincial governments have passed restrictions.
The measures come amid growing scrutiny of the harmful effects of smartphone use in general – and social media in particular – on teen mental health. US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in May called for cigarette-style health warnings on social media. A recent bestseller traces the rise of the current “Anxious generation” to the emergence of smartphones in the early 2010s. And as any schoolteacher can tell you, smartphones are generally not great for the classroom learning experience.
But on the other side of it, parents have raised safety concerns. Cellphones are often the only way for caregivers to locate or contact children during emergencies. As the number of US school shootings has soared over the past 10 years, some parents are particularly reluctant to cut that tie – especially during school hours. Alongside these worries, many parents and lawmakers simply think the decision should be left to local school boards rather than faraway state legislators.
Here is a look at the current state of cellphone bans in the US and Canada. By the way, where do you stand on this issue? Let us know here, along with your name and location, and we may publish your response in an upcoming edition of GZERO North.
Students at Martin Van Buren High School in Queens
Hard Numbers: Segregation is back, Thai activist dies in jail, French “Fly” freed, New US arms sale to Israel
19.8: Over the past three decades, the share of US public schools where 90% of the students are non-white has nearly tripled to 19.8%, according to a UCLA report. Experts say the rise of charter schools and expansion of school choice is partly to blame for this de facto segregation. The data, crunched by the UCLA Civil Rights Project, come on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the landmark Brown vs. Boardof Education case in which the US Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation at schools.
110: A young Thai activist jailed for demanding reform of the country’s uncriticizable monarchy has died after a 110-day hunger strike. Twenty-eight year old Netiporn “Bung” Sanesangkhom had been jailed under Thailand’s severe lèse-majesté laws after asking people’s opinion of the monarchy in public spaces in 2022.
2: A manhunt is underway in France after two masked gunmen ambushed a prison van and freed a notorious drug dealer nicknamed “The Fly.” The incident is the latest in a trend of rising narco-related crime in Europe, as authorities seize record volumes of cocaine entering the EU while rival gangs fight for turf and clientele. Of course, when it comes to jailbreaks, the cinema-obsessed French gangster Rédoine Faïd remains the master of the craft.
1 billion: The Biden administration reportedly told lawmakers it’s moving forward with a new sale of roughly $1 billion worth of arms to Israel, including tactical vehicles and ammunition. This news comes as the administration continues to butt heads with Israel over the Rafah operation, and just days after President Joe Biden put a hold on a shipment of bombs to the Jewish state as concerns rise over the mounting death toll amid the war with Hamas in Gaza.
Why the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals are not on track to be financed soon
The world faces a sustainable development crisis, and while most countries have strategies in place, they don’t have the cash to back them up. How far off track are we with the financing needed to support the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, ranging from quality education and health care to climate action and clean water?
Shari Spiegel, who runs the UN’s Financing for Sustainable Development Office, sat down with GZERO’s Tony Maciulis at a Global Stage event for the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings this week. She explains that the SDGs were off track even before the pandemic and that now, owing to global crises, many poorer countries have slipped backwards.
“We actually started backtracking on many of these goals as countries were under enormous stress, and particularly the poorest countries,” she said, noting that the global output of many of the poorest nations has fallen by 30% — and some, such as the Small Island Developing States, by 40%. This has led to an enormous finance divide — raising SDG financing and investment gaps from $2 trillion a few years ago to around $4 trillion today.
So how can the UN restrengthen multilateralism and, in turn, help narrow this gap? Watch here.