--- title: Project 2025’s Plan to Eliminate Public Schools Has Started description: We are in a new wave of public school closures. Yours could be next, write Jessica Alcantara and Laura Petty. canonical: https://time.com/7001264/project-2025-public-school-closure/ author: Jessica Alcantara article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-07-22T15:35:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:44:42.621Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Project 2025’s Plan to Eliminate Public Schools Has Already Started og:description: We are in a new wave of public school closures. Yours could be next, write Jessica Alcantara and Laura Petty. og:url: https://time.com/7001264/project-2025-public-school-closure/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4177d9e8918eb174/698a5905d0753308c8e71029/public-schools-project2025.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2116 og:image:height: 1190 og:image:alt: public-schools-project2025 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Project 2025’s Plan to Eliminate Public Schools Has Already Started twitter:description: We are in a new wave of public school closures. Yours could be next, write Jessica Alcantara and Laura Petty. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4177d9e8918eb174/698a5905d0753308c8e71029/public-schools-project2025.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Project 2025’s Plan to Eliminate Public Schools Has Already Started > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: What is Project 2025 and Why Are Biden and Trump Talking About it so Differently? [Watch (HLS stream): What is Project 2025 and Why Are Biden and Trump Talking About it so Differently?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/sFzczKg5.m3u8) (2:30)  _Published 2024-07-11. Project 2025 is now a major talking point for politicians and voters in the upcoming 2024 presidential election between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump._ by [Jessica Alcantara](https://time.com/author/jessica-alcantara/) and [Laura Petty](https://time.com/author/laura-petty/) Jul 22, 2024 3:35 PM UTC  Getty Images by [Jessica Alcantara](https://time.com/author/jessica-alcantara/) and [Laura Petty](https://time.com/author/laura-petty/) Jul 22, 2024 3:35 PM UTC Project 2025, the policy agenda for Former President Trump’s potential first year back in the White House published by the far right conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, has been making waves recently. Some of the many destructive proposals within the agenda include the [elimination of the U.S. Department of Education](https://static.project2025.org/2025%5FMandateForLeadership%5FCHAPTER-11.pdf)—along with federal education funding and any civil rights protections—and the diversion of public money to private school voucher programs instead. Make no mistake: The goal is to end public education. But dismantling our public schools isn’t just the plan if Trump is reelected—it is already happening. We are on the brink of a new wave of [public school closures](https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/26/school-closures-jefferson-parish-louisiana/), another step in the decades-long project to divest and dismantle the institution of public school. Disguised as “school choice,” federal, state, local, and private actors have prioritized paying for private and charter schools, hoarding educational resources for the haves and depleting resources for the have-nots. The policies that Project 2025 plans to prioritize—government payments to families sending their children to private school and creation of new charter schools that are run like businesses—have expanded in the last few years, starving public school districts that serve all students of already insufficient resources. In the 2023-24 school year, at least 70 school districts, including in [San Antonio, Texas](https://www.texastribune.org/2023/11/14/san-antonio-isd-school-closures/), [Jackson, Mississippi](https://mississippitoday.org/2023/12/20/jackson-public-schools-closures-approved/), and[ Wichita, Kansas](https://www.kcur.org/2024-03-04/no-perfect-solutions-wichita-school-board-votes-to-close-six-schools), announced permanent closures of public schools, impacting millions of students. These districts are resorting to the harmful, discriminatory, and ineffective so-called ‘solution’ of closing schools in Black and Latine communities, stripping those communities of their local public schools. **_Read More:_** [_Everything Biden and Trump Have Said About the Controversial Project 2025_](https://time.com/6986995/what-is-project-2025/) Here’s how it works: Concerned about shrinking enrollments and budget crises, district leaders conclude that they must close schools, often without any evidence or analysis that it would save money—and, indeed, it hasn’t been shown to [save money](https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2011/10/19/closing%5Fpublic%5Fschools%5Fphiladelphia%5Freport.pdf) unless coupled with mass layoffs. They hire consultants who come up with “utilization” rates and then recommend closing schools with the lowest rates to “rightsize” the district—their euphemism for their misguided belief that school facility usage should be guided by arbitrary numbers instead of meeting communities where they are. The problem is that “utilization”—a school’s enrollment over its supposed capacity—is stacked against schools that have experienced historic underfunding and disinvestment in facilities repairs, curricula, extracurricular opportunities, and staff. These same schools [disproportionately serve ](https://credo.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/closure%5Ffinal%5Fvolume%5Fi.pdf)Black and Latine students, English Learner students, students with disabilities, and students living in poverty. Closing schools is demonstrably harmful—and has real-life impact. Research on the mass urban school closures from 2012 to 2014 [overwhelmingly found that academic outcomes suffered](https://credo.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/closure%5Ffinal%5Fvolume%5Fi.pdf), particularly for low-performing students. A [May 2024 study](https://edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai24-963.pdf) from Brown University linked the experience of a school closure to “decreases in post-secondary education attainment, employment, and earnings at ages 25–27.” Additionally, closures force families to travel farther to get to schools that are not in their communities, [making it harder](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1478210320951063) to form relationships with staff, join extracurriculars, or get involved in parent organizations. These communities are also often the first to lose access to the benefits of neighborhood public schools, which act as essential gathering places for social services and community resources like adult education, polling locations, a place to hold community meetings, and access to democratic community control through school board elections. There are more equitable and educationally sound approaches than the lazy, unjust, self-sabotaging—and all too common—approach of spending money on consultants to tell districts what they have already decided to do: close the schools they value least, relying on metrics that target symptoms of their systemic neglect, and playing into the conservative agenda to make public schools obsolete. Districts have better options to address budget woes. They can start a community-driven process to reshape the budget, wherein multiple stakeholders—rather than a selected few—play an active role in setting district budget priorities. Districts can also employ community-led assessments of how they use buildings, allowing school communities, particularly those historically marginalized, to request the resources, support, and spaces they need. At the very least, districts should integrate equity requirements into school closure proposals, for instance, by incorporating [community-based equity audits](https://www.raciallyjustschools.com/how-to-conduct-community-based-equity-audits-everything-you-need-to-know/) into decision-making. States can also follow California’s lead by [requiring](https://casetext.com/statute/california-codes/california-education-code/title-2-elementary-and-secondary-education/division-3-local-administration/part-24-school-finance/chapter-3-state-school-fund/article-25-conditions-on-emergency-apportionments/section-41329-operative-until-712028-closure-and-consolidation-requirements#:~:text=2023%20Legislative%20Session.-,Section%2041329%20%2D%20%5BOperative%20until%207%2F1%2F2028%5D,what%20schools%20to%20close%20or) and [robustly enforcing ](https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/media/letter-school-districts-school-closures-04112023.pdf)equity safeguards for any decisions to close schools. Young people and their communities deserve better than districts repeatedly making the same mistakes. District leaders must stop listening to expensive consultants and closing much-loved and needed schools, and instead, must listen to the communities they serve and focus on solutions that put students first. Local, state and federal governments must fully and equitably fund public schools—schools obligated to take and educate everyone—and stop diverting money to a system of charter and private schools where students and families are forced to compete for a limited pool of high quality resources for a select few. Project 2025 is not an inevitability—it is a call to action for anyone who cares about public education in this country. Our public school system requires more resources to create better school environments for everyone. We need investment in our public schools—not closures. ## Transcript Project 2025 is now a major talking point for politicians and voters in the upcoming presidential election, led by the right wing Think Tank Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a collection of conservative policies and a blueprint for the next conservative president, who would be Donald Trump if elected in November. The 2025 project published in 2023 has gained a lot of attention following the first presidential debate. The $22,000,000 effort funded by donors includes a nearly 1,000 page handbook that detailed a conservative agenda for the next President. It does not say it is specifically intended for Trump, but that it wants a conservative as an ex commander in chief. However, the project celebrates various orders brought in during Trump's time in the White House, including his abortion and immigration policies. Handbook outlines an expansion of presidential power and plans to fire as many as 50,000 government workers to be replaced with conservatives, including a top to bottom overhaul of the Department of Justice and the FBI. It calls for the next conservative administration to rescue the country from the grip of the radical left, which includes policies like a crackdown on abortion pills, the reinstatement of the Trump era immigration bans, a ban on transgender people serving in the military, and eliminating the Department of Education. On July 5, Trump disavowed his involvement in Product 2025, and a post on Truth Social, his own social media platform owned by the Trump Media and Technology Group. Still, multiple former Trump administration officials have contributed to Product 2025, including former acting Secretary of Defense, Christopher Miller, and former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cucinlli. Rosval and Ed Martin, both of whom helped shape the RNCs party platform, and former White House Personnel Chief John Mcente are tied to product 2025. Since President Biden's much criticized debate performance, his reelection campaign has worked to draw more attention to what they view as an extreme agenda, particularly as Biden tries to keep fellow Democrats on board. On July 6, Biden's campaign released a statement by the president assailing Trump's claim that he's not involved with project 2025, saying it was written for him by those closest to him. Project 2025 will destroy America. Look it up. The Biden campaign has even put together their own website, breaking down what Project 2025 is for Democrats and supporters. The campaign has also been reposting new sources, criticizing the agenda, and even sharing memes about Project 2025. Where Trump's campaign distances itself, Bidens digs deeper, trying to prove that if Trump is elected, this will be the policy reality starting in 2025. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7001264/project-2025-public-school-closure/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7001264/project-2025-public-school-closure/"},"headline":"Project 2025’s Plan to Eliminate Public Schools Has Already Started","datePublished":"2024-07-22T15:35:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:44:42.621Z","description":"We are in a new wave of public school closures. 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