Mr. Trump has just announced his choice for education minister, Lauren Boebert, 36. A beautiful Republican congressman who gave birth to a child in high school at the age of 17, had to drop out midway, and finally obtained a high school diploma when the child also grew up to 17 years old.

When Trump announced his nomination as Minister of Education on Twitter, the wording was also very striking:
I am pleased to announce that the incredible Lauren Bobert will take over the position at the former Department of Education. Lauren is a true patriot who has an unparalleled understanding of what true education should be like – not from the ivory tower, but from the heart of this great country. She worked hard all the way and obtained a GED (high school equivalent), understanding the needs of real life and American families better than any bureaucrat. Her experience is exactly what we need to bring real reform to our fragmented education system!
After Lauren becomes the minister, we will crack down severely on the waste, fraud, and abuse that have long plagued this bloated and overly centralized department. We will no longer indoctrinate, waste expenses, or have Washington elites telling parents how to raise their children!
We are bringing education back to people’s lives – making it its place—— Lauren claimed.
This measure will be the beginning of a new era. We will empower parents, respect traditional American values, and ultimately return control to the local community. Lauren will work tirelessly to ensure that every dollar spent is used to make our children the best and smartest people, rather than enriching bureaucrats and special interest groups
I copy Mr. Trump’s original words in full here to let everyone see what Mr. Trump said for themselves, not just my interpretation.
Appointing a high school graduate as the Minister of Education is already groundbreaking. Looking at Mr. Trump’s reasons, it is obvious that Trump wants to set off an education reform or revolution in the United States.
Let’s first sort out some of the core ideas that Trump said.
The essence of education: “True education does not come from an ivory tower, but from the heart of this great country
The goals and paths of education reform: anti-corruption in education, decentralization of education, and returning to the essence of education. This is reflected in cracking down on the long-standing bloated, wasteful, fraudulent, abusive, and indoctrination practices in American education, ensuring that every penny spent is used to make children smarter and better, rather than being pocketed by bureaucrats and interest groups. Returning the power of education to communities and parents, so that in the future, there will be no more Washington elites telling parents how to raise their children.
It is easy to understand the anti-corruption and decentralization of education, but what is not easy to understand is the essence of education. What is the essence of education, Mr. Trump did not say, he just said, “Real education does not come from the ivory tower, but from the heart of this great country.” What is the “heart of the country”?
To understand Mr. Trump’s so-called “the heart of the country”, I’m afraid we have to comprehensively analyze Mr. Trump’s remarks and actions on education. In the last term, Mr. Trump tried to revoke the Ministry of Education and merge it with the Ministry of Labor, but the Congress failed to pass.
During the campaign, Mr. Trump also talked about education many times. At the rally in Wisconsin, Mr. Trump made it clear that he would “drain the marsh of government education” and return the education policy to the states and communities. He believes that the existence of the Federal Department of Education has led to excessive federal intervention, hindering the innovative development of local education.
The United States Federal Department of Education was established in 1979 and has not been around for long. It has always undertaken important responsibilities such as allocating national education funds, formulating policies, and supervising their implementation. However, in Trump’s view, these responsibilities are exactly the root cause of the waste of educational resources and the breeding of bureaucracy. Although Trump did not announce the withdrawal of the Ministry of Education this time, he still nominated the Minister of Education, but the mission of the Minister of Education is obviously to finally abolish the Ministry of Education. Just as Mr. Trump nominated an anti vaccine person as the Minister of Health, an advocate of withdrawing from the global climate agreement as the Minister of Environment, and a advocate of the United States withdrawing from the United Nations as the United States representative to the United Nations, their mission is to kill the department they serve.
Revoking or weakening the responsibilities of the Ministry of Education may achieve anti-corruption and education decentralization, but this obviously does not reflect the essence of education.
Neither Mr. Trump nor Lauren has put forward the plan or plan of American education reform, but from Mr. Trump’s speeches on various occasions, we can sort out some fragmentary ideas of Mr. Trump on education reform. These fragmented ideas roughly include the following aspects:
One is about ideological education. Mr. Trump believes that today’s American education has deviated from American values, so he emphasizes returning to the education of American traditional values. Trump posted a post to ask his more than 100 million fans: Do you think I should ban rainbow flags in schools and other public places? It can be seen that Mr. Trump knows exactly what is against the traditional American values. Of course, Mr. Trump also accused that “American education has cultivated too many sympathizers for communism and terrorism”, which more or less reflects his conservatism and reactiveness.
The second is to shift the traditional elite education in the United States towards civilian education. To this end, Trump claims to establish an online education platform “American College” covering the whole country. Its funding comes from taxes, fines, and lawsuits raised by the existing university system, without using government budgets. This means that Mr. Trump will reduce the investment in the existing university system and partially turn to support his “American College”. Mr. Trump said that “American College” will collect the most comprehensive high-quality teaching content in the world, cover all knowledge and skills, and share it online for free to all American citizens. The online education of “American College” will enjoy the same complete undergraduate degree, which means that the online education of “American College” will issue formal degree certificates, and online education will also become a routine way of higher education in the United States. Not only that, Mr. Trump also said that “American College” will become a platform to compete with the existing American university system, which will give all Americans the opportunity to change their destiny, which seems to mean that Mr. Trump will give online education a higher position in the American education system.
Obviously, Trump’s so-called “American College” has something in common with China’s emphasis on “digital education” and education equity, but Trump has gone further. He aims to build an online university to replace the traditional university education system, allowing everyone to attend university for free, enjoy the “most comprehensive and high-quality teaching content for all mankind”, and “cover all knowledge and skills”.
In today’s digital age, building an online university is not difficult, at least there are no technical issues. Realizing educational equity and popularization through online education is also a feasible path. This is also being considered and discussed by the global education community, and it cannot be ruled out that it is the trend of future education.
We have to admit that there is still a big gap between the United States and China in terms of the degree to which education has been popularized. Today, the popularization rate of higher education in China has exceeded 61%, the popularization rate of high school education has reached 92%, and the popularization rate of education below junior high school has reached 100%. The higher education penetration rate in the United States is only 51%, and the penetration rate below junior high school has not reached 80%. Today, 21% of people in the United States are still illiterate, and 54% of people have a reading level below sixth grade. Among people with low reading ability, 34% are immigrants and 66% were born in the United States. From this data, Mr. Trump clearly has good reasons to promote education popularization.
Is it what Mr. Trump calls “the heart of the country” to return to traditional values, abandon the concept of elite education, and turn to popular education?
It should be said that education anti-corruption and education decentralization are the path and means of Mr. Trump’s education reform. Its goal is to return to traditional values and promote elite education to mass education. Among them, the “American College” of Mr. Trump is the most likely to be achieved. Firstly, promote higher education through online education, which is technically mature and feasible for networking existing high-quality educational resources. As for subverting the existing education system in the United States and abandoning elite education, a four-year term is probably too short, and giving him another four years may not be enough.