An Obama-appointed federal judge in Louisiana Tuesday struck down the state’s new law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in its public school classrooms.
In Oklahoma, Education Superintendent Ryan Walters is purchasing Bibles for each classroom in an effort to help students understand the role of Christianity in the founding of the United States and in other important dots on the timeline of the nation.
Earlier this week, Trump’s team posted video in which the President-elect said education would be addressed very early in his presidency. He outlined his plans to return control of education to the states, a parallel move for his support for a 2022 Supreme Court decision which returned control of education to the states.
Trump also reiterated a campaign trail promise to close the Department of Education “and send all education work and needs" back to the states.
"We want them to run the education of our children," he states, "because they’ll do a much better job.”
Trump: No return on education investment
Under Joe Biden, the budget for the U.S. Department of Education has ranged from $68.2 billion to $69.4 billion annually. It currently employs more than 4,000 workers.
Trump says U.S. education spending is currently at least three times as much as any other nation, “yet we’re absolutely at the bottom," he says. "We’re one of the worst.”
So the states can't do any worse, he argues.
"We’re going to close up all those buildings, all over the place," he continued, "and have people that in many cases hate our children.”
Walters (pictured at left) is so eager for Trump’s commitment to the states that he has established within the Oklahoma Department of Education the Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism. The new division will align with Trump’s education goals, Walters said.
But getting rid of the Department of Education might be harder than Trump realizes.
“All the way back to Reagan, the promise was we would get rid of the Department of Education. We ended up finding out, sadly, that was almost impossible," Gary Bauer, who served as the Under Secretary for Education under Reagan, told AFN.
"Reagan came in one year after the department had been created. It was created either in the House or Senate by one vote. We couldn’t find 10 members of the Senate that were willing to sponsor a bill that would abolish it,” Bauer recalls.
Bauer is hopeful that Trump will be able to fulfill the promise. However, instead of shutting down the DOE, the job may be remaking it, he says.
“I would not be surprised," he speculated, "that the task could end up being how do you turn a federal department of education into something conservatives would love and that left liberals would want to abolish the department."
Bill meets 'current constitutional standards'
It’s within these changing winds that District Judge John W. deGravelles declared Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law to be “unconstitutional on its face.”
Louisiana Attorney Gen. Liz Murrill disagrees. She says Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s team worked hard to make sure the Commandments could be placed in classrooms within the framework of the law.
“I think this bill meets the current constitutional standards, under current Supreme Court precedent, which allows us to post the Ten Commandments as long as it’s posted inside a historical context,” Murrill said on Washington Watch Tuesday.
Murrill will appeal to the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. Her interpretation of current law allows the Commandments to be placed in classrooms alongside documents like the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution.
The ruling by deGravelles affects only five school districts – those in East Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Tammany, Orleans and Vernon parishes -- that were named in the lawsuit brought by nine Louisiana families represented by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
While other school districts are protected by law to post the Ten Commandments, Murrill told show host Tony Perkins that many may choose not to fearing legal action as a result of the ruling.
“It will chill the conduct of some of those school boards. School boards are sensitive to being sued,” she said.
Murrill: Judge erred two ways
Murrill said deGravelles further erred by instructing the state’s education leadership to advise all schools that the new law calling for the Ten Commandments in all classrooms has been declared unconstitutional.
“The other school boards are not defendants. His ruling has no jurisdiction over the other school boards at this time,” she said.
In Oklahoma, in a similar legal fight, two lawsuits were filed in October challenging the teaching of the Bible in state schools.
Walters, though, is pushing ahead and purchasing Bibles for Oklahoma students.
“Every classroom in the state of Oklahoma is going to have a Bible,” he told Perkins.
The Bible is an absolute necessity to teach the nation’s history, Walters said.
“We're going to explicitly have kids talk about why the pilgrims came to America. What kind of religious persecution were they under?"
It's about more than pilgrims, Walters said.
"Why did Thomas Jefferson use the phrase under God in the 1800s? What are we talking about here as we get on the Declaration of Independence and the first Great Awakening? Where is that concept coming from? How would most Americans have viewed that?”
The Bible’s influence appears throughout history, Walters said “all the way up to Martin Luther King Jr. and his letter from a Birmingham jail referencing Daniel and Shadrach. He points to these as examples that he followed when he broke the law, but not God's law.
“How do you understand American history without understanding the Bible? We're going to make sure that our kids understand American exceptionalism and the Judeo-Christian values that play such a major role in this country's history.”
Trump’s vision for education supports teaching the Bible in public schools, Walters said, adding that Americans overwhelming supported Trump’s vision in last week’s election.
“President Trump laid out a clear vision, so did Kamala, and the American people voted overwhelmingly that they want the Bible, the Ten Commandments. They want the vision that President Trump has laid out for our schools and our education. They want his vision for the country, and they rejected wholly Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's vision.”
Walters: Feds’ financial role overrated
As far as Trump's plans for education, the U.S. Department of Education won’t be missed, Walters said. Presently, he said the department’s influence and the financial impact it makes in any state are terribly misaligned.
“Federal education spending only makes up 8% to 10% in your state. It’s relatively small," Walters advised. "The federal Department of Education takes in over $230 billion, and that agency doesn’t educate one child. That’s the department that brought you Critical Race Theory, DEI, common core math. They also brought in this anti-American hatred through the curriculum and through the grants that they pushed."
Trump’s plan will give parents more control of their children’s education, Walters insisted.
“It will give that power to the people, (help) families that are directing their kids through educational school choice, give them educational savings accounts so they can direct the way the resources are spent, not bureaucracies," the education expert said.
Then families will see children "flourish," Walters predicted, and grow to their "God-given abilities."
