While Americans struggled to make ends meet under the crushing weight of inflation brought on by Bidenomics, the federal government found a creative way to use taxpayer dollars: funding woke educational programs. According to a report from Parents Defending Education (PDE), the Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) has funneled at least $100 million into initiatives promoting Social Emotional Learning (SEL), restorative justice, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Meanwhile, student performance in basic literacy and math continues to nosedive. Rather than focusing on education, critics argue that government officials and radical educators seem more invested in indoctrination.
The frustration over this mismanagement has sparked outrage among parents and policymakers alike. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to shut down the Department of Education altogether as part of his education reform agenda. Trump isn’t alone; many Americans are fed up with an educational system that prioritizes political correctness over academic rigor. The nation’s public school students are falling behind their international peers, and not just allies—children in countries considered adversaries are outperforming American students. PDE’s report paints a grim picture of how the DOJ has redirected public funds toward ideological programs while the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic are left in the dust.
From 2021 to 2024, over $100 million in taxpayer funds were spent on programs rooted in woke principles. PDE’s findings, based on available data, revealed 102 grants across 36 states. These grants reached 946 school districts and impacted more than 3.2 million students, though the real numbers could be even higher. The breakdown is striking: $45.2 million for general woke initiatives like SEL and restorative justice, $32 million specifically for DEI, $19.8 million for consultants pushing Critical Race Theory (CRT) and queer theory, and $10.3 million to hire administrators tasked with spreading these ideologies.
And just where is this money going? In Minnesota, $2 million was handed to the state’s Department of Education to create “anti-racist” and “anti-oppressive” learning environments—phrases that sound noble but rarely translate into real-world academic improvement. Pennsylvania took its turn in the woke spotlight with a program focusing on “racial/historical and intergenerational trauma” and “anti-bias education.” For parents scratching their heads at such jargon, the frustration is palpable. How do these programs help students pass a math test or learn how to write a coherent essay? Spoiler: they don’t.
Critics argue that these programs not only waste taxpayer money but also undermine the principles of equality by granting special privileges to certain racial and LGBTQ groups. Instead of addressing the core issues plaguing the education system—like outdated curricula, underqualified teachers, or crumbling infrastructure—these grants prioritize ideology over results. With Trump poised to take office, many conservatives are hopeful that the days of using schools as battlegrounds for social engineering will soon be over, replaced by a renewed focus on preparing students for the real world. Whether the system can be saved in time is another question entirely.
