I had just finished a TV spot and was hopping into the car they’d arranged to take me home. The Uber driver asked, “What were you talking to them about?”

“President Trump’s record on education during his first 100 days and such,” I said.

“How do you think he’s done?” she asked.

“Great!” I enthused. “He’s downsizing the federal footprint, pushing back on DEI, combating antisemitism, taking on campus craziness, and championing school choice. It’s remarkable.”

“Sounds promising,” she said.

“Yep,” I said. “If you’re a conservative, it’s like a sunny morning after four years of rain. We’re getting back to commonsense principles, empowering states and reining in government.”

She paused. “But I just heard the other day that the president is creating a federal task force to get AI into classrooms. And I know he sent some letter to Harvard telling them to make a whole bunch of changes. That doesn’t sound like it’s getting Washington out of education.”

“Well, you’re mixing up apples and oranges,” I said. “You see, someone has to make sure our students are prepared for a world with AI. Same with his new executive orders on apprenticeships or school discipline—there are times when we need the federal government to step up and lead. As for Harvard, it failed to address antisemitism, so the president had to crack down.”

“But that makes it sound like you want Washington to be pretty active in education,” she said. “I’m confused, because I thought you just said that the president wanted to downsize the federal role. I mean, doesn’t he want to abolish the Department of Education?”

“Not ‘abolish,’ he wants to ‘dismantle’ it,” I said. “The president’s executive order about it suggests the Secretary of Education keep working on that. He wants to break the department into pieces and then send those to other agencies.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because the Department has become a one-stop shop for the teachers unions, colleges, and left-wing interest groups. This will offer a fresh start. Plus, the president is trying to empower the states and shrink the federal role.”

“I get that. But it seems dangerous to get rid of the Department of Education when there are students who have special needs, like my niece, or need Pell Grants to pay for college. Whether it’s ‘abolishing’ or ‘dismantling,’ my concern is that those dollars will go away,” she said.

“Nope, that’s just not so,” I said. “They’re not cutting those programs. All those funds will still be going out—the president wants Congress to keep that all steady. He’s just saying the money will be managed from another agency, like the Department of Health and Human Services.”

“Well, in that case, I don’t get why it’s so important to ‘dismantle’ the Department of Education,” she said.

I sighed. Clearly, she just didn’t get it. “Look, the president is driving big changes. That’s what you should focus on. For instance, he’s cut the number of bureaucrats at the Department of Education by almost half,” I said.

“Now that’s impressive!” she said. “I’ll bet that’s a huge savings on the federal budget for education, right?”

“It’s a little hard to be sure,” I admitted. “I mean, we don’t have any real numbers from the federal government. But I’ve guessed that the savings are probably around $400 million.”

“So, what’s that? Like a 25 percent cut in what Washington spends on education?” she asked.

“Umm, it’s closer to half a percent,” I said.

I saw her eyes widen in the rearview mirror. “Wait, what?” she said. “One-half of one percent?”

“A little less than that, actually,” I muttered. “But the point is that they’re streamlining government and making it more efficient. For instance, they cut over 90 percent of the staff who work on education research and hundreds of millions of dollars in grants—but they’re still able to produce the Nation’s Report Card.”

“That sounds good,” she said. “It’s amazing they could make cuts like that without losing anything important.”

“Well, there were a few trims,” I conceded. “They had to cut around a dozen tests, including some stuff like science and U.S. History. And they need to figure out how to recover some critical staff that got canned and essential contracts that got pulled. But I’m sure they’ll get it done.”

“I don’t quite get your definition of ‘efficient’,” she said. “If a car is cheaper because it only has three tires and a duct-taped engine, I wouldn’t call that more efficient.”

“You’re getting too caught up in semantics,” I said. “There are big problems in education. Look at the universities. The president is forcing colleges to wrestle with antisemitism and campus groupthink. He’s putting an end to race-based school programs. He’s looking to reform accreditation. These are good things.”

“I buy that,” she said. “But I keep hearing on NPR that the president is doing things improperly, that his people froze billions of dollars for Harvard without following the right legal process. Heck, I heard the whole thing might’ve been due to a letter that was sent by mistake.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” I said. “But colleges thumbed their nose at the American public for years. They violated civil rights, stifled speech, and refused to control costs, all while scarfing up trillions in public funds. It’s only now that we’ve finally got a president willing to stand firm that they’re suddenly recommitting to free inquiry and intellectual diversity.”

“That sounds really good,” she acknowledged. “But isn’t this all going to boomerang back on Trump if the government’s moves are deemed illegal or irresponsible? I mean, maybe those Harvard people are a bunch of arrogant snobs, but if this starts to look like executive overreach, they could wind up looking like the good guys.”

“But you know what? The Democrats trampled the law first,” I said. “They broke all kinds of rules under Obama and then Biden. They’re just getting a taste of their own medicine, good and hard.”

We came to a stoplight. “Now, I’m not a policy expert like you,” she conceded, “but it seems like there might be a flaw in your thinking.”

Frederick Hess is an executive editor of Education Next and the author of the blog “Old School with Rick Hess.”