The Education Department has begun displaying “Heroes in American Education” banners on its Washington, D.C., headquarters — pairing canonical figures such as Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther King Jr., Booker T. Washington, and Anne Sullivan with conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The inclusion of Kirk has sparked sharp criticism, not only because of his polarizing politics, but because he built his brand attacking the modern university as ideological and corrupt.

The symbolism matters. But it’s also arriving during a broader effort by the administration to shrink and decentralize the department, including newly announced interagency agreements transferring several program functions to other federal agencies. Against that backdrop, the banners read less like decoration and more like a statement about what the federal government thinks education should be for.