President Donald Trump’s vow to dismantle the Education Department moved closer to fruition on March 11. About half of the department’s roughly 4,100 employees were placed on administrative leave or took a buyout, the department said.
The action puts conservatives’ yearslong desire to quash what they perceive as federal influence over the nation’s schools, colleges, and universities a step closer to realization. It also fulfills a campaign pledge from Mr. Trump, though many questions remain. The first one: Will the halving of the department be followed by an outright effort to shut it down entirely? It would take an act of Congress to close the 45-year-old agency.
It’s also unclear the ripple effect doing so would have on the most vulnerable students who rely on extra services from federal funding or financial aid for higher education.
Why We Wrote This
The agency cuts come after fulfilling President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to shut down the Education Department. Critics argue cutbacks are less about improving student outcomes and more about instituting a conservative agenda.
The Education Department serves a variety of functions, such as collecting data, monitoring student achievement, helping low-income students and students with disabilities, and investigating civil rights violations, among other responsibilities. At the college level, the department administers $1.5 trillion in student loans; Pell grants aimed at helping low-income students; as well as FAFSA, the financial aid system used by a majority of students and their families to pay for college.
The Department of Education will continue to deliver on all programs mandated by law, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking, the press release said.
“Today’s reduction in force reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in the statement.
The president and his allies haven’t been shy about their disdain for the Education Department. Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for reforming the United States, has called for the outright elimination of the agency.
Support has ramped up in Congress, especially within the U.S. House of Representatives. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, indicated earlier this month that they are at least open to the conversation. Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. Senate, however, would likely filibuster any such legislation.
“I think that is an idea whose time has come,” Mr. Johnson said during a press briefing.
However, any effort to close the department entirely would face a more difficult road in the Senate, where Democratic votes would be needed to overcome a filibuster.
“I think a lot of people forget what education was like 50 or 60 years ago before the Department of Education. Children who were blind, deaf, and had Down syndrome weren’t given access to classrooms. Children with autism were often institutionalized instead of going to school,” says Keri Rodrigues, co-founder of the National Parents Union. “We had states that had to be sued and children who had to be walked into classrooms by federal marshals in order to integrate into the nation’s classrooms. That’s what happened before we had federal oversight over education.”
Without the accountability function of the Education Department, “our economy and workforce will suffer, and this will damage our economy for generations to come,” Ms. Rodrigues adds.
The coalescing of Republican support around the issue signals the power Mr. Trump wields in the political arena. Legislation, filed in prior congressional sessions, pertaining to the abolition or restructuring of the Education Department never gained much traction.
Now, supporters are leaning into recent national test results showing broad declines in students’ reading and math skills to bolster their case for slashing the department.
Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who served under the first Trump administration, minced no words in a column penned for The Free Press. She described the Education Department as “a middleman.”
“It shuffles money around; adds unnecessary requirements and political agendas via its grants; and then passes the buck when it comes time to assess if any of that adds value,” Ms DeVos wrote.
Even so, the mission appears equally ideologically driven. Conservatives have railed against a “woke” agenda they allege is infiltrating public schools. In turn, Mr. Trump has signed executive orders aimed at stopping lessons about systemic racism, gender transition care for minors, and transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.
Meanwhile, an executive order signed by President Trump titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” also revives the 1776 Commission to promote “patriotic education.” Shortly before leaving office in January 2021, Mr. Trump had established the 1776 Commission in November 2020. When former President Joe Biden entered the Oval Office, he promptly discontinued it.
Critics argue the Education Department cutbacks are less about improving student outcomes and more about instituting a conservative agenda. After all, the vast majority of education decisions are made at the local and state level, which also contribute about 90% of public school funding.
“This elimination of [the Department of Education] is part of a larger attempt to significantly scale down the federal investments in public education. This is in the Project 2025 playbook,” says Blair Wriston, senior government affairs manager at nonprofit EdTrust. “The downstream fights from these massive cuts to education are going to create a system of winners and losers. Students of color, rural students, and low-income students are the ones who are going to suffer under these attacks on public education.”
Plus, Mr. Trump has championed the idea of school choice. He has said that in her role Secretary McMahon would help spread the concept across all states. If that goal involves the use of federal funds for voucher-style programs, it flies in the face of his purported desire to reduce the federal government’s role in education.
