Education Department’s Dismantling

President Donald Trump acknowledged that only Congress can eliminate the Department of Education, but his administration is on track to move its functions to other agencies so that only a sole Cabinet secretary and a physical location remain by the time federal legislators vote on the department’s future.

The department, established in 1979, oversees funding for special education and low-income schools at the K–12 level, as well as research grant awards and student loan administration in higher education. 

It has oversight of Defense Department schools on military bases and also investigates civil rights complaints in schools and universities.

Trump wasn’t the first U.S. leader to call for the agency’s elimination, but he is the first to attempt it.

So far, Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon has laid off half her staff, closed offices outside of Washington, and affirmed on Nov. 18 that many remaining workers will start moving to other agencies.

While critics argue that local schools will be shortchanged because of the federal cuts, McMahon maintains funding from the department is not being eliminated; it’s just being streamlined so money otherwise spent on the bureaucracy makes it directly to classrooms.

“The Trump administration is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states,” she said in a Nov. 18 news release. 

Here’s a closer look at what’s happening:

Transferring Responsibility

Under the plan announced on Nov. 18, federal grant administration for K–12 schools and universities, including workforce development initiatives but not student loans, will be moved to the Department of Labor; McMahon said this may increase grant efficiency.

The Department of the Interior will take over education programs that serve tribal schools serving Native American students, an Education Department fact sheet said.

Health and Human Services will take over accreditation for foreign medical schools and federally funded child programs serving parents enrolled in colleges. 

The agency already oversees Head Start, the largest federal childcare program.

The State Department will now oversee international education and foreign language programs, including the Fulbright-Hays scholarships for research in other countries.

There will be more scrutiny to preserve the core mission of these programs: grants awarded under President Joe Biden’s administration included a $70,000 award for a doctoral student to create an interactive map identifying “queer” and transgender communities in Czechia and Slovakia.

McMahon previously said that special education functions could be absorbed by Health and Human Services, student loans by the Small Business Administration, and civil rights by the Department of Justice, but those moves have yet to happen.

It has also been suggested that higher education financial aid functions could be moved to the Department of the Treasury, and the Census Bureau within the U.S. Department of Commerce would take over data and information services provided by the National Center for Education Statistics and the Institute of Education Sciences.

Opposition

The National Education Association teachers’ union issued a statement calling the moves “illegal, cruel, and shameful.”

“Not only do they want to starve and steal from our students—they want to rob them of their futures,” Becky Pringle, the organization’s president, said in the Nov. 18 statement. 

“Nothing is more important than the success of our students, and America’s educators and parents will not be silent as Trump and Linda McMahon turn their backs on our students, families, and communities to pay for billionaire tax cuts.”

Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said without the oversight of a federal education department, many school districts and states will track black and Hispanic students into “devalued professions” like hospitality and tourism.

“One of the reasons the Department of Education exists is to help states and schools address their educational inequities,” she said.

While Democrats argue that the dismantling of the Department of Education is unprecedented, the Economy Act that allows the executive branch to move functions from one federal agency to another is not. The senior official said it has been applied at least 200 times in the past, including by Biden.

In 2022, for example, the Federal Bureau of Prisons within the Department of Justice signed an interagency agreement designating the Department of Labor to administer grants for the First Step Act criminal justice reform program, according to the fact sheet.

—Aaron Gifford; Stacy Robinson

BOOKMARKS

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—Stacy Robinson