The Trump administration says it wants to close the Education Department to cut bureaucracy and increase efficiency, but NPR found that changes over the last 18 months have cost an unknown amount of taxpayer dollars and made the agency’s work more complex and potentially inefficient.
NPR spoke to five Education Department employees to understand how the administration’s publicly stated goals are unfolding inside the agency. They all asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the moves and fear professional repercussions for doing so.
“Cutting through layers of red tape in Washington is one essential piece of our final mission,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon has said.
