New ‘Save Our Schools’ campaign to challenge Education Department closure

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is promising a wave of investigations as part of the “Save Our Schools” campaign she recently launched to fight the Trump administration’s plans to shut down the Department of Education.

A target of one investigation is her allegation that Secretary of Education Linda McMahon plans to replace humans in the department’s call centers with AI chatbots. Warren also contends the agency has fallen into “chaos” since half its staff was laid off and President Donald Trump signed an executive order to shut it down.

“States are already ringing the alarm bells that funding for little kids’ school lunches is at risk,” she said on a video posted across her social media channels. “Kids with disabilities could lose their classroom aides, kids who are already panicked for college are now even less sure about what their future looks like.”

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She hopes the campaign will draw in students, teachers, lawmakers and others to mobilize a movement to “save public education.”

“We’ve got to fight for an America where it’s not just kids of billionaires who get a good education but it’s every kid in every community who gets a great education,” she concluded in her video. “This fight is our fight.”

Last week, Warren and a group of Democratic Senate leaders sent a letter asking Department of Education Inspector General René Rocque to investigate the legality of the Trump administration’s moves to dismantle the Education Department.

Also last week, two coalitions of school districts, teachers’ unions and advocacy organizations filed separate lawsuits to block Trump’s executive order.

McMahon, in recent weeks, has tried to reassure K12 and higher ed leaders that the department’s key functions, such as Title I funding, funding for students with disabilities and college loans, will continue uninterrupted as they are shifted to other agencies.