(LATEST UPDATE: March 20) President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday afternoon to “begin eliminating” the U.S. Department of Education. Surrounded by students at a White House ceremony, he introduced Linda McMahon as “hopefully” the last secretary of education.
“My administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department and shut it down as quickly as possible,” Trump said. “We’re going to be returning education back to the states where it belongs. The costs will be half and the education will be many, many times better.”
Eliminating the department requires an act of Congress, where Democrats have enough seats to block such a measure. In the meantime, Trump and McMahon can strip the agency of its responsibilities.
On Thursday, Trump said Department of Education staff who oversee core functions such as Title I, services for students with disabilities and Pell Grants will remain. Those programs will be “preserved in full” under administration by other agencies.
He also called teachers “among the most important people in the country.” “We’re going to take care of our teachers,” he pledged. “I believe states will take better care of them.”
Last week, McMahon began dismantling the agency by laying off half its staff and Trump’s comments Thursday appeared to promise more staff reductions.
The Trump Administration contends that the Department of Education has spent over $3 trillion since its creation in 1979 but there has been “virtually no measurable improvement in student achievement.” For example, the White House cited statistics that show math and reading scores for 13-year-olds are at the lowest level in decades.
“Instead of a bloated federal system that burdens schools with regulations and paperwork, the Trump Administration believes states should be empowered to expand educational freedom and opportunity for all families,” the administration said in a statement earlier Thursday.
Trump’s actions will almost certainly draw a legal response from teachers unions and the departments’ other proponents. “See you in court,” is the terse statement that American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten posted.
This story will be updated.
(LAST UPDATE: March 18) Democratic congressional leaders are demanding more details regarding Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s decision to wipe out 50% of the Department of Education’s workforce.
The letter, sent by Sen. Patti Murray of Washington, Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, identifies key areas of concern, including federal student aid programs and services for students with disabilities.
Specifically, the 10-page letter, addressed to Linda McMahon and Institute of Education Sciences Acting Director Matthew Soldner, demands details on:
- The total expected savings in salaries and benefits in FY2025.
- The share of the department’s FY2024 budget that these savings represent.
- How many remaining staff were assigned additional duties?
- The average number of new duties assigned to remaining staff.
- A complete list of office teams terminated.
It also asks for clarification on how the staff cuts reflect McMahon’s statement that accompanied her confirmation, which included a promise to commit to efficiency.
“How do these reductions reflect the department’s ‘commitment to efficiency,'” the letter reads. “Please provide three examples and the analysis supporting the expected changes.”
They also suggest the department is obligated to provide details on how it plans to use taxpayer dollars to carry out the president’s vision given Donald Trump’s “disregard for appropriations and other laws,” the letter reads. The congressional leaders request a response from the department to each of the concerns mentioned in the letter by March 21.
“Given the profound change to staff, budgets, and agency operations promised by this administration, it is critical that we receive additional information on these staffing reductions and changes to agency operations,” the letter reads.
(LATEST UPDATE: March 12) Funding for key programs such as Title I and IDEA won’t be interrupted but this week’s staff cuts at the Department of Education represent the “first step” of President Donald Trump’s plan to shut down the agency, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon says.
McMahon has initiated a 50% reduction in force at her department, scheduled to be completed by March 21. She told Fox News that the Department of Education staffers who were not terminated are involved in managing Title I, IDEA and other programs.
The Trump administration’s goal is to eliminate “red tape” that holds up education funding and give more financial control to states and districts, McMahon said in the Fox News interview.
“[Trump has] taken bureaucracy out of education so that more money flows to states, and better education is closest to kids, with parents, with local superintendents, with local school boards,” she said. “I think we’ll see our scores go up with our students when we can educate them with parental input as well.”
National Education Association President Becky Pringle warned that the nation’s most vulnerable students will be most impacted.
“Gutting the Department of Education will send class sizes soaring, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle-class families, take away special education services for students with disabilities, and gut student civil rights protections,” Pringle said.
She vowed that educators, parents and allies will “continue to organize, advocate, and mobilize so that all students have well-resourced public schools that allow every student to thrive.”
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten predicts chaos across the education system.
“Ten million students who rely on financial aid to go to college or pursue a trade will be left in limbo,” Weingarten said. “States and districts will be forced to navigate funding crises without federal support, hurting millions of students with disabilities and students living in poverty.
(LAST UPDATE: Feb. 27) The “End DEI portal” launched Thursday by the Department of Education lets students, parents and other members of the public report discrimination based on race or sex in K12 schools.
The reports could spawn investigations, says the submission form, which displays the banner “Schools should be focused on learning.”
Moms for Liberty Co-Founder Tiffany Justice lauded the End DEI portal on the Department of Education’s website.
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“For years, parents have been begging schools to focus on teaching their kids practical skills like reading, writing and math, instead of pushing critical theory, rogue sex education and divisive ideologies—but their concerns have been brushed off, mocked, or shut down entirely,” Justice posted. “Parents, now is the time that you share the receipts of the betrayal that have happened in our public schools.”
The “End DEI” form launched on the eve of the Trump administration’s deadline for K12 schools to eliminate all diversity, equity and inclusion programs or risk loss of federal funding. The American Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit earlier this week asking a judge to declare the DEI directive unconstitutional.
“This vague and clearly unconstitutional memo is a grave attack on students, our profession and knowledge itself,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “Federal statute already prohibits any president from telling schools and colleges what to teach. And students have the right to learn without the threat of culture wars waged by extremist politicians hanging over their heads.”
This is a running article covering changes at the Department of Education and will be updated regularly.
‘Divisive’ teacher prep is latest target of spending cuts
(LAST UPDATE: Feb. 19) Schools and nonprofits will lose $600 million in grants for training teachers in what the Department of Education calls “divisive ideologies.”
The department announced the cuts just days after it gave schools less than two weeks to eliminate all DEI-related instruction, hiring initiatives and other programs.
The grants funded training materials that covered DEI, social justice, anti-racism, white privilege and white supremacy, the Education Department announced, calling those topics “inappropriate and unnecessary.”
“Many of these grants included teacher and staff recruiting strategies implicitly and explicitly based on race,” the agency said.
The department listed examples of the defunded grant applications:
- Requiring practitioners to take personal and institutional responsibility for systemic inequities (e.g., racism) and critically reassess their own practices.
- Professional development workshops on topics such as “Building Cultural Competence,” “Dismantling Racial Bias” and “Centering Equity in the Classroom.”
- Acknowledging and responding to systemic forms of oppression and inequity, including racism, ableism, “gender-based” discrimination, homophobia and ageism.
- Providing spaces for critical reflection to help educators confront biases and have transformative conversations about equity.
Department of Education: I want it ‘closed immediately,’ Trump says
(LAST UPDATE: Feb. 13) Calling the Department of Education “a big con job,” President Donald Trump said that he wants the agency “closed immediately,” a video from CNN shows.
His comments came as the Department of Education remained open but was reportedly firing staff and Trump’s nominee for education secretary, Linda McMahon, was appearing at a confirmation hearing, according to multiple reports.
“They rank the top 40 countries in the world, we’re ranked No. 40th,” Trump said when a reporter asked him about the department’s future. “But we’re ranked No. 1 in one department: Cost per pupil.”
Politico reported that the Department of Education this week terminated “a swath” of employees. Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have been moving aggressively to shrink the size of the federal government.
Many of the laid-off employees were probationary, working in the Office for Civil Rights, Federal Student Aid, and Office of Communications and Outreach, Politico reported.
Earlier in the week, DOGE canceled $900 million in contracts at the Institute of Education Sciences, a research arm of the Department of Education that tracks academic performance, contains the National Center for Education Statistics and produces the Nation’s Report Card, ProPublica reported.
A Department of Education spokesperson told ProPublica that the move would not impact the Nation’s Report Card.
Department of Education: Latest developments show agency in crosshairs
(LAST UPDATE: Feb. 10) News about the fate of the Department of Education is swirling, with rising concerns that Elon Musk’s DOGE personnel are accessing sensitive student data.
Aside from the murky implications for K12 and higher education, over the weekend Musk claimed on X that the education department does not “exist,” according to MSNBC.
On Friday, Democratic members of Congress were barred from entering the Department of Education, The New York Times reported. The lawmakers attempted to visit with acting education secretary Denise L. Carter, who had not responded to an earlier request for a meeting about whether President Donald Trump intends to close the department, the newspaper said.
More from DA: New executive order bans transgender athletes from girls’ sports
The Associated Press also noted the lawmakers’ fears that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is now examining student loan databases and other systems. Those concerns have sparked a lawsuit from college students in California, according to USA Today.
The University of California Student Association claims DOGE is “violating privacy laws and federal regulations by infiltrating computer systems that house student financial aid information” in its lawsuit filed Friday.
Transgender students
Last week, Trump signed an executive order restricting transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports in K12 and higher ed. The administration has gone further, according to ProPublica.
The investigative website reported the Department of Education has told employees that it will cancel all programs that don’t affirm biological sex, such as mental health counseling.
This is what a smaller Education Department might look like
(LAST UPDATE: Feb. 5) This week’s reports contained few specifics about President Donald Trump’s initial steps to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. Some in the K12 world are now filling the void around the ramifications of the agency’s potential demise.
Two state education superintendents are looking forward to greater local control of their K12 systems. Idaho’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield told KMTV that students will be better off if states have more influence but was less sure about how schools will be funded.
“Federal funding, for instance, remains a key component in how we fund education here in Idaho,” Critchfield said. “How those dollars would be distributed under a new model is something I will closely monitor.”
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Megan Degenfelder, Wyoming’s superintendent of public instruction, told Cowboy State Daily that she expects “red tape” and other rules will be eliminated if the department closes. Degenfelder envisions states deciding how to spend education funding that will be allocated directly as block grants.
But National Education Association President Becky Pringle warned the most vulnerable students will suffer if the Department of Education disappears. Pringle said the move could “explode class sizes, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, take away special education services for students with disabilities, and gut student civil rights protections.”
“Eliminating the Department of Education is equivalent to giving up on our future,” Pringle said in a statement.
An NEA analysis detailed the programs under the most threat:
- Distributing Title I funding as block grants—as proposed in Project 2025—would eliminate oversight of how states spend the funds. Another analysis warned that 180,000 teaching positions could be lost in low-income communities.
- Moving the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act program to another agency could mean less support for the 7.5 million students who now receive $15 billion in services.
- Moving the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to the Department of Justice could “severely weaken its ability to protect students against discrimination based on race, gender, and disability.”
- Disruptions to Pell Grants, federal student loans, and loan repayment and forgiveness programs would limit students’ access to higher education and drive current college students to drop out.
How does the Department of Education end?
The Trump administration is reportedly drafting an executive order that would begin shrinking the Department of Education. He is then expected to call on Congress to pass legislation abolishing the agency.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky has introduced such a bill, which contains just one sentence: “The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2026.”
“States and local communities are best positioned to shape curricula that meet the needs of their students,” Massie said in a statement. “Schools should be accountable. Parents have the right to choose the most appropriate educational opportunity for their children, including homeschool, public school or private school.”
