Trump calls for the elimination of Education Department

There have been plenty of surprises out of the White House since Donald Trump reclaimed the presidency in January.

But Trump’s signing an executive order Thursday to begin dismantling the U.S. Department of Education isn’t one of them.

Long before he was reelected, presidential candidate Trump pledged to scrap the 46-year-old federal agency, saying “we will move everything back to the states where it belongs.”

And after his inauguration, Trump called the DOE “a big con job” — adding that he wanted newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon “to put herself out of a job.”

At a White House gathering Thursday afternoon that included several kids seated at school desks and flanking the president, Trump called his executive order to begin eliminating the Education Department “a very historic action that was 45 years in the making.”

Everybody, Trump said — including Democrats — knows that eliminating the education department is the correct thing to do.

“Ultimately, it may come before them — but everybody knows it’s right,” he said. “We have to get our children educated. We’re not doing well with the world of education in this country, and we haven’t for a long time.”

The Department of Education won’t go away solely with Trump’s executive order signature. That’s up to Congress to ultimately decide.

And on Thursday morning, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the department would not be completely eliminated, saying its “critical functions” would continue, including the enforcement of civil rights laws and oversight of student loans and Pell Grants, NBC News reported.

“The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today,” Leavitt said, adding that the executive order directed McMahon “to greatly minimize the agency. So when it comes to student loans and Pell Grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education.”

During Thursday’s White House event, Trump said the nation spends more money than all other countries on education — yet ranks near the bottom in terms of success.

Meanwhile, he said, federal bureaucracy has exploded the DOE’s budget.

The president added that many of the Education Department’s “useful functions” — including Pell Grants and Title I funding and resources for children with disabilities and special needs, “will be fully preserved” and “redistributed to various other agencies and departments.”

After taking all lawful steps, he added, “were going to shut (the DOE) down as quickly as possible. It’s doing us no good.

“We want to return our students to the states.”

Trump added Thursday that the costs of educating America’s children and college students without the DOE will likely be sliced in half — “and the education will be maybe many, many times better.”

But regardless of what awaits, Thursday’s announcement marked a historic moment in the American education system as the country’s chief executive leader formally moved to eliminate a high-profile element of his administration.

Earlier this week, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox threw his support behind Trump’s actions against the DOE, writing in an op-ed that “education is, and always has been, a state and local responsibility.”

Today’s DOE: A shell of a federal agency

Even before Thursday’s executive order, DOE operations had been severely diminished by the Trump administration.

Roughly half the people who were working at the agency when the president took office just over 60 days ago are now, or soon will be, former employees.

Last week, McMahon announced layoffs of over 1,300 DOE employees. Add that figure to the number of department workers who left in recent weeks through buyout offers or were terminated because they were probationary employees — and the department’s staff is now roughly 50% of its previous 4,100.

The employees who received last week’s pink slips were expected be placed on administrative leave beginning Thursday.

News out of the DOE in recent weeks has not been limited to layoffs and anticipated executive orders.

Last week, the University of Utah and 44 other higher education institutions were told they were being investigated by the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights for allegedly using “racial preferences and stereotypes” in education programs and activities.

That followed news of another DOE investigation involving 60 colleges or universities accused of “antisemitic discrimination and harassment.”

How will K-12 and higher education be impacted?

If Congress ultimately eliminates the DOE, it won’t have a direct effect on what’s being taught in Utah classrooms — or anywhere else in the country. That’s because student curriculum is already determined by local schools and districts.

But the agency does play a significant financial role in both higher and secondary education.

In higher education, the Education Department oversees the Free Application for Student Aid, or FAFSA, and the massive federal student loan and grant programs (the federal direct student loans program has a portfolio of outstanding loans totaling well over $1 trillion).

Recently, some student loan borrowers are seeing their payments skyrocket amid changes to the Education Department, Newsweek reported.

Trump has updated the department’s income-driven federal student loan repayment programs, causing some borrowers to see their monthly payments rise to anywhere from $500 to $5,000.

Earlier this month, Trump said that the Education Department’s student loan portfolio would be moved if the department is ever fully eliminated by Congress.

“What we’re currently seeing is the worst-case scenario for student loan borrowers,” Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek

“Not only are the plans introduced in recent years that provided additional student loan repayment and forgiveness options going away, but much of the staff that oversaw these programs and were able to provide assistance to these borrowers have been let go.”

Meanwhile, the department’s largest K-12 role is overseeing implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which requires states to monitor their schools’ progress and intervene in poorly performing schools in exchange for federal money, including funding from Title I, an $18.4 billion program, according to Education Week.

The DOE also administers the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act — a $14.2 billion program that helps schools pay for special education services for students with disabilities.

And, as The Washington Post reported, the agency is charged with enforcing civil rights laws that bar discrimination in federally funded schools on the basis of race, sex and other factors.

In 2020-21, the most recent year for which federal data is available, the federal government picked up the tab for 10.6% of the nation’s spending on public schools — and that share was elevated due to the infusion of COVID-19-relief funds, Education Week reported. Conservatives argue the money should be sent back to the states so they can decide how to spend it.

More than 108,000 Utah K-12 students benefit from federal funds allocated by the Department of Education, including Title I money.

Officials at the Utah State Board of Education have said they are waiting to see developments out of Washington, D.C., before articulating a response to a possible DOE overhaul.

Many worry that the upheaval of the DOE would harm kids from disadvantaged homes and communities whose schools receive allotments from the federal agency.

But in his recent op-ed, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox countered that Utah has a “long track record of investing in education” — including supporting low-income schools.

“But we could do it with more flexibility, less bureaucracy, and greater accountability to Utah families — not Washington regulators.”

The National School Lunch Program, which reimburses Utah schools and other states for students receiving free or reduced school meals, is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture — not the DOE.

Utah leaders applaud Trump’s order — while others voice worries

When asked Thursday about the DOE executive order, Cox said that the nation’s founders never intended the federal government to “be playing a role in education.”

Under the Constitution, he added, education is the purview of the state government.

Cox also cited “the overwhelming regulatory burden” imposed by the federal agency for “just the reporting requirements alone.”

Many teachers have to spend their time away from the classroom because they are required to fill out “form after form, report after report.”

The governor also said the federal bureaucracy prevents money from reaching students.

Cox advocated for states drawing down block grants to more efficiently fund needed programs.

“Let us implement our education policies in our state, and we’ll all be better off without the bureaucracy,” he said.

Utah Rep. Burgess Owens was enthused by Thursday’s executive order, telling the Deseret News that Trump’s actions are imperative. “For us to grow as a country and to survive and thrive, we need to have an educated populace.”

The Department of Education, he added, has failed “two generations of children” because of its bloated bureaucracy. As a result, many American kids are reaching eighth grade without basic reading and math skills.

Allowing the states to have greater access to funds now controlled by the DOE, said Owens, would promote meritocracy, improve performances and provide choices for students and their parents.

When asked about concerns that upheaval in the DOE might harm both K-12 and higher education students, the congressman said it is the Education Department that has harmed students in struggling communities.

“We need to make sure our at-risk kids are being taken care of,” he said. Dismantling the DOE will better ensure tax dollars are reaching students “and not going through all the bureaucracy.”

Owens is confident that over the next few years, the American people will recognize the results prompted by Thursday’s executive order.

“I’m very excited about this opportunity — and very excited about the president who keeps his word,” he said. “Now it’s just a matter for the American people to just of watch and see what he results.

“If we are winning with our kids, this is the way we should keep it going from his point moving forward.”

Thursday’s event prompted sharp rebuke from NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who told The Associated Press that the Trump administration’s DOE move is part of a larger effort to dismantle democracy — adding that only Congress has the power to establish or get rid of a department.

“Let’s be clear — this executive order is unconstitutional, but to Donald Trump, the rule of law doesn’t seem to matter,” Johnson said in a statement.

“This is a dark day for the millions of American children who depend on federal funding for a quality education, including those in poor and rural communities with parents who voted for Trump.”

Johnson said the attacks on public education are really about privatizing essential service, the Associated Press reported.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., said Trump’s order is “dangerous and illegal” and will disproportionately hurt low-income students, students of color and those with disabilities.

The department “was founded in part to guarantee the enforcement of students’ civil rights,” said Scott, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

What’s next for the DOE?

Republicans have talked about closing the Education Department for decades, saying it wastes taxpayer money and inserts the federal government into decisions that should fall to states and schools, The Associated Press reported.

The idea has gained popularity recently as conservative parents’ groups demand more authority over their children’s schooling.

In his platform, Trump promised to close the department “and send it back to the states, where it belongs.” Trump has cast the department as a hotbed of “radicals, zealots and Marxists” who overextend their reach through guidance and regulation, the AP report added.

There remain doubts about the political popularity of eliminating the DOE, according to The Associated Press.

The House considered an amendment to close the agency in 2023, but 60 Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it.

During Trump’s first term, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos sought to dramatically reduce the agency’s budget and asked Congress to bundle all K-12 funding into block grants that give states more flexibility in how they spend federal money. It was rejected, with pushback from some Republicans.