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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowPresident Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Thursday calling for the shutdown of the U.S. Education Department, according to a White House official, advancing a campaign promise to eliminate an agency that’s been a longtime target of conservatives.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity before an announcement.
Trump has derided the Department of Education as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, finalizing its dismantling is likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979.
A White House fact sheet said the order would direct Secretary Linda McMahon “to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure (of) the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”
The Trump administration has already been gutting the agency. Its workforce is being slashed in half and there have been deep cuts to the Office for Civil Rights and the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nation’s academic progress.
Advocates for public schools said eliminating the department would leave children behind in an American education system that is fundamentally unequal.
“This isn’t fixing education. It’s making sure millions of children never get a fair shot. And we’re not about to let that happen without a fight,” the National Parents Union said in a statement.
The White House has not spelled out formally which department functions could be handed off to other departments, or eliminated altogether. At her confirmation hearing, McMahon said she would preserve core initiatives, including Title I money for low-income schools and Pell grants for low-income college students. The goal of the administration, she said, would be “a better functioning Department of Education.”
The department sends billions of dollars a year to schools and oversees $1.6 trillion in federal student loans.
Currently, much of the agency’s work revolves around managing money—both its extensive student loan portfolio and a range of aid programs for colleges and school districts, from school meals to support for homeless students. The agency also plays a significant role in overseeing civil rights enforcement.
Federal funding makes up a relatively small portion of public school budgets—roughly 14%. The money often supports supplemental programs for vulnerable students, such as the McKinney-Vento program for homeless students or Title I for low-income schools.
Colleges and universities are more reliant on money from Washington, through research grants along with federal financial aid that helps students pay their tuition.
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 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.
At the same time, Trump has leaned on the Education Department to promote elements of his agenda. He has used investigative powers of the Office for Civil Rights and the threat of withdrawing federal education funding to target schools and colleges that run afoul of his orders on transgender athletes participating in women’s sports, pro-Palestinian activism and diversity programs.
Even some of Trump’s allies have questioned his power to close the agency without action from Congress, and there are doubts about its political popularity. 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.
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Another Department of Waste and Boondoggles.
Keep shrinking it all.
No tax dollars for private Universities.
And let the States and local families choose where their tax money goes.
Federal government hasn’t improved education results since 1979.
it has gotten worse!
“in order to make a more perfect union” We need boatloads of stupid people who won’t question of be able to challenge us, the uber rich religions oligarchs…
Well, a couple of thougts…
One of the reasons for the lack of improvement is that now the pool of those being evaluated is larger. Formerly, states tended to not test or evaluate, or to underevaluate, those whom they suspected (or knew) were not performing well. Inner-city schools, failing rural schools. For the most part, the testing and evaluation were done to college-bound or other more capable students or school systems. Why test you if we know you’re going to fail?
We also have a problem selecting where the money goes. It’s very popular to send funds to charter and voucher programs, but other than some religous-based schools (primarily the Catholic schools, and some Protestant schools) those voucher programs and charter schools tend to do no better than the public schools they replace. Full disclosure: I’m Catholic. I attended Catholic or Catholic-related schools most of my primary and secondary educational career.
But my grandkids attended one of those charter schools for awhile, and as a group the school did not succeed. In fact, I thought the kids slid back half a year. Private or public, charter or public, what is required is an environment of educational success. Strong discipline, uniforms, after school detention, ineligibility for extra curricular activities, especially sports.
In all, other local issues tend to get in the way of educational success, and offset federal fund support. But you don’t have to look too deeply into the news these days to find pro-Trump local officials who are now worried what the loss of Department of Education funding, and school meal funding, will do to their students. And experience taught us years ago state legislatures are not likely to step in as a positive influence. One need look no further than the Indiana legislatures and Indiana Republican governors to see how they would prefer to dumb-down the high school degree requirements and overall educational attainment. It pretty much took the Presidents of the Indiana public universities writing a letter to advise the State Commission on Higher Education their new degree requirements would result in Indiana high school grads not being accepted to public universities to get the degree requirements somewhat restored.
Amazing that so many of us thrived and prospered in public schools, even growing up like I did in a depressed rust belt communities, before there was a Dept. of Education…
Amazing how many prospered thanks to the GI bill too…
Baby boomers, the “pull the ladder up behind us” generation.
And yet so many didn’t…
count your blessings…I bet you had a family that also thrived.