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President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for the dismantling of the U.S. Education Department, advancing a campaign promise to take apart an agency that’s been a longtime target of conservatives.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun was on hand for the ceremony along with a handful of other Republican governors to applaud the move.
“Education is a state and local responsibility,” Braun said on X. “I support President Trump’s bold action to return education to where it belongs and to put parents in the driver’s seat of their children’s education.”
Trump has derided the Education Department as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, completing its dismantling is most likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979. Republicans said they will introduce a bill to achieve that.
The department, however, is not set to close completely. The White House said the department will retain certain critical functions.
Trump said his administration will close the department beyond its “core necessities,” preserving its responsibilities for Title I funding for low-income schools, Pell grants and money for children with disabilities. The White House said earlier it would also continue to manage federal student loans.
The president blamed the department for America’s lagging academic performance and said states will do a better job.
“It’s doing us no good,” he said at a White House ceremony.
Education is a state and local responsibility. I support President Trump’s bold action to return education to where it belongs and to put parents in the driver’s seat of their children’s education. Indiana is leading the way, having jumped from a middle of the pack state to sixth…
— Governor Mike Braun (@GovBraun) March 20, 2025
Already, Trump’s Republican administration has 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 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,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said.
Democrats said the order will be fought in the courts and in Congress, and they urged Republicans to join them in opposition.
Trump’s order is “dangerous and illegal” and will disproportionately hurt low-income students, students of color and those with disabilities, said Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
The department “was founded in part to guarantee the enforcement of students’ civil rights,” Scott said. “Champions of public school segregation objected, and campaigned for a return to ‘states’ rights.’”
Supporters of Trump’s vision for education welcomed the order.
“No more bloated bureaucracy dictating what kids learn or stifling innovation with red tape,” Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, said on social media. “States, communities, and parents can take the reins—tailoring education to what actually works for their kids.”
The White House has not spelled out formally which department functions could be handed off to other departments or eliminated altogether.
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, like school meals and support for homeless students. The agency also is key in overseeing civil rights enforcement.
States and districts already control local schools, including curriculum, but some conservatives have pushed to cut strings attached to federal money and provide it to states as “block grants” to be used at their discretion. Block granting has raised questions about vital funding sources including Title I, the largest source of federal money to America’s K-12 schools. Families of children with disabilities have despaired over what could come of the federal department’s work protecting their rights.
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.
Even as Trump moves to dismantle the department, he has leaned on it to promote elements of his agenda. He has used investigative powers of the Office for Civil Rights and the threat of withdrawing federal education money 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.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a Democrat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, dismissed Trump’s claim that he’s returning education to the states. She said he is actually “trying to exert ever more control over local schools and dictate what they can and cannot teach.”
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, 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. That move was rejected, with pushback from some Republicans.
Leavitt is one of three administration officials named in a lawsuit by The Associated Press on First and Fifth Amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
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I just have to assume Braun is too stupid to know that the Fed’s subsidize Indiana education to the tune of about $1,700/a year per student.
I guess this is in line with the rest of the Republican platform on education. I hope somebody remembers this come election time when schools across the state are struggling to make up the shortfall and the state is still pushing for tax cuts.
The loser democrats have run the current system into the ground. all you can talk about is shortfall – like more money (other peoples money to boot) will fix it. the democrats have run this country into the ground. every democrat controlled state is in bad shape. this is a great start – let’s trim down local government next.
@DD er, the blue states mostly support the red states. Just sayin’…
DD – when did Indiana become a blue state?
Everything education is run by the state – imagine being so confidently wrong and calling yourself a loser
Good. The results speak for themselves.
What a disgrace
With payroll of $602 Million a year, a major reduction of staff at the DOE would probably benefit all of us! The states, schools, and the students the most. The USA has proven since 1979, that the federal government can’t educate our kids through bureaucracy.
Just because the rest of you squandered your educational opportunities doesn’t mean America should doom itself to being a third world country
It is clear that people don’t understand what the federal department of education does versus the state department of education. That includes Trump based on statements he has made. Most of the complaints people have made are regarding legislation at the state and local level. If the money that Indiana was getting from the Federal DoE doesn’t get redirected, then this change will cost Indiana schools a lot of money. This is another one of those programs where we get more out of it than we put in.
Let’s see how Braun says Indiana is going to cover the services that being defunded.
To be clear – streamlining staffing of all departments including the DoE should be happening; however, you don’t cut your leg off because you stubbed your toe. Braun is helping cut Indiana’s leg off on this one.
Kids with special needs, kids with socioeconomic needs, and many more are going to feel the impact if this defunding actually occurs. I hope Congress steps up and does their job.
Good comment. They may understand (maybe) but know that their constituents don’t so they just repeat the same talking points (lies).
In the 2021-2022 school year Indiana’s public K-12 public schools received $2 billion from the federal government. Cutting off such funding will have serious, negative consequences for our children and grandchildren.
Anyone who thinks dismantling the Federal DoE is bad for education in the USA doesn’t understand what’s been going on. And the support the Fed’s currently provide to the states will be block-granted directly back to the states, rather than skimmed by the Feds.
Steven, can you please tell us what legislation has been introduced in Congress to continue the block grants to the states? Or guarantee the nearly $2 billion Indiana receives will not be diverted to offset tax cuts for the oligarchs?
Just raise property taxes. Problem solved.
Apparently you missed Braun’s press release asking for the opposite.
Clearly that’s what the Democrats, I mean the Teachers’ Unions (same thing), would do, if the voters had elected enough of them.