Trump prepares to dismantle department education, as promised. Here’s what’s coming…

The Trump administration has reportedly begun preparing an executive order (EO) to essentially defund and dismantle the Education Department (DOE) as much as possible without congressional approval.

The EO would specifically make large cuts to department programs and staff, while also completely shutting down any programs that aren’t protected by law, according to NPR.

The EO would further move some current DOE responsibilities to another department or agency.

The EO would also call on Congress to complete the task in full by finally abolishing the Department of Education.

In signing the EO, Trump would be fulfilling a major campaign pledge:

“One thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington D.C. and sending all education and education work and needs back to the States,” he said in a video while on the campaign trail last year. “We want them to run the education of our children because they’ll do a much better job of it. You can’t do worse.”

“We spend more money per pupil, by three times, than any other nation. And yet we’re absolutely at the bottom. We’re one of the worst. So you can’t do worse. We’re going to end education coming out of Washington D.C. We’re going to close it up — all those buildings all over the place, and [you have] people that in many cases hate our children. We’re going to send it all back to the States,” he added.

The Education Department has existed since former President Jimmy Carter created it in 1979 at the behest of the country’s largest teachers union at the time, the National Education Association.

Since its creation in 1979, the department has faced increasing criticism over its blatant lack of results. As an example, consider the relationship between the department’s spending and kids’ test scores:

“I do not believe we need a federal department of homework checkers,” former House Speaker New Gingrich said back in 1995.

The actual work of dismantling the DOE is being performed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“[R]oughly 20 people with Elon Musk’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency,’ known as DOGE, have begun working inside the Education Department, looking to cut spending and staff,” the Washington Post reported Monday, citing three sources.

Meanwhile, dozens of DOE employees have reportedly been put on leave thanks to a separate executive order signed by Trump eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs from the department.

“At least 55 Education Department workers received an email Friday saying they were being put on paid leave effective immediately pursuant to Trump’s executive order,” according to the Associated Press.

“Those placed on leave lost access to their government email accounts and were told not to report to the office. They include a range of staff members and managers across the department, which employs more than 4,000 workers in Washington and regional offices across the country,” the AP’s reporting continued.

Democrats weren’t pleased by the ouster:

What’s unclear is how successful Trump will be in reforming the DOE.

“These are all programs that Congress established and knowingly housed inside the Department of Education, and any changes to those programs would not only be short-sighted but require a new vote of Congress,” former DOE lawyer Dan Zibel warned NPR.

“A lot of what the administration is doing is testing boundaries, so we’ll see how this works and what might happen in court,” Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute added. “I imagine there will be some thinning of the workforce, but it’s hard to predict how aggressively they’ll move.”

Vivek Saxena

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