WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Thursday calling for the dismantling of the U.S. Education Department, advancing a campaign promise to eliminate an agency that’s been a longtime target of conservatives.
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.
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.”
Trump’s action will make the department much smaller than it is today, but it will continue managing federal student loans and Pell grants, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday. Other critical department duties such as enforcement of civil rights will remain, she said, but she did not say how they will be fulfilled.
“The great responsibility of education, educating our nation’s students will return to the states,” Leavitt told reporters.
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. 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.
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.
