{"id":24597,"date":"2025-03-20T22:19:23","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T22:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=24597"},"modified":"2025-03-20T22:19:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T22:19:23","slug":"trump-orders-a-plan-to-dismantle-the-education-department-while-keeping-some-core-functions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=24597","title":{"rendered":"Trump orders a plan to dismantle the Education Department while keeping some core functions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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WASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0President Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0signed an executive order Thursday calling for the dismantling of the\u00a0U.S. Education Department<\/a>, advancing a campaign promise to take apart an agency that\u2019s been a longtime target of conservatives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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The department, however, is not set to close completely. The White House said the department will retain certain critical functions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Trump said his administration will close the department beyond its \u201ccore 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The president blamed the department for America\u2019s lagging academic performance and said states will do a better job.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s doing us no good,” he said at a White House ceremony.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Already, Trump’s Republican administration has been gutting the agency. Its workforce is being\u00a0slashed in half<\/a>, and there have been\u00a0deep cuts<\/a>\u00a0to the Office for Civil Rights and the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nation\u2019s academic progress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Advocates for public schools said eliminating the department would leave children behind in an American education system that is\u00a0fundamentally unequal<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThis 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,\u201d NAACP President Derrick Johnson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Democrats said the order will be fought in the courts and in Congress, and they urged Republicans to join them in opposition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Trump’s order is \u201cdangerous and illegal\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The department “was founded in part to guarantee the enforcement of students\u2019 civil rights,\u201d Scott said. \u201cChampions of public school segregation objected, and campaigned for a return to \u2018states\u2019 rights.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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Supporters of Trump’s vision for education welcomed the order.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cNo more bloated bureaucracy dictating what kids learn or stifling innovation with red tape,\u201d Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, said on social media. \u201cStates, communities, and parents can take the reins \u2014 tailoring education to what actually works for their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The White House has not spelled out formally which department functions could be handed off to other departments or eliminated altogether.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The department sends billions of dollars a year to schools and oversees $1.6 trillion in federal student loans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Currently, much of the agency\u2019s work revolves around managing money \u2014 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\u00a0civil rights enforcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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 \u201cblock grants\u201d 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\u2019s K-12 schools. Families of\u00a0children with disabilities<\/a>\u00a0have despaired over what could come of the federal department’s work protecting their rights.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Federal funding makes up a relatively small portion of public school budgets \u2014 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Colleges and universities are more reliant on money from Washington, through research grants along with federal financial aid that helps students pay their tuition.<\/p>\n

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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\u2019 groups demand more authority over their children\u2019s schooling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In his platform, Trump promised to close the department \u201cand send it back to the states, where it belongs.\u201d Trump has cast the department as a hotbed of \u201cradicals, zealots and Marxists\u201d who overextend their reach through guidance and regulation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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\u00a0transgender athletes participating in women’s sports<\/a>, pro-Palestinian activism and diversity programs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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 \u201ctrying to exert ever more control over local schools and dictate what they can and cannot teach.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even some of Trump\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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During Trump\u2019s first term, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos sought to dramatically reduce the agency\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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Leavitt is one of three administration officials named\u00a0in a lawsuit by The Associated Press<\/a>\u00a0on 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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