Trump prepares order dismantling the Education Department
Cory Turner
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon leaves the House chamber after President Trump addresses to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday.
President Trump is expected to issue an executive action as early as Thursday calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education,” according to a draft of the action obtained by NPR.
The move has been expected since early February, when the White House revealed its intentions but withheld the action itself until after McMahon’s Senate confirmation.
The Senate voted Monday to make McMahon the next education secretary. Democrats uniformly opposed her after McMahon publicly committed to unwinding the department.
The draft action instructs McMahon to act “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law,” an acknowledgement that the department and its signature responsibilities were created by Congress, are protected by statute and cannot legally be altered without congressional approval, which would almost certainly require 60 votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster.
News of the action was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The order offers as justification for the department’s closure that, “since its founding in 1979, the Department of Education has spent more than $1 trillion without producing virtually any improvement in student reading and mathematics scores.”
According to The Nation’s Report Card, one of the oldest and most reliable barometers of student achievement in the U.S., reading scores changed little between 1992 and 2019, though math achievement improved considerably. The pandemic though wrought havoc on student achievement, with many learning gaps remaining nearly five years after schools first closed.
The draft executive action declares “the experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars … has failed our children.”
On average, federal dollars make up roughly 10% of public schools’ funding, the lion’s share coming from states and local taxes. Those federal dollars are also largely targeted to help the nation’s most vulnerable students: those living in low-income communities, including millions of rural students, and children with disabilities. The department is prohibited by law from telling schools what, or how, to teach.
Within hours of McMahon’s confirmation Monday, she shared a lengthy message with Education Department staff attempting to rally support for the department’s unwinding, calling it “our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students.”
The executive action also arrives as the department has already been the subject of widespread cuts and staff departures. Last month, the administration gutted the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which is responsible for gathering and disseminating data on a wide range of topics, including research-backed teaching practices and the state of U.S. student achievement.
Among the canceled department grants were programs exploring how to accelerate students’ math learning and efforts to study how best to prepare some students with disabilities for the difficult transition from high school into the working world.
The Trump administration has also laid off dozens of newer, probationary employees and put dozens more on paid leave for having any associations with DEIA programs, including some who were encouraged to attend a diversity workshop during the first Trump administration.
During her Senate confirmation hearing, McMahon was asked about this looming executive action and whether she would faithfully execute it. She would, she said.
“We’d like to do this right,” McMahon told the committee, saying she would present Congress with a plan to unwind even the department’s key, statutory responsibilities “that I think our senators could get on board with.”
Multiple senators asked whether the department’s dismantling would include cuts to two key federal funding streams for K-12 schools: Title I for students in lower-income communities and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for students with disabilities.
McMahon said repeatedly that she considers the department separate from that funding. The former, she said, can be dismantled without affecting the latter. “It is not the president’s goal to defund the programs. It was only to have it operate more efficiently.”
Later, McMahon elaborated that IDEA funding, for example, is protected by statute and would not be targeted for cuts. But, she offered, it might be more effectively administered by a different agency, perhaps the Department of Health and Human Services.
The department also has legal authority to enforce federal civil rights laws on behalf of students, and it’s unclear how its unwinding would affect the department’s Office for Civil Rights. Though the Trump administration has already sent a warning to all schools that receive federal money, K-12 and colleges alike, that they must stop all DEIA programs or risk being investigated by the department and potentially losing their federal funding.
House Republicans have tried before to close the department and failed, and Republicans enjoy only narrow majorities in the House and Senate. Many of the department’s statutory responsibilities enjoy the support of Republicans as well as Democrats.
The Education Department is among the smallest of all federal agencies, with roughly 4,200 employees. According to the website for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the wages of Education Department employees account for 0.31% of all federal wages.
In an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll taken late last month, 63% of Americans surveyed said they would oppose getting rid of the department, compared with 37% who supported its closure.
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Trump preparing executive order telling education secretary to dissolve Department of Education: Sources
A draft of the executive order emphasized returning education to the states.
Linda McMahon confirmed as secretary of education
President Donald Trump is expected to take the extraordinary step this week of directing his secretary of education to dissolve the U.S. Department of Education by executive order, according to sources familiar with a draft.
A draft of the executive order calls on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate a department closure by taking all necessary steps “permitted by law,” the sources said.
However, such a move would require congressional approval; any proposed legislation would likely fail without 60 Senate votes.
McMahon has previously acknowledged she would need Congress to carry out the president’s vision to close the department she’s been tapped to lead.
“We’d like to do this right,” she said during her confirmation hearing last month, adding: “That certainly does require congressional action.”
The move has been months in the making, helping the president inch one step closer to fulfilling his campaign promise of returning education to the states.
The draft is clear about the necessity to do so, sources said.
“The Federal bureaucratic hold on education must end,” a draft of the president’s executive order stated, according to those familiar with the document. “The Department of Education’s main functions can, and should, be returned to the States.”
McMahon is also compelled by the draft to allocate federal funding for education programs subject to rigorous compliance with the law and administration policy.
“The experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars – – and the unaccountable bureaucrats those programs and dollars support – – has failed our children, our teachers, and our families,” the draft said, according to sources.
However, critics argued that the department provides vital financial assistance and grant programs. It holds schools accountable for enforcing nondiscrimination laws for gender, race and disability — specifically, Title IX, Title VI and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Americans with Disabilities Act.
Closing the agency would “really cripple the ability to function and aid the support that these students need to really succeed from an academic standpoint,” Augustus Mays, vice president for partnerships and engagement at the advocacy group The Education Trust, told ABC News.
Education experts suggested that shuttering the ED could gut public education funding and disproportionately impact high-need students across the country who rely on statutorily authorized programs, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Title I, which provides funding for low-income families.
An end to the department could also leave billions of dollars’ worth of funds, scholarships and grants hanging in the balance for millions of students in the U.S.
The draft also instructed any program or activity receiving federal funding to “terminate” its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, citing concerns for race- and sex-based discrimination.
The draft’s circulation comes just days after the agency launched EndDEI.Ed.Gov, a website that allows users to submit discrimination-focused complaints and aims to strictly enforce the Title VI civil rights law in schools.
The current version of the executive order blasted education spending that does not correlate with adequate results on exams like the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which has been dubbed “the nation’s report card,” sources said.
Meanwhile, it directed McMahon to return decision-making authority to parents and families in order to improve the “education, well-being, and future success” of the nation’s children.
McMahon allies believe that her experience as the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment will aid her in being an agent of change, a disrupter and the dismantler that the department needs.
In a department-wide email on Monday, the newly sworn-in secretary said her final mission is to do a “historic overhaul” of the agency that cuts red tape and restores the American education system.
“My vision is aligned with the President’s: to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children,” McMahon’s memo said.
Dozens of ED employees have already been placed on paid administrative leave, pressured to retire or laid off in the first few months of Trump’s second term.
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President Donald Trump is expected to issue an executive order, possibly Thursday, aimed at abolishing the Department of Education, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The newspaper cited several people briefed on the matter and reviewed a draft of the order.
It directs newly sworn Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Education Department” based on “the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”
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Trump has tapped Linda McMahon to lead the Department of Education. (Reuters)
“The experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars—and the unaccountable bureaucrats those programs and dollars support—has failed our children, our teachers, and our families,” the draft order reads.
Shortly after taking her position, McMahon said she would “send education back to the states.”
Trump has long talked about dismantling the Department of Education, saying it has failed America’s students.
“It’s a big con job,” the president said in November. “They ranked the top countries in the world. We’re ranked No. 40, but we’re ranked No. 1 in one department: cost per pupil. So, we spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, but we’re ranked No. 40.”
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McMahon was confirmed by the Senate on Monday to serve as the next Secretary of Education. (Getty Images)
In a letter to Democratic members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), McMahon said that she “wholeheartedly” agreed with Trump’s plan to abolish the department.
With around 4,500 employees, the department is the smallest cabinet-level agency, the Wall Street Journal reported. It is currently offering an incentive of up to $25,000 to the majority of its staff to resign or retire by Monday evening ahead of rumored work force reductions.
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“President Trump believes that the bureaucracy in Washington should be abolished so that we can return education to the states, where it belongs. I wholeheartedly support and agree with this mission,” McMahon wrote.
Under McMahon, the department will work from three base convictions, according to her letter: that parents are the primary decision makers in their children’s education, that taxpayer-funded education should refocus on “meaningful learning in math, reading, science, and history—not divisive DEI programs and gender ideology,” and that post-secondary education should be a path to a well-paying career aligned with workforce needs.
Fox News Digital’s Aubrie Spady contributed to this report.
Louis Casiano is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to louis.casiano@fox.com.
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