Turns Out, Trump Wasn't Joking About Killing the Dept. of Education
McMahon body slams department, decimates functional effectiveness
Following President Trump’s election win, he indicated a desire to essentially end the U.S. Department of Education, also a goal of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
Now, that ending seems to be here.
In a press release, the Education Department describes shifting significant agency responsibilities to other branches of government:
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) today announced six new interagency agreements (IAAs) with four agencies to break up the federal education bureaucracy, ensure efficient delivery of funded programs, activities, and move closer to fulfilling the President’s promise to return education to the states. By partnering with agencies that are best positioned to deliver results for students and taxpayers, these IAAs will streamline federal education activities on the legally required programs, reduce administrative burdens, and refocus programs and activities to better serve students and grantees.
What they call “partnerships” essentially represent the department ceding responsibility for large portions of its current work.
The Washington Post has more:
The department has signed interagency agreements to outsource six programs to other agencies, including offices that administer $28 billion in grants to K-12 schools and $3.1 billion for programs that help students finish college.
Other major functions of the Education Department, including its Office for Civil Rights and the federal student aid program, also were not affected by these changes, but a senior department official told reporters that officials are exploring options for moving those programs elsewhere in the government.
The Education Department has been among the federal agencies subject to assault under the Trump Administration. While actually ending these Cabinet agencies requires an act of Congress, the Administration is effectively “killing them from within.”
Why does it matter? Make no mistake — this is not just an attack on “bureaucracy,” and it’s not in any way going to make anything more efficient. Let’s call this what it is: a direct assault on millions of students, teachers, and families. Trump’s actions have already triggered mass layoffs, with thousands of Dept. of Ed employees losing their jobs overnight. Many of those laid off are lawyers who work to oversee and protect the civil rights of America’s students. Others run programs to fund school meals, after-school tutoring, and major programs like IDEA for students with disabilities and Title I for low-income students.
One need only look to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to see how Team Trump works at ending federal programs:
Politico reports on the latest:
The Trump administration has formally determined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s current funding mechanism is unlawful, a move that puts the agency on track to close in the coming months when its existing cash runs out.
I suspect the Department of Education will face a similar fate: Key functions outsourced, funding ceased, staff in limbo - yes, the agency will still technically exist, but it will be unable to provide the support and protections schools and parents have come to count on.
The longer-term harm: Rebuilding this infrastructure will take time - meaning the impact will be felt long after Trump leaves office.
The long term ramfications of dismantling these protections are really troubling. Students with disabilities and those from low income familes rely on these federal safeguards. Rebuilding this infrastucture later will be incredibly difficult and costly, not to mention the immediate harm to millions of students who need these programs now.