Trump Dismantling Education Department
For some reason, President Trump does not like education, particularly education for the low income and disadvantaged. He has signed an executive order to close down and dismantle the US Department of Education. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/improving-education-outcomes-by-empowering-parents-states-and-communities/ and
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/20/trump-executive-order-education-department He has already fired half the Department’s staff and brought in right wing think tankers who support book banning, ending diversity programs, and inculcating Christianity through the nation’s public schools. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/20/trump-executive-order-education-department
What does the federal Department of Education do? It does not run schools nor set their curriculum; it does not hire or fire the teachers, but it does provide education funding to those who most need it. It helps to fund education for the developmentally disabled (IDEA: $15.5 billion) and it helps to fund schools in high poverty communities (Title 1: $18.4 billion). https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/20/trump-executive-order-education-department Federal funds make up about 10% of K-12 public school budgets and 20% in poorer red states. It administers the student loan and grant programs that help families afford the costs of higher education ($1.6 trillion).
What is going to happen to those programs? Who knows, so stay tuned. The President cannot shut down the US Department of Education, only Congress can do that; Congress created it by legislation back in the late 70’s under President Carter. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79zxzj90nno Congress created and funded the programs that it runs. Some GOP leaders in Congress want to simply block grant the federal funds to the states with no strings attached. Trump wants to transfer these already underfunded programs willy nilly to different federal agencies: for example student loans to the SBA (Small Business Association), IDEA over to HHS – agencies that have no demonstrated or developed expertise in education and are already overstretched due to Trump/Musk personnel cuts in managing their existing responsibilities.
The US Department of Education also collects data and compiles the results into Score Cards that track how the nation’s public schools are doing in educating the nation’s children. It also administers the civil rights laws such as Title IX, Title VI and Section 504 governing sex discrimination, racial discrimination and disability discrimination. https://19thnews.org/2025/03/trump-executive-order-department-of-education/ Without the Department of Education, there would be no comparable nationwide data to track the comparative performance of states and local school districts, and no enforcement where necessary of the nation’s civil rights laws governing education. The Trump Administration just deleted the clause in federal contracts that bars segregated facilities. https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/03/18/nx-s1-5326118/segregation-federal-contracts-far-regulation-trump
“Trump has advocated for the Department of Education’s dismantling and for vouchers that give families taxpayer dollars to send their children to private schools. But an estimated 90 percent of K-12 students attend public schools, making the elimination of the Department of Education a risky political decision for the president.” https://19thnews.org/2025/03/trump-executive-order-department-of-education/
President George W Bush secured passage of his signature legislation “No Child Left Behind” and worked hard to improve educational outcomes. https://www.georgewbushlibrary.gov/research/topic-guides/education President Obama modified the program, built on its successes, helped increase critically needed funding for community colleges and early learning programs. https://talkpoverty.org/2016/12/16/obama-legacy-education/index.html The nation’s academic performance improved during the Bush and Obama efforts. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt/?age=9/
They then plateaued during the first part of Trump’s first term then dropped considerably during the pandemic and its aftermath (i.e. the Trump and Biden years). https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt/?age=9/ This was accompanied by declining student enrollment in and attendance at public schools. The reasons are two fold: 1) the pandemic and the consequent disruptions in student learning over the course of 2 school years, and 2) really bad and sharply declining scores for the students with the biggest learning challenges. https://www.chalkbeat.org/2025/01/29/naep-reading-scores-decline-and-struggling-students-fall-behind/#:~:text=Scores%20saw%20a%20dramatic%20decline,both%20fourth%20and%20eighth%20graders. There is nothing in Trump’s proposal to eliminate the Department of Education that will in any way help the nation’s struggling local public schools and the students with obstacles to learning, and much that may well harm and disrupt them.
Trump and his henchpersons at DOE want to control what books students read, what is in their curriculum, the standards for teacher and staff hiring and promotions, disrupt the financing, and destroy the agency that keeps track of student progress and helps fund the schools and students with the biggest learning challenges.
“The Education Department annually distributes $120.8 billion in grants and federal loans to college-bound students, according to the office of Federal Student Aid. The Department of Education was already the smallest Cabinet agency, with just over 4,000 employees. Its budget constituted roughly 4 percent of overall spending, costing American taxpayers $268 billion in 2024, just $14 billion more than it had when President Jimmy Carter brought it into existence in 1979.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-newest-executive-order-gets-150016500.html