Department of Education

"We won't be silent as anti-public education politicians try to steal opportunities from our students, our families, and our communities to pay for tax cuts for billionaires," said the head of the nation's largest labor union.

By Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams

March 20, 2025 (Washington, D.C.) - U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday afternoon directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the process of shutting down the Department of Education.

"Hopefully she will be our last secretary of education," Trump said of McMahon, promising to "find something else" for the billionaire businesswoman to do.

Sunrise Movement, the youth-led climate campaign, responded to Trump's move by announcing a Friday "study-in" outside Department of Education headquarters in Washington, D.C.

As U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to sign an executive order Thursday directing officials to shut down the Department of Education, Democratic politicians, teachers and communities across the nation are vowing legal and other challenges to the move.

Trump is set to check off a longtime Republican wish list item by signing a directive ordering Education Secretary Linda McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the states."

Shutting down the department—which was created in 1979 to ensure equitable access to public education and employs more than 4,000 people—will require an act of Congress, both houses of which are controlled by Republicans.

Thursday's expected order follows the department's announcement earlier this month that it would fire half of its workforce. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and more than three dozen Democratic senators condemned the move and Trump's impending Department of Education shutdown as "a national disgrace."

Abolishing the Department of Education is one of the top goals of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led roadmap for a far-right takeover and gutting of the federal government closely linked to Trump, despite his unconvincing efforts to distance himself from the highly controversial plan.

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) called Trump's bid to abolish the Department of Education "more bullshit" and vowed to fight the president's "illegal behavior until the cows come home."

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said on social media: "Trump and his Cabinet of billionaires are trying to destroy the Department of Education so they can privatize more schools. The result: making it even harder to ensure that ALL students have access to a quality education. Another outrageous, illegal scam. We will fight this."

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, a Democrat, warned that "ending the U.S. Department of Education will decimate our education system and devastate families across the country."

"Support for students with special needs and those in rural and urban schools will be gone," he added. "We will stop at nothing to protect N.J. and fight this reckless action."

Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association (NEA)—the nation's largest labor union—said in a statement Thursday that "Donald Trump and Elon Musk have aimed their wrecking ball at public schools and the futures of the 50 million students in rural, suburban, and urban communities across America, by dismantling public education to pay for tax handouts for billionaires."

Musk—the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—is the world's richest person. Trump and McMahon are also billionaires.

"If successful, Trump's continued actions will hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle-class families, taking away special education services for students with disabilities, and gutting student civil rights protections," Pringle warned.

"This morning, in hundreds of communities across the nation, thousands of families, educators, students, and community leaders joined together outside of neighborhood public schools to rally against taking away resources and support for our students," she continued. "And, we are just getting started. Every day we are growing our movement to protect our students and public schools."

"We won't be silent as anti-public education politicians try to steal opportunities from our students, our families, and our communities to pay for tax cuts for billionaires," Pringle added. "Together with parents and allies, we will continue to organize, advocate, and mobilize so that all students have well-resourced schools that allow every student to grow into their full brilliance."

National Parents Union president Keri Rodrigues said that closing the Department of Education would disproportionately affect the most vulnerable students and communities.

"Let's be clear: Before federal oversight, millions of children—particularly those with disabilities and those from our most vulnerable communities—were denied the opportunities they deserved," Rodrigues said in a statement. "The Department of Education was created to ensure that every child, regardless of background or ZIP code, has access to a public education that prepares them for their future. Eliminating it would roll back decades of progress, leaving countless children behind in an education system that has historically failed the most marginalized."

The ACLU is circulating a petition calling on Congress to "save the Department of Education."

"The Department of Education has an enormous effect on the day-to-day lives of students across the country," the petition states. "They are tasked with protecting civil rights on campus and ensuring that every student—regardless of where they live; their family's income; or their race, sex, gender identity, or disability—has equal access to education."

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, responded to Trump's looming order in four words: "See you in court."

This article first appeared in Common Dreams and is featured in East County Magazine under a Creative Commons license.

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Elon Musk

Department of Education

News

Education

February 2025 Articles

This story was originally published by ProPublica.

By Jodi S. Cohen and Jennifer Smith Richards, ProPublica

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

February 11, 2025 (Washington, D.C.) - The Trump administration has terminated more than $900 million in Education Department contracts, taking away a key source of data on the quality and performance of the nation’s schools.

The cuts were made at the behest of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting crew, the Department of Government Efficiency, and were disclosed on X, the social media platform Musk owns, shortly after ProPublica posed questions to U.S. Department of Education staff about the decision to decimate the agency’s research and statistics arm, the Institute of Education Sciences.

A spokesperson for the department, Madi Biedermann, said that the standardized test known as the nation’s report card, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, would not be affected. Neither would the College Scorecard, which allows people to search for and compare information about colleges, she said.

IES is one of the country’s largest funders of education research, and the slashing of contracts could mean a significant loss of public knowledge about schools. The institute maintains a massive database of education statistics and contracts with scientists and education companies to compile and make data public about schools each year, such as information about school crime and safety and high school science course completion.

Its total annual budget is about $815 million, or roughly 1% of the Education Department’s overall budget of $82 billion this fiscal year. The $900 million in contracts the department is canceling includes multiyear agreements.

The vast trove of data represents much of what we know about the state of America’s roughly 130,000 schools, and without a national repository of data and statistics, it will be harder for parents and educators to track schools or compare the achievement of students across states.

There’s been a federal education statistics agency since 1867, though the current iteration was established in 2002 under President George W. Bush. Congress sets aside funding for the institute’s work.

Biedermann, the Education Department’s deputy assistant secretary for communications, told ProPublica she could not provide details about the canceled contracts, saying that “my understanding is we don’t release specific information.”

But she said there were 90 contracts that had been identified as “waste, fraud and abuse.” She said canceling them was “in line with the department’s goal of making sure it is focused on meaningful learning” and to “make sure taxpayer funds are used appropriately.”

She directed a reporter to the DOGE account on X for more details.

DOGE wrote in a post: “Also today, the Department Of Education terminated 89 contracts worth $881mm. One contractor was paid $1.5mm to ‘observe mailing and clerical operations’ at a mail center.”

The Trump administration has repeatedly expressed a desire to “return” responsibility for schools to the states, although state and local governments already control the largest share of funding for education. There’s no national curriculum; states and districts decide what to teach and dictate their own policies.

The American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit that conducts research in education and other areas, said Monday that it had received termination notices for multiple contracts that are underway, and that canceling them early would be a poor financial decision.

“This is an incredible waste of taxpayer dollars, which have been invested — per Congressional appropriations and many according to specific legislation — in long-standing data collection and analysis efforts, and policy and program evaluations,” spokesperson Dana Tofig said in an email. The nonprofit has contracted with the department for years.

Schools and districts across the country rely on research from the IES and contractors such as the American Institutes for Research to guide best practices in classrooms.

“These investments inform the entire education system at all levels about the condition of education and the distribution of students, teachers, and resources in school districts across America,” Tofig said.

“If the purpose of such cuts is to make sure taxpayer dollars are not wasted, and used well, the evaluation and data work that has been terminated is exactly the work that determines which programs are effective uses of federal dollars, and which are not.”

Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, blasted the contract terminations at IES. “An unelected billionaire is now bulldozing the research arm of the Department of Education — taking a wrecking ball to high-quality research and basic data we need to improve our public schools,” she said in a statement. “Cutting off these investments after the contract has already been inked is the definition of wasteful.”

We are continuing to report on the U.S. Department of Education. Are you a former or current Education Department employee? Are you a student or school employee impacted by changes at the department? You can reach our tip line on Signal at 917-512-0201. Please be as specific, detailed and clear as you can.

Read more about ELON MUSK'S TEAM DECIMATES EDUCATION DEPARTMENT ARM THAT TRACKS NATIONAL SCHOOL PERFORMANCE
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Department of Education

eliminate Department of Education

February 2025 Articles

Major funding for schools nationwide is at stake

By G.A. McNeeley

February 10, 2025 (Washington D.C.) – The Trump administration has begun drafting an executive order that would begin the process of eliminating the Department of Education, CNN reports. This order would instruct the Secretary of Education to create a plan to diminish the department through executive action. Since Congressional approval is required to eliminate any agency created by Congressional action, Trump also plans to push Congress to pass legislation that would abolish the department.

In an Oval Office press briefing, Trump stated, “I believe strongly in school choice, but in addition to that, I want the states to run schools.” He added that he wants his Secretary of Education nominee Linda McMahon to “put herself out of a job.”

Potential Impacts: State and National

The prospect of dismantling the Department of Education has led to questions and fears over potential chaos over how key responsibilities and billions in federal funding — including handling federal financial aid, grants for disadvantaged students and civil rights enforcement — would be affected.

First, many Department of Education programs carry out mandates explicitly created by Congress that just can’t be abolished by executive fiat. And second, some of these functions, and the existence of a federal department focused on education, are very popular, even among Republicans.

The Department of Education also has authority over financial lifelines that so many campuses and students rely on. The department’s K-12 programs serve more than 50 million students attending 130,000 public and private schools; federal grant, student loans, and work-study assistance benefits more than 13 million post-secondary students

California has a massive stake in how the department is run. The state receives more than $2.1 billion in Title I grants to counteract the effects of poverty — more than any other state — with $417 million provided to Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school system, according to the California Department of Education.

More than 200,000 low-income students in the California State University system, the largest and most diverse four-year higher education system in the nation, annually rely on $1 billion in federal Pell grants to afford college. At the University of California, more than 80,000 undergraduate students received about $454 million in Pell Grants in the 2023-2024 academic year.

Support and Opposition

Becky Pringle, President of the National Education Association, said, “If it became a reality, Trump’s power grab would steal resources for our most vulnerable students, explode class sizes, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, take away special education services for students with disabilities, and gut student civil rights protections. Americans did not vote for, and do not support, ending the federal government’s commitment to ensuring equal educational opportunities for every child.”

Tony Thurmond, the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, said on X (formerly Twitter), “While the Trump Education Department no longer protects students from discrimination, California law is unchanged. My office remains committed to defending the rights of all California students.”

Liz Sanders, a California Department of Education spokesperson, said, “We are incredibly concerned about what seems to be a thoughtless approach to changing essential federal programs that support our kids every day and support our most vulnerable kids every day. We’re talking about essential academic support services. We want to make sure that these services are able to have a level of continuity for our educators and our families and our students. Simply a one-sentence hatchet job is not how we should make changes that impact our kids.”

Michael Petrilli, president of the right-leaning Thomas B. Fordham Institute think tank, said, “It would take an act of Congress to dismantle the department and Republicans simply do not have the votes, let alone the fact that it would be an unpopular move in many Republican districts.” He also said that closing down the department was “pretty hypothetical.”

Rick Hess, a senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said it was “perfectly reasonable” to abolish the department, or at least downsize it, because of what he called wasteful spending, political biases toward teacher unions and misplaced responsibilities.

Hess and Petrilli have questioned why educational bureaucrats should manage a trillion-dollar student loan portfolio rather than financial experts in the Treasury Department — a shift advocated by Project 2025, the conservative policy playbook written in part by many members of the first Trump administration.

Educational Ranking

Trump lamented US educational performance and cost. “We spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, and we’re ranked at the bottom of the list.”

As of 2023, the annual Best Countries Report ranked the United States, on the basis of education rankings, at the top. Ironically, despite the United States having the best-surveyed education system on the globe, U.S. students consistently score lower in math and science than students from other countries. A Business Insider report in 2018, ranked the U.S. 38th in math scores and 24th in science, out of 195 recognized countries.

Can Trump’s plans succeed?

While calls to abolish the Department of Education aren’t new, the move has historically failed to get support from Congress.

In 2023, 60 Republicans joined 205 Democrats in voting against an amendment that would have expressed Congressional support for ending the authority of the Department of Education to administer K-12 programs. The amendment failed.

But, cuts and changes are being made already via executive action, and more could occur once a Secretary of Education is confirmed. Dozens of employees at the Education Department were placed on paid administrative leave Friday as part of the Trump administration’s larger effort to rid the federal workforce of employees associated with diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility efforts.

“We will drain the government education swamp and stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing,” said Trump, who has targeted programs such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and critical race theory.

But public opinion may play a role. A recent Wall Street Journal poll showed 61 percent of Americans oppose plans to eliminate the Department of Education. And a bipartisan November 2024 survey showed rank-and-file Republicans opposing this idea by a two-to-one margin.

Even if Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Christian Nationalists want to kill the Department of Education, many Democrats, Republican members of Congress from swing districts, and Americans in general may feel otherwise. Trump’s effort to eliminate the Department of Education will prove to be a key test for Republicans in Congress, to determine whether they will choose loyalty to Trump when their constituents learn of the effort, even if most are opposed.

Sources:

@TonyThurmond.

Trump administration drafting executive order to initiate Department of Education’s elimination | CNN Politics.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-02-04/trump-to-diminish-education-department-financial-aid-fate-uncertain.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-plan-kill-education-department-may-fail.html.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/education-rankings-by-country.