Regardless of widespread information reviews that President Donald Trump would signal an govt order gutting the U.S. Division of Schooling on Thursday, the federal company lived to see one other afternoon.
An govt order, when and if it comes, would observe via on Trump’s repeated threats on the marketing campaign path and within the Oval Workplace to shutter the division. The silence from his administration on Thursday left educators, consultants and different schooling specialists on edge as they anticipated an order down the street.
“I virtually really feel like we bought a keep of execution at the moment,” mentioned Keri Rodrigues, president of the Nationwide Dad and mom Union, on a press name Thursday. “We have got to remain on our toes.”
Certainly, the shortage of exercise on Thursday “does not imply it is not gonna occur,” mentioned Denise Forte, president and CEO of fairness advocacy group Ed Belief, on the decision. “Let’s be clear: That is their intention, that is what they’ve mentioned.”
The place does the division stand?
Trump has repeatedly threatened to sundown the division since his first White Home time period, citing what he has known as the division’s “bloated” price range and a must return schooling management to the states.
This was a serious promoting level throughout his 2024 marketing campaign and one of many first priorities for Linda McMahon, who was simply confirmed and sworn in Monday as schooling secretary. In her first hours on the job, McMahon publicly mentioned she was planning for the “historic overhaul” of the division as its “ultimate mission.”
“This evaluation of our packages is lengthy overdue,” she wrote in a letter posted by the division that very same night time, supporting what she called “elimination of bureaucratic bloat right here on the Division of Schooling — a momentous ultimate mission — rapidly and responsibly.”
McMahon mentioned “each employees member of this Division ought to be obsessed with any change that can profit college students.” That very same day, the Schooling Division employees confronted an 11:59 p.m. ET deadline to voluntarily settle for a $25,000 separation settlement — a part of Trump’s ongoing and rapidly shifting effort to downsize the federal workforce below the work of Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity.
U.S. Division of Schooling Secretary Linda McMahon testifies throughout her Senate Well being, Schooling, Labor and Pensions Committee affirmation listening to on Feb. 13, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
Win McNamee through Getty Pictures
The division refused to touch upon what number of employees accepted the provide, saying in an e mail to Ok-12 Dive that it “doesn’t touch upon particular personnel issues to guard privateness.”
DOGE additionally sledgehammered almost $900 million in Schooling Division contracts, many associated to the company’s analysis arm, the Institute of Schooling Sciences, which has traditionally been a nonpartisan informational useful resource for educators on all the things from assessments to commencement charges.
As well as, the administration put Peggy Carr, an worker of the Nationwide Heart for Schooling Statistics for over three many years and the main voice on the Nationwide Evaluation of Instructional Progress, on depart in late February.
How probably is it that the division will shut down?
Though the specter of an govt order looms massive, it’s not attainable for the administration to behave unilaterally to shutter the division for good. Doing so would require a supermajority within the Senate of 60 votes.
And whereas Trump’s push to dismantle the division is consistent with the 2024 Republican agenda — which included closing the division to “let the States run our academic system appropriately run” — some Republicans have traditionally resisted demolishing the division.
In 2023, a Home proposal from conservatives to close down the division failed when 60 Home Republicans joined Democrats to defeat the measure.
And though the Republicans maintain the bulk within the present Congress, many have thought of it unlikely that lawmakers would approve the division’s demise given how slim that majority is.
What can the president do?
But it’s attainable for the president to starve the division — and a few of its packages — of sources akin to funding and employees, in line with authorized and schooling specialists.
The administration may certainly take steps to make it bare-bones, mentioned Julia Martin, director of coverage and authorities affairs at The Bruman Group, a authorized and consulting group based mostly in Washington, D.C. Martin previously served as an schooling coverage advisor for the Home Committee on Schooling and Labor.
In line with Martin, the administration may trim employees considerably, minimize contracts so work is finished in home, restrict information assortment and oversight, cut back the variety of compliance investigations together with these below the Workplace for Civil Rights, and shut down some nonstatutory capabilities just like the School Scorecard — all with out permission from Congress. Some places of work is also mixed, Martin mentioned.
What do educators suppose?
In the meantime, schooling leaders banded collectively on Thursday to name on Congress to reject any measure that will dismantle the division. They additional raised alarm bells that ravenous the division of funds would negatively impression each districts and college students.
“Gutting the Schooling Division will ship class sizes hovering, minimize job coaching packages, make larger schooling costlier and out of attain for center class households, take away particular schooling providers for college kids with disabilities, and intestine scholar civil rights protections,” mentioned Becky Pringle, president of the Nationwide Schooling Affiliation, in a Thursday assertion in anticipation of an govt order.
Alex Marrero, superintendent of Denver Public Colleges, frightened about what a scarcity of federal funding would imply for Colorado’s greatest district — and mentioned he is already begun to work with state officers to defend his district from a minimize in {dollars}.
“It simply would not profit the tutorial system,” mentioned Marrero. “All you are going to see is extra regression, so I simply do not see the win in it.”
Some Democratic lawmakers likewise resisted the thought of shutting the division.
“It doesn’t take a former trainer to inform you how obliterating the Division of Schooling hurts college students,” mentioned Sen.Patty Murray, D-Wash., former chair of the Senate Well being, Schooling, Labor and Pensions Committee and a former trainer. “I feel even a preschooler may inform you this can be a horrible, horrible thought.”