The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building in Washington, DC, pictured on November 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
This report has been updated.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration took major steps Tuesday in an attempt to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, announcing the signing of six interagency agreements with other departments that will transfer several of their responsibilities to those agencies.
The announcement was immediately met with sturdy backlash from Democratic members of Congress, who questioned its legality, and labor unions.
The agreements — with the departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services, and the State Department — come at a time when Trump has sought to ax the 46-year-old department in his push to bring education “back to the states.”
This step fulfills a promise that Trump made during the election campaign and which he later commissioned Education Secretary Linda McMahon to implement.
“The announcement really follows the plan that President Trump has had since day one, which is to give education back to the states. He believes, as I do, that the best education is being closest to the child and not running from the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.,” McMahon told Fox News on Tuesday after the announcement.
The secretary likened the initiative to a “test run” and said her department wants to see “whether what we believe to be true is that if we move these programs to other agencies, they will function much more efficiently and efficiently.”
McMahon added that the agency will “move it around,” “see how it works” and report the “results” to Congress.
She said her department hopes Congress would then vote to codify the indefinite shift of these programs to those agencies.
But any effort would face a challenging path in the Senate, which needs at least 60 senators to advance most legislation. Republicans only hold 53 seats in the Senate.
The announcement also came as the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to do so in July continue temporarily with mass layoffs and a plan ordered earlier this year to dramatically downsize the Department of Education.
That plan — outlined in a March executive order signed by Trump — McMahon called “to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of their own department.
This is how educational agreements work
The Department of Education made clear in fact sheets that it would “retain all statutory responsibilities and continue its oversight of these programs” regarding all six interagency agreements.
A senior ministry official could not yet say how many Education Ministry employees would move to these other agencies, noting that there would be “some delay” between the signing and full implementation of the agreements.
The official said the department is “still looking for the best plan” for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, the Office of Civil Rights and federal student aid.
The Department of Labor will take on an “increasing role” in managing elementary and secondary education programs currently managed by the Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, according to a Fact sheet.
The Department of Education said that “under proper supervision by ED, DOL will administer competitions, provide technical assistance, and integrate the ED programs into the array of employment and training programs that DOL already administers.”
In another agreementThe Department of Labor will also take a larger role in administering the Department of Education’s college scholarship programs, such as: B. TRIO and Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs or GEAR UP.
These include the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need program, and the Strengthening Historically Black Graduate Institutions program, among others.
The Home Ministry will also take on an “increasing role” in managing the Ministry of Education’s Indian education programs, according to a Fact sheet.
Under one agreement Together with HHS, this agency will oversee the work of the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation.
HHS will also “administer existing competitions, provide technical assistance, and integrate the Department of Education’s Child Care Access Means Parents in School program,” the department said.
This program, according to the Education Department“Supports the participation of low-income parents in postsecondary education through the provision of on-campus child care services.”
The Education Department’s agreement with the State Department allows that agency to “oversee all foreign education programs,” according to a Fact sheet.
“Completely illegal effort”
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, called the move a “completely illegal attempt to further dismantle the Department of Education.”
Murray said: “It is students and families who will suffer the consequences, as key programs that help students learn to read or strengthen bonds between schools and families are outsourced to agencies with little or no relevant expertise, and are significantly weakened – or even collapsed – in the process.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the House Budget Panel, said in a statement Tuesday: “Any attempt to unilaterally remove programs from the Department of Education will fundamentally change their purpose.”
“This is not about efficiency – this is about creating so many unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles that the Department of Education will become useless – a death by a thousand cuts. Imposing massive, chaotic and abrupt changes on a whim will waste millions of dollars in duplicative administrative costs and impose wasteful burdens on America’s education system,” the Connecticut Democrat said.
Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, condemned the move in a statement Tuesday and called on Republicans in Congress to “work with Democrats to stop this attack.”
The Virginia Democrat said: “The mass transfer of these programs is not only grossly inefficient and wasteful, but will also result in inconsistent enforcement of federal education policy.”
He added: “Instead of protecting the civil rights of students of color, students with disabilities, English as a second language (ESL) and low-income students and closing achievement gaps, the Secretary of Education has spent her term dismantling ED.”
Unions are pushing forward
Rachel Gittleman, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Department of Education employees, said: “This latest ploy by the Trump administration to dismantle the congressionally created U.S. Department of Education is not only unlawful – it is an insult to the tens of millions of students who trust the agency to protect their access to a quality education.”
She added that “students, educators and families rely on the Department’s comprehensive support for schools, from early education to graduate programs” and “that the national mission is weakened when its core functions are scattered among other federal or state agencies that are not equipped or positioned to provide the same support and services as ED staff.”
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the country’s largest teachers unions, said: “Spreading services across multiple departments will lead to more confusion, more errors and more obstacles for people just trying to get the support they need.”
Weingarten added that “it is a deliberate diversion of funding streams that have helped generations of children achieve their American dream” and “will undermine public schools as places where diverse voices come together and where pluralism, the bedrock of our democracy, is strengthened.”
“We are now watching the federal government shirk its responsibility to all children. This is unacceptable,” she said, adding: “Congress must reclaim its authority over education in the coming battle over federal funding.”
