President Trump is eyeing an executive order to dismantle the Education Department, which has placed dozens of staffers on leave in what their union says is a move to encourage resignations.
Eliminating the department completely would take an act of Congress, but Trump is considering actions to gut its major functions, according to multiple reports this week. Trump has long sought to wipe the Department of Education (DOE) from the federal government, and, responding to one of those reports, Elon Musk said he “will succeed” where other conservatives have failed.
“The whole thing is absurd,” said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute, of the staffers placed on leave.
While it was pinned to Trump's anti-diversity efforts, the DOE push to forced leave “feels much more connected to” reports that Trump is looking at executive actions to weaken the department, Valant said.
“I think they are trying to squeeze the department in any way they can, to try to encourage people to leave, force people to leave, do whatever they can to shrink, destabilize and kneecap the department, knowing full well that they can't just outright eliminate it or most of its major programs and offices without the cooperation of Congress,” he added.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Trump is looking at executive actions to cripple the Education Department, such as taking away programs not explicitly written into law, moving functions to different departments and calling for Congress to pass a law completely abolishing the federal agency.
Multiple people familiar with the conversations told the outlet the specifics and timing are still up for debate and the president is facing pressure from others to wait on any such orders until after the confirmation hearing for Trump’s pick for Education secretary, which has not been scheduled yet.
“I think this is going to change the conversation in Linda McMahon's confirmation hearings,” Valant said. “Regardless, we were going to see a good amount of questioning around the future of the department. I think that looks now like it's probably going to be the dominant part of that conversation.”
Trump made clear in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he wants “Linda to put herself out of a job.”
“I told Linda, ‘Linda, I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job,'” Trump said, adding he would like to end the department through executive order.
“So we're ranked number 40 out of 40 schools, right? We're ranked number one in cost per pupil, so we spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, and we're ranked at the bottom of the list. We're ranked very badly. And what I want to do is let the states run schools,” the president added.
While Trump had promised to dismantle the department in his first administration, he made little effort to keep that pledge at the time.
The tone has shifted dramatically in his second term, with Musk, the head of the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that is currently gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and going through other departments, confident in Trump’s efforts.
“Reagan campaigned on ending the federal Dept of Education, which was created by Carter in 1979, but it was bigger when Reagan left office than when he started!” Musk said in response to a report from The Washington Post about Trump’s potential executive actions and DOGE going through data from the federal agency.
“Not this time. President @realDonaldTrump will succeed,” he added.
Eliminating the department would require legislative action, as some of the programs are written into law, but there are significant ways the president could weaken it, such as abolishing others, cutting down personnel, investigating programs, shifting funding or moving programs to other federal departments.
“He can't really do a whole lot. You can't eliminate Title I. He can't eliminate the [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act]. There are lots of other things that he can't just stop,” said Neil McCluskey, director for the Center for Educational Freedom at CATO Institute.
“I think that it's probably within his executive power: not to eliminate the programs, but to examine them and see how they work and whether or not they're working properly. And I imagine that will be part of the executive order,” McCluskey added.
When asked about potential executive action, a White House official told The Hill that Trump “plans to fulfill a campaign promise by revaluating the future of the Department of Education.”
On Friday, DOE sent letters to dozens of staffers putting them on administrative leave due to executive action Trump signed to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs from the federal government.
The union for the staffers said many of the targeted employees had no direct involvement in DEI but attended a DEI program back in 2019 during Trump’s first term in office that was encouraged by his then-secretary of education.
“President Trump was elected to bring about unprecedented reform to the federal civil service to ensure it is merit-based and efficient at serving the interests of the American people. At the Department of Education, we are evaluating staffing in line with the commitment to prioritizing meaningful learning ahead of divisive ideology in schools and putting student outcomes above special interests,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications Madi Biedermann when asked for comment about the potential executive actions by the president and placing staff on administrative leave.
Eliminating the department altogether is an idea that certainly does have its defenders on Capitol Hill.
“To my friends who are upset, I would say with respect, call somebody who cares. You better get used to this. It’s USAID today, it’s going to be the Department of Education tomorrow,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said on Fox News this week.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) reintroduced a bill this month in the House to eliminate DOE. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) introduced a bill with the same goal in the Senate back in November.
But such a measure would have to not only clear the House, where Republicans have a razor-thin majority, also secure 60 votes in the Senate to beat a filibuster. And no Democrat in the 53-47 upper chamber has backed the idea.
McCluskey said even more “palatable” arguments such as not eliminating DOE functions but just moving them elsewhere would “still be a tough haul, because you'd have to get Democrats.”
If none of Trump’s reforms get congressional approval, advocates are concerned about the political ping-pong that could develop with the agency.
Schools have already experienced political whiplash with Title IX regulations, having to change how they handle sexual assault cases and discrimination protections for LGBTQ students back and forth between Trump and former President Biden.
“What worries me here is that we're sort of headed down a path where we're going to have this pendulum swing in a lot of different parts of what the federal government does when it comes to education, and I don't think that serves anyone well and I also don't think anyone really wants that,” Valant said.
“I don't think there's much appetite for having these major, major changes to the federal role in education every time we move from a Republican to a Democratic administration and back,” he added.
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