Trump takes steps toward dismantling Education Department

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said it will transfer some of the Education Department’s largest grant programs and major portions of several offices to other federal agencies, part of a broader plan to greatly reduce the department’s authority.

The plan would shift tens of billions of dollars in funding out of the Education Department and give the Department of Labor, in particular, greater oversight of the federal education budget, agency officials told reporters on Tuesday. Some department staff will also be reassigned to their new agencies, officials said, without giving total numbers.

“President Trump promised the American people he would dismantle the Department of Education,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said in a statement. The move will “return education where it belongs – at the state and local level,” she added.

The decision represents an escalation of efforts to eliminate the department — a goal of conservatives dating back to the Reagan administration — after layoffs in March cut staffing by about half. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has been open about her intent to shutter the department, calling it the “final mission” for the agency.

The union representing department employees said the moves would damage American education.

“Breaking apart the Department of Education and moving its responsibilities elsewhere will only create more confusion for schools and colleges, deepen public distrust, and ultimately harm students and families,” according to the local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees.

As part of the latest effort, officials at the department signed agreements to partner with four federal agencies on administering key programs. They include moving oversight of roughly $30 billion in federal grants and programs currently from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Office of Postsecondary Education overseen primarily by the Labor Department.

In addition, the Interior Department will largely take over the Education Department’s Indian Education program functions and the State Department will manage the International Education and Foreign Language education program. Accreditation for foreign medical schools and federally funded campus childcare programs will go to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Critics of the Education Department have painted it as an example of federal meddling in state and local affairs. The department is best known for overseeing the billions of dollars in federal financial aid doled out to American college students every year.

At the K-12 level, it supports more than 100,000 schools through programs to aid students with disabilities, and bolsters education in poorer and Native American communities.

Congressional mandate

McMahon has acknowledged that the administration can’t shutter the department without congressional approval. Instead, officials have been dismantling it from the inside, firing staff and slashing spending. And by laying the groundwork for other agencies to assume some of the department’s legally mandated work, the administration is using a workaround to cutting or excising programs that Congress requires the agency to run.

A timeline for transferring funds, personnel and programs out of the Education Department hasn’t been set.

Lindsey Burke, a senior Education Department official, said during the briefing that the agreements will serve as “proof points for what education can look like without the Department of Education building.”

“We are confident this will lead to better services for grantees, schools and students across the country,” Burke added.

Workforce cuts

The department tested its strategy in April, when officials signed an agreement for the Department of Labor to take on workforce development programs and billions in grant funding from the Office of Career, Adult and Technical Education. That partnership was implemented six months later, on Oct. 1.

The announcement comes shortly after the department attempted to kick off another reduction in force during the record-long government shutdown last month. Those cuts would have laid off 450 employees, including more than 100 at the Office for Civil Rights and nearly the entire Special Education office, but a federal court halted the move.

Of the roughly 4,100 employees at the department when Trump took office in January — the smallest executive branch agency — nearly 2,000 have left or been laid off. Some offices slated for a move were hit particularly hard. The Office of Elementary and Secondary Education lost nearly a third of its staff in March and would have been reduced to 53 employees if last month’s layoffs had been implemented, down from 322 last September.

The administration is likely to pursue more partnership agreements, staff transfers and budget maneuvering as it moves toward paring the department further.

Student loans

The administration has already advocated for moving the department’s two largest offices. That includes the Office for Civil Rights, which oversees discrimination investigations, and the Office of Federal Student Aid, with its $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio.

In an interview with Bloomberg in September, Deputy Under Secretary of Education James Bergeron laid out tentative plans to have other agencies assume certain functions, such as managing student debt and investigating discrimination claims.

“Those priorities are important for the administration and they can be carried out by other departments,” he said, citing the Justice and Treasury Departments.

Bergeron added that the department had already begun working closely with Treasury to enforce debt repayment by garnishing borrowers’ wages.

The plan to further strip the department comes as officials prepare to implement a number of sweeping changes to education policy included in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including expanding federal aid eligibility to students in non-degree workforce training programs and placing limits on loans for graduate school.

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(With assistance from Derek Wallbank.)

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