Maggie Little | March 21, 2025
(The Lion) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to dismantle the Department of Education, in a move that he said was “45 years in the making.”
The executive order will “begin eliminating” the department “once and for all,” Trump said on Thursday in remarks before signing it, noting that “it’s about time.”
“After 45 years, the United States spends more money on education, by far, than other countries, and spends likewise by far more money per pupil than any country, it’s not even close,” Trump said. “But yet we rank near the bottom of the list in terms of success.”
The department has spent more than $3 trillion since 1979, a White House fact sheet released Thursday noted, and per-pupil spending has increased by more than 245% with “virtually no measurable improvement in student achievement.” Math and reading scores among 13-year-olds are at “the lowest level in decades,” the memo added, with 70% of fourth and eighth graders “not proficient in reading.”
Trump said that despite the department’s “breathtaking failures,” its budget “has exploded by 600% in a very short period of time” and that “it employs bureaucrats in buildings all over Washington, D.C.”
The executive order signals the administration’s intent to dismantle the department to the extent that it can without congressional approval – since many of the department’s functions were authorized by Congress and would require an act of Congress to be completely abolished. Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who Trump said he hopes will be the “last Secretary of Education,” has promised to work with Congress in the coming months.
The operative portion of the order calls on McMahon to facilitate the closure: “The Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”
The department’s “useful functions,” such as Pell Grants, Title 1 funding, and resources for children with disabilities and special needs will be “fully preserved,” Trump said in his remarks.
“People have wanted to do this for many, many years, many, many decades, and I don’t know, no president ever got around to doing it, but I’m getting around to doing it.”
The Trump administration last week issued a massive reduction in force when it laid off half the department’s staff. That reduction was a first step, and those efforts will be “scaled up,” White House deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, said ahead of Trump signing the executive order.
“A major thing the president has full and complete control over is the federal workforce,” Miller told Fox News on Thursday. “A district court judge will inevitably try to interfere in that, but the president and the president alone has the authority to lay off federal workers, to decide how many people he needs to execute that mission.”
Because Congress has never set an “employment floor” for the federal government or its departments, Miller added, there’s “no minimum number of employees you have to have.”
“So a big part of this is just to shrink the workforce down to its core minimal functions,” he said.
The administration will be working to redirect education funds to the states and localities, Miller added, noting there will be “guardrails” to ensure no money is spent on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts or gender ideology.
The executive order has sparked backlash from teachers’ union head Randi Weingarten, who leads the American Federation of Teachers. She wrote on X the move would “diminish opportunity for students” and warned the president that she will see him “in court.”
Parental rights advocates, such as Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice, are praising the executive action, arguing it will put a stop to bureaucratic overreach.
“Today, March 20, 2025, marks the beginning of the end” of the Education Department, Justice said. “No more bloated bureaucracy dictating what kids learn or stifling innovation with red tape. States, communities, and parents can take the reins – tailoring education to what actually works for their kids.”
This article was made available to EdNews Virginia via The Lion, a publication of the Herzog Foundation.