Today is the beginning of the end for the Department of Education.
That’s because President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order Thursday and make good on one of his campaign promises.
“NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores reveal a national crisis — our children are falling behind,” Harrison Fields, the White House principal deputy press secretary, relayed to Fox News. “Over the past four years, Democrats have allowed millions of illegal minors into the country, straining school resources and diverting focus from American students.”
The order will remove the federal government from the business of education and place it more locally from the state level down.
“The dream is we’re going to move the Department of Education, we’re going to move education into the states, so that the states, instead of bureaucrats working in Washington, so that the states can run education,” Trump said, per The Hill. “We think when you move it back to Iowa and Indiana and all of the states that run so well … 30, maybe almost 40, those will be as good as Denmark, those will be as good as Norway.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon will make “all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States,” USA Today reported, citing a White House summary of the executive order.
“The reality of our education system is stark, and the American people have elected President Trump to make significant changes to disband the department and make good on one of his in Washington,” McMahon said in a March 3 memo, Fox reported. “Our job is to respect the will of the American people and the President they elected, who has tasked us with accomplishing the elimination of bureaucratic bloat here at the Department of Education — a momentous final mission — quickly and responsibly.”
The news of the dismantling comes much to the dismay of the American Federation of Teachers, which asked Congress “to make clear to the president that the federal government, in the face of this order, will not abdicate its responsibility to all children, students and working families, who deserve a future full of promise and possibility, not diminished dreams.”
“The Department of Education, and the laws it is supposed to execute, has one major purpose: to level the playing field and fill opportunity gaps to help every child in America succeed,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said. “Trying to abolish it — which, by the way, only Congress can do — sends a message that the president doesn’t care about opportunity for all kids. Maybe he cares about it for his own kids or his friends’ kids or his donors’ kids — but not all kids.”
Despite the efforts to educate students, the outcome is some places have been dismal.
According to the White House, 13 Baltimore high schools reported having none of the students testing proficient in mathematics in 2023.
Reactions to the news Thursday morning were a mixed bag.
