President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take steps to dissolve the Education Department, a long-sought goal of some conservatives.
In a ceremony at the White House, Trump said he was embarking on a historic action 45 years in the making.
“People have wanted to do this for many, many years, for many, many decades, and … no president ever got around to doing it, but I’m getting around to doing it,” he told a group of supporters that included Republican governors, members of Congress and conservative activist Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty.
Trump and McMahon have repeatedly endorsed the idea of terminating the Education Department and shifting management of all things educational to each state.
“We’re going to be returning education, very simply, back to the states where it belongs,” Trump said from the White House East Room. “And I can tell you from dealing with the governors … they want it so badly. They want to take their children back and really teach their children individually. … Probably the cost will be half, and the education will be maybe many, many times better.”
Congressional action would be required to fully fold the department, McMahon acknowledged last month at her confirmation hearing.
“We’d like to do this right,” McMahon, a former sports entertainment executive with World Wrestling Entertainment, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “That certainly does require congressional action.”
To that effect, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the HELP Committee, said Thursday that he intends to support Trump’s goals by submitting legislation to shut down the department “as soon as possible.”
“I agree with President Trump that the Department of Education has failed its mission,” the GOP senator said.
But passing such legislation would require Democratic support to meet the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold. Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the chamber.
Democrats blasted Trump’s move to shutter the department, saying it was illegal and predicting it would harm teachers and children.
“We should be focused on helping our kids with math and reading — the basics they need to succeed,” Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement. “Absolutely no one is asking for three out-of-touch billionaires to rip apart the Department of Education over some deranged far-right culture war.”
Virginia Rep. Robert C. Scott, the ranking Democrat on the House Education & the Workforce Committee, predicted that Trump’s order will face court challenges.
“Legality aside, dismantling [the department] will exacerbate existing disparities, reduce accountability, and put low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, rural students, and English as a Second Language students at risk,” Scott said in a statement.
Department layoffs
Trump and McMahon had begun chipping away at the Education Department even before Thursday’s order was signed. The department initiated layoffs last week, and roughly half of its approximately 4,000 employees have left, Trump said Thursday as the audience applauded. Nearly two dozen Democratic state attorneys general have sued the administration over the cuts.
The Education Department administers the federal student loan program, collects data on education nationwide and ensures that schools comply with federal civil rights laws. It also provides funding for K-12 schools through a variety of programs, including Title I, which supports schools with a high percentage of low-income students, and grants for educating students with disabilities. Trump pledged to preserve those funding streams.
“Pell Grants … funding resources for children with disabilities and special needs will be preserved, fully preserved. … They’re going to be preserved in full and redistributed to various other agencies and departments that will take very good care of them,” he said.
Earlier on Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the student loan and Pell Grants programs would “still be run out of the Department of Education.”
In his remarks Thursday, Trump cited a litany of statistics to paint a grim picture of public education in America.
“The United States spends more money on education by far than any other country, and spends, likewise, by far, more money per pupil than any country, and it’s not even close, but yet we rank near the bottom of the list in terms of success,” he said.
John T. Bennett and Niels Lesniewski contributed to this report.
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