Many of America’s global competitors — and adversaries — are no doubt cheering President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. They know that countries who out-educate the rest of the world will out-compete it. And now brand new Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Trump want to neuter, if not completely shutter, the entity that helps give all children in the United States access to the great public school education they deserve. On Tuesday, the department announced plans to cut nearly half of its staff. McMahon says these catastrophic firings, alongside hundreds of so-called “buyouts,” are about “efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers.” The reality is far more cowardly.
The president claims he wants the states to run education — but states and local school districts already operate schools and make curriculum decisions. Nobody wants that to stop. Similarly, nobody wants more red tape or unnecessary, inefficient bureaucracy. But here, too, there are ways to achieve “efficiency” without betraying the promises made to America’s children.
Nobody wants more red tape or unnecessary, inefficient bureaucracy.
The department in its modern form was established by Congress in 1979 to level up access to education, to help working families pay for college, to boost student achievement and to pave pathways to good middle-class jobs.
According to its 2025 fiscal year budget summary, department grants help close to 26 million children from poor families get extra support to reach their full potential.
A gutted department would mean fewer teachers, more crowded classrooms and increased mental health and behavioral challenges for students. We’d most likely see increased absenteeism and decreased graduation rates. Fewer students would be able to obtain the degrees or credentials they need for well-paying jobs, meaning more students would have to settle for low-wage work or simply drop out of the workforce. And many cities and states would have to increase school budgets to make up for these cuts, resulting in higher state and local taxes.
Instead, this move sends a clear message that, in Trump’s America, only kids from wealthy families are entitled to opportunity. How does that help make America great?
Of course, opportunity comes in many forms. The world is a complicated place, and we need to prepare students for an increasingly complicated workforce. And yet, just days after the president signed a proclamation declaring February “Career and Technical Education Month,” Career and Technical Education, or CTE, programs are on the chopping block.
Secretary McMahon and I agree that high school can’t just be college prep. We both back the engaged, hands-on learning that students receive through CTE. We both believe in the Swiss apprenticeship program I had the honor of visiting last month. In the United States and Switzerland, students graduate from CTE programs ranging from construction and plumbing to manufacturing and health care with the skills, credentials and real-world experiences they need to secure good jobs, often right in their backyards.
Apprenticeship Programs are a pathway to successful careers. Switzerland provides a model the rest of the world can adapt. They employ Apprentices in 230 Occupations and most of their CEOs were Apprentices.#AmericaFirst #SkillsForLife pic.twitter.com/SDAhX9vLkx I taught in a CTE high school and saw firsthand the potential of these programs, but states don’t have the resources to scale such transformational pathways alone. The federal government should and could turbocharge CTE to support millions of future electricians, EMTs, coders, plumbers, automotive technicians, early childhood educators and workers in countless other professions. But that won’t happen if Trump eliminates the department. These changes will inflict tremendous harm on kids’ futures. If Trump follows through with an eventual executive order demolishing the department, his actions may also be illegal. I’m a civics teacher and a lawyer, so here’s a bit of Civics 101: Congress created the Department of Education, and only Congress can abolish it. Neither the president nor Musk has the right to appropriate or eliminate funds or ax entire federal departments — only Congress does. Many legal experts agree with me. The American people did not vote for chaotic and reckless attacks on public schools. The American people did not vote for chaotic and reckless attacks on public schools. Even in Nebraska and Kentucky, states that Trump won overwhelmingly, voters rejected, en masse, measures to defund and privatize their public schools. Ironically, the funds Musk wants to take away go disproportionately to supporting children in rural red states. My union will continue to fight to protect our kids and to fund their future, because it is both the smart and the right thing to do. Last Tuesday, we held over 100 events across the country to protect our kids. Diverting billions from our children to pay for tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy is a callous decision that short-changes everyone. If we want to engage kids, if we want America to be a nation of “explorers, builders, innovators [and] entrepreneurs,” as Trump said in his inaugural address, then logically it follows that we should be investing more in education, not less. The dreams of millions of kids, and the promise of America, depend on it.
Randi Weingarten
Randi Weingarten is a high school social studies teacher and president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers. 
