As a presidential candidate last year, Donald Trump never came up with a detailed plan related to education policy, but the Republican did make one thing explicitly clear: He wanted to shut down the Department of Education. The president has ignored a great many of his campaign promises, but this one he was apparently quite serious about.
While it would take an act of Congress to shut a Cabinet agency, Trump nevertheless signed an executive order in March to begin the process of dismantling the Education Department, shifting its responsibilities to other agencies.
Eight months later, the regressive plan is ongoing. The Associated Press reported:
The U.S. Education Department is handing off some of its biggest grant programs to other federal agencies as the Trump administration accelerates its plan to shut down the department. … Six new agreements signed by the Education Department will effectively move billions of dollars in grant programs to other agencies.
Under the new plan, the Labor Department will be chiefly responsible for overseeing the bulk of the Education Department’s duties, including federal funding streams for K-12 schools. The Department of Health and Human Services, the State Department and the Interior Department will divvy up the other responsibilities.
Helping to execute the plan is Lindsey Burke, who serves as Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s deputy chief of staff for policy and programs and who helped write the Project 2025 chapter on education policy. (The right-wing blueprint endorsed shuttering the federal department.)
The latest moves also come on the heels of the Republican administration slashing the Education Department’s workforce, leaving it nearly hollowed out.
There is little evidence to suggest there’s a public appetite for such a dramatic change. In fact, publicly available polling has long suggested the American public is broadly against scrapping the Education Department. A Washington Post analysis published in March noted that while there hasn’t been a lot of recent public opinion research on the issue, “virtually all of the polling … suggests this is not what the American people want. Indeed, it appears to be among the more unpopular things Trump has pushed for.”
Evidently, the White House doesn’t care.
On Capitol Hill, some GOP members from competitive districts are starting to push back. In fact, Politico reported, “Republicans generally supportive of President Donald Trump’s goal of dismantling the Education Department still have their doubts about key parts of his plans for the agency, with one GOP lawmaker vowing to stop the effort.” “There might be some reorganizational things that make sense, if it allows for the department, the functions, to be carried out more efficiently, if they align better with the missions of other departments,” Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., told Politico. “But there’s a lot of really important things that the Department of Education does, and we need to make sure that it’s able to continue to do them, those services that need to be provided to taxpayers like charter school grants and kids with special needs.” Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, meanwhile, added in a written statement that altering the Cabinet agency’s responsibilities “without transparency or congressional oversight would pose real risks to the very students they were created to protect.” The Pennsylvania congressman concluded, “I will not allow it — and I urge all of my colleagues to stand with me.” There’s no reason to believe the president or his team has the slightest interest in Congress’ objections, and with Republican majorities in both chambers, it’s unlikely that the public will see any organized effort that would curtail the administration’s ambitions. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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