- Administration unveiled plan to shift billions and dismantle core Education Department offices, moving programs to other agencies without congressional approval.
- Plan sparks fierce backlash and likely legal challenges, with critics warning it endangers vulnerable students and threatens public education.
In a move that’s sending shockwaves through classrooms and capitols across the country, the Trump administration on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious blueprint to gut the U.S. Department of Education, shifting billions in federal grants and programs to other agencies without waiting for Congress to sign off.
The plan, which builds on months of quiet maneuvering, promises to “break up the federal education bureaucracy” and hand more power back to states — but it’s already drawing fierce backlash from Democrats, educators, and legal experts who call it a reckless power grab that could leave vulnerable students in the lurch.
The announcement, detailed in a Department of Education press release, outlines six new interagency agreements that would offload day-to-day operations for some of the agency’s core offices.
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Under the deals:
- The Office of Elementary and Secondary Education — home to Title I funding that supports millions of low-income students — would largely migrate to the Department of Labor.
- The Office of Postsecondary Education, overseeing college aid and accreditation, would follow suit.
- Indian education programs would move to the Interior Department.
- International language initiatives would go to the State Department.
- Childcare support for student-parents would shift to Health and Human Services.
“This is the Trump Administration taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement released Tuesday.
From Campaign Promise to Executive Action
It’s a step that echoes President Trump’s long-standing pledge to eliminate the department entirely, a goal he reiterated in his March executive order directing McMahon to explore closure options.
But as the Washington Post notes, only Congress holds the purse strings and statutory authority to shutter a cabinet-level agency created in 1979.
Supporters see it as a long-overdue efficiency drive.
In a USA Today op-ed published just days before the announcement, McMahon argued that a recent 43-day government shutdown had exposed the department’s expendability.
“The shutdown proved an argument that conservatives have been making for 45 years: The U.S. Department of Education is mostly a pass-through for funds that are best managed by the states,” she wrote.
Lindsey Burke, the department’s deputy chief of staff for policy and a co-author of the conservative Project 2025 blueprint, has been a driving force behind the effort.
In her writings for the project, Burke laid out the vision plainly: “The federal Department of Education should be eliminated. When power is exercised, it should empower students and families, not government.”
What Stays (For Now): Student Loans, Special Ed, Civil Rights
Yet the plan stops short of touching sacred cows like special education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, civil rights enforcement via the Office for Civil Rights, or the massive student loan portfolio — functions that would require congressional heavy lifting to relocate.
The backlash has been swift and sharp, with educators and Democrats framing the changes as an existential threat to public schooling.
“This is an outright illegal effort to continue dismantling the Department of Education, and it is students and families who will suffer the consequences,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate education committee, said in a statement.
Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey blasted the moves in a joint statement Wednesday.
“Trump and McMahon’s ceaseless attack on public schools is illegal, immoral, and devastating to families in Massachusetts and in communities across the country,” Markey said.
Warren added that the plan would “punish” underserved students, gutting offices that schools rely on and paving the way for privatization that locks opportunity behind “the right zip code and tax bracket.”
Teachers’ Unions Call It an “Abdication of America’s Future”
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten called it “an abdication and abandonment of America’s future,” arguing that scattering services across agencies would breed “more confusion, more mistakes and more barriers for kids and parents.”
National Education Association President Becky Pringle accused the administration of trying to “starve and steal from our students” to fund “billionaire tax cuts,” labeling the timing — during Education Week — as “cruel” and “shameful.”
Legal scholars pointed to the department’s founding legislation, which explicitly housed these offices under its roof.
“Congress created and explicitly located these offices within the Education Department,” one expert said, predicting lawsuits that could tie up the transitions in court for months.
On the right, the response has been more muted but approving.
Conservative outlets and online voices have praised the step as fulfilling a 45-year GOP dream, dating back to Ronald Reagan’s failed push to abolish the agency.
One Trump supporter on X summed it up bluntly: “I vote for President Donald J Trump… to dismantle the Johnson US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. I am very happy to see the control of education return to the States.”
What Happens Next: Implementation Risks and Court Fights
As the dust settles, the real test will come in implementation.
The July pilot with the Labor Department, which handed off adult education programs, has proceeded without major hitches so far. But scaling up to K-12 and higher ed grants — worth tens of billions — could expose cracks.
For families relying on Title I for after-school tutoring or campus childcare, the stakes feel personal.
One anonymous Education Department staffer told NPR: “This isn’t reform; it’s relocation theater.”
With midterm elections looming and court challenges brewing, Trump’s education gambit could define his second term — or derail it.
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