Dear Commons Community,

As expected, President Donald Trump signed an executive order yesterday that calls for Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to begin the process of shutting down the Department of Education.  As reported by The Huffington Post and other media.

Yesterday afternoon, Trump announced that his administration would “return education back to the states.”

“Today we take a very historic action that was 45 years in the making,” Trump said.

The president said that under the new order, crucial education funding for low-income students and students with disabilities, including Pell Grants and Title I funding, will be redistributed to other agencies and departments.

He praised the work of dozens of Republican governors, state attorneys general and the co-founder of Moms for Liberty, Tiffany Justice, for their advocacy against the federal department. Christopher Rufo, a conservative writer and activist who has crusaded against DEI in education, was also in attendance.

Trump repeatedly trashed the Department of Education on the campaign trail and had promised to abolish it completely.

“The Department of Education is a big con job,” Trump told reporters last month. “I’d like it to be closed immediately.” It’s unclear exactly what will be in the order. While Trump could shutter many of the department’s programs and services, an act of Congress would be required to eliminate it.

The department has been in Republican crosshairs since its creation in 1980, but despite the GOP’s criticism of the agency, the political implications of dissolving it have made calls for its elimination purely rhetorical — until now.

The order Trump signed is the culmination of a yearslong fight by conservative activists and Republican officials who have increasingly sought to use schools as a means for pushing right-wing ideology on children. They have smeared teachers as abusers, censored educators, banned hundreds of books from classrooms, mounted outright takeovers of school boards, and launched an all-out war on transgender kids by barring them from sports and bathrooms that match their gender identities.

McMahon acknowledged at her nomination hearing last month that an act of Congress would be required to axe the department she would soon lead. She hedged on the question of eliminating the agency outright during the hearing, but in documents shared with HuffPost said she “wholeheartedly supports” Trump’s vision for the agency.

But McMahon could reduce the department’s workforce and slash funding to the point where it would be a shell of its former self. A few hours after she was confirmed by the Senate, McMahon sent an email to the department’s staff urging them to join her on the agency’s “final mission.”

“This is our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students,” McMahon reportedly wrote in the email. “I hope you will join me in ensuring that when our final mission is complete, we will all be able to say that we left American education freer, stronger and with more hope for the future.”

The executive order was preceded by mass firings of thousands of employees. McMahon said the cuts reflect “the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers.” The agency said the reduction whittled the staff count down from about 4,100 to approximately 2,183.

Trump also applauded McMahon’s work and signaled that her role could change if Congress approves the department’s elimination.

“Hopefully you won’t be there too long,” Trump said at the order’s signing. “We’re going to find something else for you to do, Linda.”

The Education Department currently supports 26 million low-income students through Title I funding, handles civil rights complaints from students and their families, ensures equal access to school for 7.4 million students with disabilities, and distributes federal financial aid so that low-income students can afford college.

But right-wing culture warriors have promoted the idea that the federal agency is responsible for “indoctrinating” children with left-wing ideology, even though each state sets its own curricula.

Educators and advocates have been sounding the alarm for months about what Trump’s plans for education mean for the nearly 50 million children currently enrolled in U.S. public schools.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement that the department has one purpose: “to level the playing field and fill opportunity gaps to help every child in America succeed.”

“Trying to abolish it — which, by the way, only Congress can do,” she continued, “sends a message that the president doesn’t care about opportunity for all kids.”

Abolishing the agency “will reverse five decades of progress for students with disabilities,” Katy Neas, the CEO of the Arc of the United States, a nonprofit group that advocates for people with disabilities, said in a statement. “Children with disabilities who do not receive appropriate education services will face greater isolation, unemployment, and poverty. We cannot afford to undo the hard-won gains of the past — we must protect the future of every student, because the strength of our society depends on it.”

McMahon has said that some of the department’s functions, like resources for students with disabilities, would move to other agencies, but experts warn that the loss of technical expertise would still make it difficult for other agencies to run programs previously overseen by the Department of Education.

Congress would need to pass legislation to eliminate fully the Department, but Trump could still stop many of its key functions.

Tony