On March 20, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order that directed the Secretary of Education to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs and benefits on which Americans rely,” according to the White House’s fact sheet.
Trump’s effort to dismantle the Department of Education comes from a longstanding campaign promise to shift more educational power to the state level. Although Trump cannot shut down the department completely without approval from Congress, he can force layoffs and redirect functions that the department has traditionally held.
The department already had “mass layoffs, contract cuts, staff buyouts and major policy changes,” with the total number of employees nearly cut in half, according to the Idaho Capital Sun.
The order also directs that any programs or activities that receive remaining Department of Education funds will not advance DEI or gender ideology.
Trump’s reasoning for the order is that the Department of Education has spent over $3 trillion “without improving student achievement” as measured by standardized testing scores, which show decreased mathematics and reading scores in public schools. Additionally, the department issues schools with regulations and paperwork and burdens taxpayers with “tens of billions of dollars wasted on progressive social experiments and obsolete programs,” according to the White House.
“Under the Biden Administration, the Department of Education wasted more than $1 billion in grants focused on entrenching radical ideologies in education. Biden’s Department of Education rewrote Title IX rules to expand the definition of ‘sex’ discrimination to include ‘gender identity.’ The Trump Administration recently cancelled $226 million in grants… that forced radical agendas onto states and systems, including race-based discrimination and gender identity ideology,” said the White House fact sheet.
The Executive Order prompted a pair of lawsuits filed on March 24; the first was filed in federal court in Massachusetts by a teachers’ union and argues that Trump’s move “will interfere with the department’s ability to carry out its statutorily required functions.”
The second was brought to federal court in Maryland by the National Education Association union, according to the New York Times. The representation for the NEA lawsuit said, “It’s a brazen violation of the law that will upend the lives of countless students and families.”
“Donald Trump and Elon Musk have aimed their wrecking ball at public schools and the futures of the 50 million students in rural, suburban and urban communities across America,” said Becky Pringle, president of the NEA, in a press release on March 19.
“If successful, Trump’s continued actions will hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, taking away special education services for students with disabilities and gutting student civil rights protection,” said Pringle.
“We won’t be silent as anti-public education politicians try to steal opportunities from our students, our families and our communities to pay for tax cuts for billionaires,” Pringle said. “Together with parents and allies, we will continue to organize, advocate and mobilize so that all students have well-resourced schools that allow every student to grow into their full brilliance.”
The Argonaut reached out to University of Idaho’s Executive Director of Communications, Jodi Walker, for insight on how this legislation will affect students going forward. Walker said that it is too early to know how UI will be impacted by these layoffs and budget cuts.
Rebekah Brown can be reached at arg-news@uidaho.edu.