Trump’s gutting of the Education Department, explained

One of President Donald Trump’s biggest targets in his second term has been the Education Department, a federal agency established in 1979 that oversees the enforcement of federal law in schools. He’s called the department “a big con job,” and expressed his hope that Linda McMahon, confirmed on March 3 to head the agency, will “put herself out of a job.” On March 20, he finally signed a long-expected executive order directing McMahon to dismantle the department.

Trump cannot legally close the Education Department without cooperation from Congress. (During her confirmation hearing, McMahon agreed that congressional action would be necessary, and said some programs would continue.) But the administration has already started making massive changes. In early March, the department announced the layoffs of more than 1,300 workers, bringing the agency to about half the size it was when Trump took office, according to the New York Times. The department’s Office of Civil Rights, which enforces federal disability law and anti-discrimination protections in schools, faced especially stark cuts. McMahon said in a Fox News interview on March 11 that the layoffs were part of Trump’s plan for the department: “His directive to me, clearly, is to shut down the Department of Education.”

In an email to the department just after her confirmation, McMahon called on staffers to “join us in this historic final mission,” which she described as “a last chance to restore the culture of liberty and excellence that made American education great.”

The changes began even before McMahon’s confirmation; shortly after Trump took office, the agency’s Office of Civil Rights switched its focus from protecting students against racial and disability discrimination to investigating cases of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has slashed research programs, and the administration has laid off dozens of employees — actions that education advocates say amount to eliminating the department in all but name.

The Education Department’s critics misrepresent it as a tool for the federal government to exert control over schools. It’s actually an agency tasked with supporting the nation’s most underserved students while also overseeing the massive and complex ecosystem of federal student loans — and disrupting those functions could affect students and families across the country.

First, let’s talk about what the Education Department doesn’t do. It does not set K-12 curricula or tell schools what to teach. That’s up to states and individual districts. So when Trump says he wants to get rid of the Education Department in order to send education “back to the states,” it’s somewhat misleading, because state and local governments are already in charge of what kids learn in schools.

What the department does do is “implement all of the federal laws and policies that focus on schools,” said Dominique Baker, a professor of education and public policy at the University of Delaware. At the K-12 level, a lot of that work involves supporting vulnerable and underserved students, said Kenneth Wong, a professor of education policy at Brown University.

Under a program known as Title I, the department sends federal money to schools with a high percentage of low-income students to help them hire additional teachers or otherwise bolster core subject areas like reading, Wong said. The federal government makes up about 14 percent of school budgets overall, according to the Associated Press, but low-income schools receive additional funding.

The department also sends money to states under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), helping schools provide small class sizes and other supports for students with disabilities and learning differences that state governments wouldn’t be able to afford on their own.

While these programs are important to many elementary, middle, and high schools around the country, the Education Department plays an even bigger role with colleges and universities, Baker said. It makes sure the application for federal financial aid, the FAFSA, is available to students, that the information students enter is sent to colleges, and that the money is actually disbursed.

The department also helps make sure that for-profit colleges “aren’t scamming students,” Baker said, by controlling which institutions get access to federal student aid.

Two other key functions to know about: The Education Department serves as a “watchdog for student civil rights” at K-12 schools and colleges, said Blair Wriston, senior manager for government affairs at EdTrust, an education equity nonprofit. If students with disabilities aren’t getting the support they need to access their legal right to an education — supports that can range from wheelchair ramps to occupational therapy to a one-on-one aide — their families can file a complaint with the department’s Office of Civil Rights. Students and families can also file with the office if they believe they’ve experienced racial discrimination at school.

And through the Institute of Education Sciences, the department conducts research on education around the country, including the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests, probably the best source of nationwide data on students’ reading and math skills. “The vast majority of any statistics that we know about schooling comes from data that’s collected by the federal government,” Baker said.

Trump cannot fully eliminate the Education Department without help from Congress, and while legislation to do so has been introduced, it’s unlikely to pass the closely divided House and Senate. The administration has discussed moving some parts of the department to other agencies — Project 2025, a blueprint for much of the Trump administration’s actions thus far, calls for converting Title I funds into grants to the states, and moving the Office of Civil Rights to the Department of Justice.

Until the executive order on March 20, the administration’s approach has mostly been to shrink the department through layoffs and other cuts. In February, DOGE terminated dozens of contracts at the Institute of Education Sciences. Though the cuts reportedly didn’t affect the NAEP tests, much of the work of the Institute “has ground to a standstill,” Baker said.

Meanwhile, nearly 2,000 department employees have left or been terminated since Trump took office, including 1,315 in the mass layoffs on March 11, 63 probationary workers laid off in February, and 572 who accepted voluntary buyouts, according to the New York Times. The department had about 4,133 staffers when Trump took office; it now has fewer than 2,200.

Even prior to the executive order, the Trump administration and DOGE were “actively dismantling the department,” Wriston said.

That dismantling is having an effect on students. As soon as Trump was inaugurated, the department’s processing of disability rights complaints ground to a halt, families told the Associated Press. That left students — including a 12-year-old boy with autism and epilepsy who’s been unwillingly assigned to remote schooling — without recourse and, in some cases, losing precious weeks of learning. The agency resumed processing disability cases in mid-February, but cases involving race and gender discrimination remain on hold, according to USA Today.

Instead, the department has focused on trans athletes and all-gender bathrooms. The agency also sent a letter to school leaders saying they could face investigation if they take steps to diversify their teaching staff or recruit students of color for selective programs, according to Chalkbeat.

Layoffs at the Office of Civil Rights could further hamper the department’s ability to handle disability and other discrimination cases. The office already had a backlog of such cases under the Biden administration, the Times reported.

Meanwhile, cuts at the Institute of Education Sciences include programs addressing young children’s literacy and improving the transition out of high school for students with disabilities, Wriston said. Dismantling the Institute is especially ironic at a time of nationwide concern over declining NAEP scores, he said. “We’re going to gut the agency completely that’s doing the real work here of gathering the research and evidence to help inform our practices,” he said.

Without the data the institute collects, it will also be more difficult for taxpayers to see the impact that cuts by the federal government might have on kids’ education, Baker said.

At the college level, meanwhile, experts fear a breakdown in the basic systems that allow students to apply for, use, and repay their student loans. Without a functioning Education Department, it’s not clear how students’ financial information will be collected and sent to universities for financial aid decisions, or who will certify borrowers’ income for income-based repayment plans, Baker said. The department already struggled with the rollout of a new FAFSA last year, and given canceled contracts and other changes under the new administration, “I don’t know why anyone would expect smooth sailing next year,” Baker said.

Gutting the research and oversight functions of the department could also make it easier for colleges to lie to students about their graduation rates and the success of their graduates, experts say.

Over the long term, parceling out programs like Title I and IDEA to other departments — each with their own functions and priorities — could weaken those programs’ ability to serve the high-needs students they were created to support, Wong said. The Education Department is (or was) full of experts who have spent their careers serving students, and other departments simply won’t have the same expertise. And, of course, those other departments are also on the chopping block in the DOGE era, Wriston pointed out.

As Trump and DOGE move forward with their plans, advocates and voters can respond by “elevating the stories and the perspectives of impacted communities, of families and students and educators who are being impacted by this,” Wriston said. “Those perspectives are critical right now.”

While students and families are the most directly impacted by changes at the Education Department, those changes have also inspired a broader concern. Some of the programs terminated by DOGE are congressionally mandated, and if the president or Musk can simply stop them, “that means that Congress no longer actually functions,” Baker said.

“There are no longer checks and balances for the executive branch,” Baker said. “A significant part of this goes beyond education and speaks to a constitutional crisis that shapes the future of our country.”

Update, March 20, 4:40 pm ET: This story was originally published on March 4 and has been updated multiple times, most recently to reflect Trump’s executive order to dismantle the Education Department.