Trump administration accelerates its plan to shut down the Education Department

"The Trump administration on Tuesday accelerated the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education with a plan to transfer key, legally required functions to other agencies, including oversight of its $18-billion, core anti-poverty program, Title 1. Critics said the move was politicized and counterproductive and fear future program cuts. California Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said vital services to the state and nation's most vulnerable students were likely to be disrupted."

"The steps move toward fulfilling a Trump campaign promise to eliminate the department, which some conservatives have long derided as wasteful, ineffective and unnecessary. "The Trump Administration is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states," U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. "Cutting through layers of red tape in Washington is one essential piece of our final mission.""

The administration advanced a plan to transfer legally required Department of Education functions to other agencies, including oversight of the $18 billion Title I anti-poverty program. Critics described the move as politicized and warned of potential program cuts and disrupted services for vulnerable students. The actions aim to fulfill a campaign promise to eliminate the department and return control to states, framed as cutting bureaucracy and encouraging local innovation. Despite reducing the department workforce, the administration has also threatened to withdraw federal funding over issues such as antisemitism, campus protests, DEI programs, and trans student rights.

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