Donald Trump signs executive order to eliminate Education Department
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to eliminate the Education Department he labeled a 'big con job.'
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday aimed at eliminating the US Education Department, which he had termed as a “big con job” last month.
Amid his sweeping actions, US President Donald Trump in February had called for the immediate closure of the federal Department of Education on, reiterating his desire to shut down the agency despite acknowledging the complexity of the process.
Donald Trump reportedly proposed shuttering it in his first term as president, but Congress did not act.
While Trump has derided the Education Department as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology, completing its dismantling is most likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979. Republicans said they will introduce legislation to achieve that, while Democrats have quickly lined up to oppose the idea, reported Associated Press.
The order on Thursday said the education secretary will, “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities."
It offers no detail on how that work will be carried out or where it will be targeted, though the White House said the agency will retain certain critical functions.
Donald Trump vowed to close the department beyond its "core necessities," preserving its responsibilities for Title I funding for low-income schools, Pell grants and money for children with disabilities, the AP report said.
The Education Department, which oversees a range of educational support, employs over 4,200 people and has a budget that totaled $251 billion in the most recent year, a Reuters report had mentioned earlier.
Donald Trump had previously suggested he would seek to close the department through an executive order, though he recognised that achieving this goal would require support from Congress and teachers' unions.
The closure of Education Department comes with consequences, potentially disrupting billions of dollars in funding for K-12 schools and college tuition assistance programmes, according to the report.
Trump's efforts to change US govt ops
Donald Trump’s executive order to eliminate the Education Department is the latest in the series of actions as part of his broader efforts to enact sweeping changes in US government operations.
Donald Trump has focused on reducing the size of the federal workforce and cutting costs, pushing for government employees to return to office jobs or leave, and targeting agencies like the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for closure.
"The Department of Education's a big con job," Reuters quoted Donald Trump telling reporters last month, doubling down on his long-standing criticism of the agency. Donald Trump had said that Linda McMahon, his nominee for education secretary, had been tasked with overseeing the department’s closure.
This marks the second time Donald Trump has proposed ending the Education Department, having raised the issue during his first term from 2017 to 2021.
Congress, however, did not act on his previous proposals. Conservative think tanks advocating for the department's abolition have suggested that other agencies could assume responsibility for managing educational aid programmes and oversight.
