Did Trump Abolish the Department of Education with the Stroke of a Pen?

 

Did Trump Abolish the Department of Education with the Stroke of a Pen?

President Donald Trump, shown with U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, signed the executive order to close the Department of Education on March 20. Section 2 of the order states, “The Secretary of Education shall . . . take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities.”

President Donald Trump holds the executive order to dismantle the Department of Education he just signed with Education Secretary Linda McMahon during an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. on March 20, 2025. 

President Donald Trump, shown with U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, signed the executive order to close the Department of Education on March 20. Section 2 of the order states, “The Secretary of Education shall . . . take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities.”

During the football season, ESPN’s Dan Graziano each week pens a column that gauges the popular hot takes. It’s a useful device that I’ve occasionally borrowed. Well, President Trump’s executive order (EO) regarding the fate of the Department of Education (ED) has produced a bonfire of hot takes, hand-wringing, and hyperbole. But all the cable news chyrons, triumphant tweets, and anxious email blasts have yielded more heat than light.

So, let’s take a deep breath, pause the rhetorical fireworks, and try to sort things out, Graziano style.

Trump’s executive order effectively abolished the U.S. Department of Education. After all, Section 2 of the EO is titled “Closing the Department of Education and Returning Authority to the States.” Trump’s boosters have been celebrating the closure, his detractors have decried it, and cable news panels have discussed the consequences. So, it’s gone, right?

Verdict: OVERREACTION. The Department of Education is still there. It hasn’t been abolished. The EO was essentially a memo telling Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to continue trying to downsize ED and asking Congress to dismantle it. How do we know? Because it said McMahon should proceed “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” On paper, at least, the administration showed an admirable respect for the law, which means things are pretty much where they were before the EO. As McMahon has noted, abolishing ED requires legislation, which would take 60 votes in the Senate—where there are only 53 Republicans. Since abolishing a federal agency isn’t the sort of thing Congress can do via reconciliation, ED isn’t going away unless Republicans decide to kill the filibuster. The EO’s primary import is that it puts Trump personally in this fight, energizing both sides of the debate

Even if the department isn’t getting abolished, Trump has moved key programs to other agencies. The day after Trump signed his EO, the administration announced that it would start dismantling ED by moving student lending to the Small Business Administration (SBA) and special education to Health and Human Services. That’s a big deal, isn’t it?  

Verdict: OVERREACTION. Hypothetically, it could be a big development, but let’s slow down a minute. For starters, Trump hasn’t actually moved special ed or student lending. He didn’t even propose a timeline or process for doing so. Meanwhile, existing statute makes clear that both programs are to be housed in ED. This means that either Congress needs to revise the law (not likely, since there won’t be 60 “yes” votes in the Senate), or Team Trump needs to find a path around it. Such a move would assuredly wind up in court. Of course, even if the administration can clear these hurdles, nothing has yet been said about how this hand-off would work in practice. While I’m sympathetic to the possibility that the SBA, for instance, could conceivably do a better job with student lending than a department that has failed a series of audits and fumbled the FAFSA, it’s tough to speculate about any potential risks or benefits absent a clearer way forward (and it’s worth noting that the SBA has issues of its own).

Okay, but slashing the department staff by 50 percent means huge cuts for IDEA, Title I, and Pell Grants. There’ve been a slew of furious social media posts and PR blasts detailing just what these cuts mean for states. This is going to have a big impact on schools, students, and educators.

Verdict: OVERREACTION. Staffing cuts at ED don’t affect the funding levels for programs like IDEA, Title I, or Pell. Such claims deserve to be filed under “fake news.” The Department of Education staff has been dramatically shrunk. That’s absolutely true. But, for good or ill, those job cuts don’t have anything to do with actual program funding. It’s like reading that your auto insurance company laid off half the staff at its headquarters: It’s noteworthy, but it doesn’t necessarily impact your premium or deductible. So far, there’s been no move to cut spending on the major education programs like IDEA, Title I, or Pell and no sign that such cuts are forthcoming. This means that spending on students and schools will not be affected. If this surprises you, it’s probably because the partisan back-and-forth has been so hyperbolic, and much of the coverage has followed suit.