{"id":772,"date":"2025-03-21T08:53:50","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T08:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/03\/21\/why-trump-cant-immediately-shut-down-the-education-department-the-new-york-times\/"},"modified":"2025-03-21T08:53:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T08:53:50","slug":"why-trump-cant-immediately-shut-down-the-education-department-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/03\/21\/why-trump-cant-immediately-shut-down-the-education-department-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Trump Can\u2019t Immediately Shut Down the Education Department – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Trump Signs Order Aimed at Eliminating Education Dept. \u2018Once and for All\u2019<\/h2>\n

Congress and federal law stand in the way of shutting down the agency, which manages federal loans for college, tracks student achievement and supports programs for students with disabilities.<\/p>\n

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President Trump said Thursday that the department would continue to provide critical functions, such as the administration of federal student aid, including loans and grants, and funding for special education and districts with high levels of student poverty.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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President Trump on Thursday instructed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin shutting down her agency, a task that cannot be completed without congressional approval and sets the stage for a seismic political and legal battle over the federal government\u2019s role in the nation\u2019s schools.<\/p>\n

Surrounded by schoolchildren seated at desks in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Trump signed a long-awaited executive order that he said would begin dismantling the department \u201conce and for all.\u201d The Trump administration has cited poor test scores as a key justification for the move.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to shut it down, and shut it down as quickly as possible,\u201d Mr. Trump said.<\/p>\n

The department, which manages federal loans for college, tracks student achievement and supports programs for students with disabilities, was created by an act of Congress. That means, according to Article I of the Constitution<\/a>, that only Congress can shut it down. That clear delineation of power, a fundamental component of democracy from the inception of the United States, underscores why no other modern president has tried to unilaterally shutter a federal department.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Trump has already taken significant steps that have limited the agency\u2019s operations and authority. Since Mr. Trump\u2019s inauguration, his administration has slashed the department\u2019s work force<\/a> by more than half and eliminated $600 million in grants<\/a>. The job cuts hit particularly hard at the department\u2019s Office for Civil Rights<\/a>, which enforces the country\u2019s guarantee that all students have an equal opportunity to an education.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr. Trump\u2019s order contains potentially contradictory guidance for Ms. McMahon. On the one hand, the order directs her to facilitate the elimination of the agency. On the other, she is also mandated to rigorously comply with federal law. The order offers no guidance on how to square those two points.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump said Thursday that the department would continue to provide critical functions that are required by law, such as the administration of federal student aid, including loans and grants, as well as funding for special education and districts with high levels of student poverty. The department would also continue civil rights enforcement, White House officials said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump called those programs \u201cuseful functions,\u201d and said they\u2019re going to be \u201cpreserved in full.\u201d He added that some functions would be \u201credistributed to various other agencies and departments that will take very good care of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Higher education leaders and advocacy groups immediately condemned the executive order.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is political theater, not serious public policy,\u201d said Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education, an association that includes many colleges and universities in its membership. \u201cTo dismantle any cabinet-level federal agency requires congressional approval, and we urge lawmakers to reject misleading rhetoric in favor of what is in the best interests of students and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawyers for supporters of the Education Department anticipated they would challenge Mr. Trump\u2019s order by arguing that the administration had violated the Constitution\u2019s separation of powers clause and the clause requiring the president to take care that federal laws are faithfully executed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These lawyers, who requested anonymity to describe private deliberations about impending litigation, have also discussed the possibility of using a Supreme Court ruling from June 2024 to block Mr. Trump\u2019s action. That ruling, 6 to 3 with all the conservative justices in the majority,\u00a0swept aside a long-established precedent<\/a>\u00a0by limiting the executive branch\u2019s ability to interpret statutes and transferring power to Congress and the courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee you in court,\u201d said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the trade union for educators. Her group is among those that intend to sue.<\/p>\n

While many conservatives support<\/a> Mr. Trump\u2019s desire to close the agency, the order presents a predicament for congressional Republicans, who must balance their eagerness to please Mr. Trump and their constituents\u2019 wishes. Public opinion polls for the past two months have consistently shown nearly two-thirds of voters oppose closing the department.<\/p>\n

While local education departments primarily control how their schools are run already, the federal department has been influential in setting academic standards, guiding schools through regulatory compliance and interpreting civil rights laws.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump told the audience, which included several Republican governors, that the order\u2019s goal was to \u201creturn our students to the states.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cDemocrats want federal bureaucrats to control your child\u2019s school,\u201d Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said Thursday on social media. \u201cRepublicans want to give parents the choice to do what\u2019s best for their children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who chairs the chamber\u2019s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he would submit legislation to eliminate the Education Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree with President Trump that the Department of Education has failed its mission,\u201d Mr. Cassidy said in a statement.<\/strong> \u201cSince the department can only be shut down with congressional approval, I will support the president\u2019s goals by submitting legislation to accomplish this as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

In remarks before signing the order, Mr. Trump signaled he might press lawmakers to move on the issue, adding that he hoped Democrats would join Republicans in supporting the department\u2019s elimination.<\/p>\n

But any Democratic support appears unlikely. And in the last session of Congress, one-fourth of House Republicans voted against a measure<\/a> that would have eliminated the agency.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI hope they\u2019re going to be voting for it,\u201d Mr. Trump said, \u201cbecause ultimately it may come before them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s plans to gut the department have drawn fierce criticism from Democrats and education advocacy groups who say that the measure \u2014 even if largely symbolic \u2014 signals the federal government\u2019s retreat from its duties of protecting and serving the most vulnerable students.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be clear: Before federal oversight, millions of children \u2014 particularly those with disabilities and those from our most vulnerable communities \u2014 were denied the opportunities they deserved,\u201d said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union.<\/p>\n

Representative Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat who is the ranking member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, urged his Republican colleagues to join him in opposing the changes in the order.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump, he said, was \u201cimplementing his own philosophy on education which can be summed up in his own words<\/a>, \u2018I love the poorly educated,\u2019\u201d Mr. Scott said in a statement, referring to a remark Mr. Trump made in 2016.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr. Trump has gone further than any president in seeking to overhaul what Republican administrations have long bemoaned as a bloated bureaucracy. Mr. Trump\u2019s order also amplifies an argument that stagnant student test scores demonstrate that billions in federal spending have not yielded results.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe status quo has very clearly failed American children and done little more than line the pockets of bureaucrats and activists,\u201d Nicole Neily, president and founder of Parents Defending Education, said.<\/p>\n

While it is true that reading scores for 13-year-olds are about the same as they were in the 1970s and math scores are only slightly better, this is because of recent, sharp declines<\/a> that accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

Under the Biden administration, the department was fiercely criticized as being overly deferential to teachers\u2019 unions and overreaching on certain issues, such as student loan forgiveness and its interpretations of civil rights laws on behalf of transgender students.<\/p>\n

Frederick M. Hess, the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think-tank, said that he believes both the right and the left exaggerate the department\u2019s influence, but that the order does little to address the issues like overreach and red tape that drove the movement to rein in the department. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have this whole huge national debate and not solve the practical problems along the way,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause we\u2019re so focused on the 30,000-foot conversation that we\u2019re not changing, that we\u2019re not fixing, the stuff that\u2019s actually making life tougher for educators and parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah Mervosh contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Michael C. Bender is a Times political correspondent covering Donald J. Trump, the Make America Great Again movement and other federal and state elections. More about Michael C. Bender<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A version of this article appears in print on \u00a0<\/span>, Section <\/p>\n

A<\/p>\n

, Page <\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

of the New York edition<\/p>\n

with the headline: <\/p>\n

President Signs Order to Scrap Education Dept.. Order Reprints<\/a> | Today\u2019s Paper<\/a> | Subscribe<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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