The White House took giant steps Tuesday toward breaking up the U.S. Department of Education and spreading key K-12 functions across other agencies, moves that many consider a violation of federal law.
The Department of Labor will “co-manage” the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education by administering roughly $28 billion in grant funds through an interagency agreement. The Interior Department will take responsibility for Indian education.
Decisions are still pending on whether to move the offices overseeing civil rights, special education and student loans, but additional agreements move the Office of Postsecondary Education to the Department of Labor and a campus-based child care program to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Federal education officials celebrated the announcement as a key milestone toward fulfilling President Donald Trump’s March executive order to dismantle the department and said state leaders could still expect “concierge-level service.”
“At the end of the day, it means more dollars to the classroom, to the grantees, that does not get siphoned off through bureaucracy,” a senior department official said during a background call with reporters. “We think that this really does give states more power to … determine how those dollars are spent and to best best manage them.”
In a subsequent online presentation involving the White House, some education advocates sent thumbs down and sad face emojis as the call concluded.
Rebecca Sibilia, executive director of EdFund, a think tank, said she was concerned that they made no mention of what will happen to the Institute for Education Sciences. The department’s research arm was one of the Department of Government Efficiency’s first targets. It canceled roughly $900 million in grants, and McMahon laid off most of the staff in March.
“If there is any fundamental role for the government to play, it is the collection and reporting of data,” she said. “As for the rest of the plan, it sounds like they have spread these programs so far and wide it will be difficult to put Humpty Dumpty back together again”.
The administration has plowed ahead with dismantling the department despite McMahon’s frequent acknowledgement that only Congress, which established the agency in 1979, has the power to completely eliminate it. She has downplayed the agency’s role, describing it as a “pass-through” for federal funds and used social media to minimize the department’s work. “Makes you wonder…do we really need @usedgov at all?,” she posted on X after the government re-opened.
In October, she finished transferring career and technical programs, adult education and family literacy to the Department of Labor. During the government shutdown, officials said they were “exploring partnerships” with the Department of Health and Human Services to take over special education. In higher education, the department is considering whether to sell off its $1.77 trillion student loan portfolio to private companies. Like other aspects of the president’s plan, it’s unclear whether such moves would be legal.
‘Sudden, chaotic decisions’
Under the law that created the agency, the secretary can reorganize the department and enter into interagency agreements.
Speaking to reporters, the department official cited the Economy Act, a 1933 law that she said gives the agency the right to “contract with other federal agencies to procure services.”
“Interagency agreements are a frequently used tool of the federal government,” the official said, adding that because the Labor Department already oversees workforce development programs, it’s best positioned to manage funding focused on helping students prepare for the workforce.
But Emily Merolli, a partner with the Sligo Law Group, and a former member of the department’s general counsel’s office, said the administration’s actions “are not legally supportable.”
The law “absolutely does not grant the secretary the authority to just transfer those actual functions — let alone entire offices — to another agency,” she said. “Dressing this up as a ‘co-management or ‘partnership’ agreement doesn’t make it legal. They’re trying to dress up the pig, but it’s still an illegal pig.”
In a statement, the Council of Chief State School Officers said they seek assurances that the department won’t miss deadlines and that funding “flows without interruption to support students.”
But individually, some state education leaders condemned the day’s events.
“This decision is the latest in a long pattern of sudden, chaotic decisions at the federal level that have created widespread anxiety and confusion,” Rhode Island education Commissioner Angélica Infante Green said in a statement.
California state Superintendent Tony Thurmond said, “It is clearly less efficient for state departments of education and local school districts to work with four different federal agencies instead of one.”
Opponents say eliminating the department leaves the most vulnerable students without important protections because other agencies lack expertise to administer complex laws like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Multiple surveys, including one from EdChoice and another from PDK International, show the public is largely opposed to the idea. But another poll from Yes. Every Kid. Foundation, a school choice advocacy group, found that respondents were more positive when they were told that K-12 funding, like Title I for high-poverty schools, would be preserved.
Some conservatives say the government should phase out the Title I program along with the department and hand the $18 billion annually over to states for private school choice.
“The money has been spent for more than 50 years and it hasn’t accomplished much,” said Ray Domanico, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “One of the things we’ve learned is that Washington is not the place to dictate policy.”
A 2019 study showed that Black students in high-poverty, high-minority schools made greater gains in reading when their schools used Title I to reduce class sizes. When schools used the funds for teacher training, Black and Latino students made greater gains in math. But achievement gaps persist and are getting larger between high- and low-achieving students.
But Domanico is skeptical that the Republicans will be able to finish the job of eliminating the department. A lot depends on whether the Democrats take control of the House in next year’s midterm elections, and ‘in two years,” he said, “Trump is going to be a lame duck.”
Others think that advocates are overreacting to the news. Michael Petrilli, president of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and a former department official during the second Bush administration, dismissed the announcement as “a nothing burger.”
“They will move some boxes (and people) around,” he posted on X, “and, if a Democrat wins in 2028, it will be swiftly undone.”