President Donald Trump inked his signature on a mandate to dismantle the Department of Education and rid the nation of the federally standardized schooling system, as White House officials gathered in the East Room to watch on Thursday.
“Closing the Department of Education would provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them,” Trump wrote in the order. “Today, American reading and math scores are near historical low.”
At the event, he highlighted Baltimore as a poor performing city and said students were unable to do “basic math” including addition and subtraction.
“In Baltimore, 40% of the high schools have zero students who can do basic mathematics, not even the very simplest of mathematics,” Trump told the people present. “I said, ‘Give me your definition of basic,’ and they are talking about adding a few numbers together.”
The numbers, according to the president, were reflective of a larger margin of public school students across the country.
“This year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that 70% of 8th graders were below proficient in reading, and 72% were below proficient in math,” he continued. “The federal education bureaucracy is not working.”
A group of students seated at desks watched as he rattled off dire statistics plaguing the country that invests the most globally per pupil.
Republican governors cheered as Trump made the case for the Department of Education’s removal and applauded as he shared that he hopes Secretary of Education Linda McMahon “will be our last.”
“My administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department. We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible,” Trump declared. “It’s doing us no good.”
The leader promised to keep the federal student loan program known as Pell grants and Title I funding for low income schools in place despite staunch change. He said their oversight would eventually be assigned to other federal agencies.
“The Department of Education currently manages a student loan debt portfolio of more than $1.6 trillion. This means the Federal student aid program is roughly the size of one of the Nation’s largest banks, Wells Fargo,” Trump wrote in the order. “But although Wells Fargo has more than 200,000 employees, the Department of Education has fewer than 1,500 in its Office of Federal Student Aid. The Department of Education is not a bank, and it must return bank functions to an entity equipped to serve America’s students.”
The History Behind the Department of Education; Reactions to the Dismantling
The late Democratic President Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education in 1979.
“Primary responsibility for education should rest with those states, localities, and private institutions that have made our nation’s educational system the best in the world, but the federal government has for too long failed to play its own supporting role in education as effectively as it could,” Carter said when signing the order to create the cabinet-level agency. “Instead of assisting school officials at the local level, it has too often added to their burden. Instead of setting a strong administrative model, the federal structure has contributed to bureaucratic buck passing.”
Trump’s plans stem from past rhetoric introduced by former President Ronald Reagan who campaigned on closing the department in 1980, but later settled for large budget cuts.
Now, its public education’s functionality is set to be completely returned to states, some of which have banned critical race theory, a number of books and either are for or against teaching religion in schools.
However, Trump’s Thursday directive ensures that all schools will rid themselves of diversity, inclusion and equity efforts (DEI) and corresponding programs.
Democrats are now worried about the projected impact on children in rural areas, impoverished communities and conditional circumstances.
“Class sizes will soar, educators will be fired, special education programs will be cut and college will get even more expensive,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
National Education Association President Randi Weingarten has promised to retaliate with a lawsuit targeting the Trump administration’s move.
Until their day in court comes, McMahon will work to dismantle the Department of Education from the inside out while relying on an official act of Congress to formally undertake its complete termination.
“Great to see states already taking responsibility to empower parents and equip students,” wrote McMahon on X, formerly known as Twitter, in reply to a post highlighting Michigan House Republicans supporting the department’s dismantling. “President Trump has given us a mission: let’s get to work.”