President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday instructing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the Department of Education.
“It sounds strange, doesn’t it? Department of Education. We’re going to eliminate it,” Trump said during a White House press conference, surrounded by children sitting at school desks. Trump turned to the kids and asked, “Should I do this?” before signing the order.
Introducing McMahon, Trump made his intentions clear: “Hopefully she will be our last secretary of education.” He even assured her that he’d “find something else” for her once the department was gone.
The executive order comes just one week after the agency issued mass layoff notices on March 12, slashing its workforce by nearly 50% in what officials have described as a “reduction in force,” as ESSENCE previously reported.
Of course, completely shutting down the Department of Education isn’t something Trump can do on his own—Congress has to approve it. And while Republicans control the House, any legislation would still need Democratic votes in the Senate to move forward. That didn’t stop Trump from trying to rally support. “I hope they’re going to be voting for it,” he said, referring to congressional Democrats, “because ultimately it may come before them.”
Wasting no time, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, took to X (formerly Twitter) right after the signing, saying he would introduce legislation to shut down the department “as soon as possible.”
For context, the Department of Education was created in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter, and any attempt to dismantle it would face serious pushback—especially from Democrats. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the top Democrat on the House Education Committee, called the executive order “reckless” and warned that “dismantling ED will exacerbate existing disparities, reduce accountability, and put low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, rural students, and English as a Second Language (ESL) students at risk.”
Rep. Scott went on to say that he believes the executive order will be used to “distract Americans from the fact that Republicans are not working to address the real problems facing students and families: widening academic achievement gaps, school shootings, and the burden of student loans.”
So, what does this actually mean for students right now? White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to reassure the public, saying that while the department would be “much smaller than it is today,” its critical functions—like enforcing civil rights laws and overseeing student loans and grants—would continue.
“The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today,” Leavitt reiterated. “So when it comes to student loans and Pell grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education.”
