Donald Trump Has Issued An Executive Order To Close The Department Of Education. Now What?
From Forbes.com
After citing rationale for closing the department, the critical portion of the executive order is this
The Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.
“The maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law” is the crux of the matter. The department cannot be dissolved without an act of Congress, though the administration could continue to hollow out the department by firing more staff. As CNN reported, White House press secretary said ahead of the signing that the order would move to “greatly minimize the agency,” and that certain “critical functions” would remain under the department umbrella.
“Critical functions” could be any of the grant programs that were created by Congress. Project 2025 proposed turning Title I and IDEA funds into block grants to the states to use as they wish, with Title I funding to be reduced to zero in ten years. And Trump has also said that he would cut off funding to schools that did not comply with certain of his requirements.
Other functions of the department have already been hit by personnel cuts, including the Office of Civil Rights (as reported by CNN) and the National Center for Educational Statistics (as reported by ABC News). The NCES collects and compiles data about U.S, education, including the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the source of data that the executive order cites in its rationale for the closing of the department.
School funding expert Bruce Baker, writing for the Albert Shanker Institute, estimates that eliminating federal aid would lead to major drops in student achievement, a sort of federally-induced learning loss. The effect of turning them to block grants would depend on how the state used the money; Baker notes the irony that state grants would be based on need, but the state would not be under any obligation to give the money to districts where that need exists. Baker predicts the block grants would exacerbate the achievement gaps in most states.
Read the full article, including information about the legal barriers, right here.