Trump Wants to Shut Down the Department of Education? Is That Possible?
"Donald Trump has argued he would use the department to further his priorities — or close it. But the agency has relatively limited power, and any plan to shutter it would face major hurdles.
On the campaign trail, Donald J. Trump has depicted the nation’s public schools as purveyors of an extreme ideology on gender and race. One of his proposed remedies is to revive a Reagan-era call to shut down the federal Department of Education, founded in 1979.
“We will move everything back to the states, where it belongs” he said in one speech. “They can individualize education and do it with the love for their children.”
On the Democratic side, vows to resist that effort have become a frequent applause-line in speeches.
“We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools,” Vice President Kamala Harris said at the Democratic National Convention.
Lost in the back and forth over this relatively small federal agency is any discussion of what the department — affectionately known in Washington policy circles as “Ed” — actually does, and what the practical impact would be of shuttering it (if that is even possible).
How much power does it have?
Perhaps paradoxically, even as Mr. Trump has vowed to close Ed, he has implied that he would use the agency’s investigatory powers to peer into local school practices around gender and race.
He wants to prevent schools from recognizing transgender identities and has said he will reward those that embrace an explicitly patriotic curriculum while defunding schools that teach critical race theory or “gender indoctrination.”
It is certainly possible for a president to create funding incentives around specific education priorities. Still, less than 10 percent of K-12 school funding passes through the agency. The vast majority of the money comes from state and local taxes.
And the department does not control local learning standards or reading lists.
It does issue regulations on how civil rights laws apply to various groups of students, including L.G.B.T.Q. students, those from racial minorities and girls. Still, the Office for Civil Rights, which guides schools on those issues and investigates claims of discrimination, received less than 1 percent of the agency’s total budget this year.
Under President Biden, that office recently issued guidance saying that gay and transgender students must have equal access to most school programs and facilities. But those regulations are on pause in half the states after Republican lawsuits sought to block them from going into effect. If re-elected, Mr. Trump would almost certainly attempt to reverse those regulations.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a question about how, specifically, Mr. Trump proposed to close the Department of Education while also using its powers.
In a written statement, Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the campaign, said, “President Trump has always supported bringing education back to the states, closest to parents and educators, where it belongs.”
What does it actually do?
While the agency’s involvement in K-12 issues has often been in the spotlight politically, by far the Department of Education’s biggest expenditure is on higher education.
More than 70 percent of its $224 billion annual budget goes to the federal student aid program. The agency provides more than $90 billion in new loans to students annually, which are distributed by colleges and serviced by the federal government through private contractors.
It also offers $39 billion in Pell Grants annually to low-income students, which generally do not need to be paid back. It administers the federal work-study program and gives grants to students who promise to work as teachers in hard-to-staff subjects or schools.
Under President Biden, the Department of Education canceled more than $167 billion in student debt for 4.75 million borrowers, about 10 percent of those who hold a federal student loan. Mr. Trump and other Republicans have often opposed that effort, arguing it is an unfair giveaway to the college educated and an overstep of the agency’s authority.
The limited federal funding for K-12 schools commonly pays for special-education aides, school social workers, tutoring programs and additional teachers to lower class sizes. The department also has a research arm that collects data on student achievement and points toward best practices in the classroom. Following its guidance is mostly optional.
It is not easy for a president to withhold federal dollars from schools. The money flows out according to formulas preset by Congress, and it is targeted toward particular groups, such as low-income students and children with disabilities.
And to close the department entirely? That would also have to go through Congress. Lawmakers would have to vote to disband the agency, a highly unlikely proposition, according to education experts in both parties.
For Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris, attacking or defending the Department of Education may be less about the agency itself than about finding a sort of rhetorical shorthand for engaging voters who are worried about schools.
In 2024, many Democrats see public schools as institutions in need of funding and support. In contrast, in the era of Moms for Liberty, national Republicans have been speaking about schools as corrupt institutions in need of reform.
“I don’t think it’s possible to eliminate the United States Department of Education. That’s a talking point,” said Derrell Bradford, president of 50CAN, a nonprofit that supports school choice policies, like charter schools and vouchers.
But, he added, “the idea that local entities should be in control of education at the local level? That is very popular among both Democrats and Republicans.”
It has had opponents since the beginning.
Opposition to the Department of Education is today associated with Republicans. But the agency began its life with fierce opponents on both sides of the aisle.
President Jimmy Carter established Ed in 1979, fulfilling a campaign promise to the nation’s largest teachers’ union, the National Education Association. He did so over the objections of his own presidential transition team and many in Congress — including fellow Democrats.
Some staunch liberals like Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, opposed the creation of the department. They believed all of the issues impacting children — health care, nutrition, cash welfare and education — should be handled by a single federal agency, then known as the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
Another liberal skeptic was Al Shanker, head of the second-largest teachers’ union, the American Federation of Teachers.
Still, over the next four decades, Ed became a part of the beltway firmament, popular with Democrats and many Republicans, too. Many of the programs Ed oversees are sources of bipartisan comity, such as funding for vocational education.
Gareth Davies, a historian who has written about the founding of the Department of Education, said the revival of conservative opposition to the agency shows “just how far the G.O.P. has moved in the past two decades, from compassionate conservatism to culture wars.”
While the idea may play well to the conservative activist base, he wrote in an email, “it gives Democrats opportunities to say that the G.O.P. is bashing teachers and public schools.”
Frederick Hess, director of education policy at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, argued that focusing on the Department of Education was a “cul-de-sac” for Republicans like Mr. Trump, who should instead be talking about how pandemic school closures, pushed by Democrats, negatively impacted student learning.
“They have fumbled a significant opportunity on education,” he said."
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