Trump to sign executive order aimed at shuttering Department of Education

President Trump will sign an executive order Thursday directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take the necessary steps to close the Department of Education.

The order acknowledges that the president doesn’t have the authority to shutter the department. It will direct Ms. McMahon to take “all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Education Department” based on the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law,” according to the Wall Street Journal, which first broke the story.

“The experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars — and the unaccountable bureaucrats those programs and dollars support — has failed our children, our teachers, and our families,” the order will state, according to the Journal, which noted its language could change.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment by The Washington Times.

Shuttering the Education Department has been under consideration since before Mr. Trump was inaugurated.

Ms McMahon, who was sworn-in this week, signaled the move Monday night in an email to staffers, saying after her Senate confirmation that she would “send education back to the states.” She also said voters have “tasked us with accomplishing the elimination of the bureaucratic bloat here at the Education Department — a momentous final mission — quickly and responsibly.”

The Trump administration has already made moves to weaken the department. It laid off probationary employees and offered others buyouts. It paused some of its civil rights enforcement work and eliminated many grants and contracts related to research and teacher evaluations.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second largest teachers’ union, issued a statement Thursday morning citing an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll showing that 63% of respondents “strongly oppose” closing the Education Department.

“The Department of Education and the laws it’s supposed to execute has one major purpose: to level the playing field and fill opportunity gaps to help every child in America succeed,” Ms. Weingarten said. “Trying to abolish it — which, by the way, only Congress can do — sends a message that the president doesn’t care about opportunity for all kids. Maybe he cares about it for his own kids or his friends’ kids or his donors’ kids — but not all kids.”

Dismantling the Education Department has long been a goal for Republicans since it was created by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. President Ronald Reagan had tried to cut it after taking office but was unsuccessful. Conservative ire for the department reached new heights under President Joseph R. Biden after it began forgiving student loans, bungled the rollout of new financial aid forms and expanded rules to accommodate transgender students in sports.

The Education Department has about 4,500 employees, making it one of the smallest Cabinet-level agencies. It is responsible for distributing federal financial aid and collecting and disseminating data related to schools. It also enforces non-discrimination policies in schools. The money it distributes to schools accounts for less than 10% of the nation’s public school funding, which is primarily driven by state and local taxes.