US President Donald Trump will sign a long-awaited order on Thursday to abolish the federal Department of Education, news agency Reuters reported, citing a White House summary.
The department oversees some 100,000 public and 34,000 private schools in the US, although the state and local governments provide more than 85% of public-school funding. It also plays a key role in overseeing almost $1.6 trillion in student loans taken by Americans who cannot afford to immediately pay for their university education.
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Why Trump wants to shutdown Department of Education
The Trump administration argues, citing standardised test scores, that federal government control of education has failed students, parents and teachers. It also argues that the department has spent over $3 trillion since its creation in 1979 without improving students’ achievement.
The order directs education secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure (of) the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely,” Reuters reported.
Taking an ideological tone, the order also mandates that any programmes or activities receiving remaining federal funds should not “advance DEI or gender ideology.”
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Critics slam move
Critics of the administration said the department is crucial in ensuring high standards of public education and accuse the Republicans of trying to push for a profit-driven education model.
But secretary McMahon defended the move, promising that federal school funding appropriated by Congress to assist low-income school districts and students would continue. Reuters also reported citing an unnamed source that student loans and services for children with disabilities that were codified in law would continue.
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‘Final mission’
The move seeks to implement a key campaign promise that Trump also proposed to implement during his first term at the White House, but Congress did not act on it. The US president has repeatedly called for eliminating the department, calling it “a big con job.”
This also comes after the Trump administration’s move to lay off more than 1,300 employees of the department was challenged by attorneys general from 20 states and the district of Columbia in a federal court in Boston.
The Trump administration called the move as part of the agency’s “final mission” as the US president his billionaire adviser Elon Musk continue their attempts to shut down government programs and institutions without Congressional approval citing administrative “waste”, Reuters reported.
