U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing to eliminate an entire federal government department focused on education, to the cheers of conservatives in his Make America Great Again movement.
Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that aims to shut down the Department of Education, the federal agency that ensures states provide all children with equal access to schooling and oversees the $1.6 trillion US college student loan program.
His order directs Secretary of Education Linda McMahon — co-founder and former chief executive of the WWE wrestling empire — to take “all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the department.
Here’s what eliminating the Department of Education would mean for children, schools and college students in the United States.
What does the Department of Education do?
While states have primary jurisdiction over the school systems in the U.S., including over curriculum, the federal department enforces compliance with laws that prohibit discrimination in education and administers funding aimed at boosting educational achievement.
Last year it received $220 billion in funding from Congress for a range of assistance programs for disadvantaged students — including non-English speakers and children with disabilities — as well as collecting data on school performance.
How will students be affected?
Without federal enforcement of educational access laws, states will be free to decide that “kids who are blind, who are deaf, who have Down’s syndrome, who have autism are too expensive to teach,” said Keri Rodrigues, founding president of the National Parents Union.
“We have a terrible legacy in the United States of denying children with special needs access to classrooms,” she told CBC News in an interview from Boston.
“When we hear about the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, it strikes fear in the heart of parents like me,” said Rodrigues, who has a child with autism.
The Trump administration has already shifted the role of the Office for Civil Rights within the department from its previous mandate of protecting the rights of marginalized children to policing whether states and schools are allowing transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports.
How will school funding change?
Elizabeth Dhuey, an economics professor at the University of Toronto who studies educational policy and the economics of education, including in the U.S., said one of the things she’s most worried about is the funding currently earmarked for programs related to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
The Trump administration has signalled it intends to give states the bulk of IDEA funding with no strings attached.
“The problem with that is that there’s no legislation around it to have any rules and regulations so that these children actually get the educational services they need,” Dhuey said in an interview. “Without that, we’re probably just going to move backwards.”
On average across the U.S., states provide about 85 per cent of school funding, but in those with larger proportions of children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, the federal contribution via the Department of Education is more significant.
Why is Trump doing this?
Trump has talked about dismantling the Department of Education since his first presidential campaign in 2016.
“The Department of Education’s main functions can, and should, be returned to the States,” reads the executive order that Trump signed Thursday in the presence of nine Republican governors.
One line in the order suggests the move will make it easier for parents to pull their children from public schools and put them in private or religious schools. “Closing the Department of Education would provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them,” says the order, without offering any further details.
New York Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke posted her take on Trump’s motives on social media: “We know the real reason he’s tearing apart the Department of Education is to steal money from public schools and funnel it into private ones,” Clarke wrote.
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Can Trump actually shut down the department?
Under U.S. law, only Congress has the authority to eliminate a cabinet-level department such as education. That requires the approval of 60 members of the U.S. Senate, where Republicans hold only 53 seats.
This constitutional limit to the president’s power explains why the wording of Trump’s executive order stops short of directing the closure of the department.
However, that did not stop the president from going further in his remarks at the White House on Thursday.
“We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible,” he said during the signing ceremony, which he performed while surrounded by children seated at school desks.
Observers say Trump’s plan is designed to hobble the department as much as possible, so that it is eliminated in all but name only. Even before Thursday’s executive order, the administration had already slashed the department’s 4,200-person workforce nearly in half.
The attorneys general of 20 states filed a lawsuit last week claiming that the administration is acting illegally, because the job cuts mean the department will be unable to perform its core functions required by law.
What about college student loans?
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told a briefing on Thursday before Trump signed the executive order that the department will continue to manage federal loans and grants to college students.
However, the executive order envisions something completely different.
“The Federal student aid program is roughly the size of one of the Nation’s largest banks,” it reads. “The Department of Education is not a bank, and it must return bank functions to an entity equipped to serve America’s students.”
Trump has previously floated moving the student loan system to the departments of Commerce or Treasury or the Small Business Administration.
