President Donald Trump has reignited calls to abolish the U.S. Education Department, raising questions about how public education could be impacted nationwide.
On Monday the Supreme Court gave the green light to the Trump administration’s dramatic budget cuts at the Education Department, marking a clear victory for the President’s long-held goal of shrinking the federal education bureaucracy.
The agency manages big federal grant programs, including the $18.4-billion Title I effort that sends extra funds to K-12 schools in poor areas and the $15.5-billion plan that helps pay for students with disabilities. It also oversees the $1.6 trillion student-loan system and sets the rules colleges must follow to keep access to those dollars. Beyond funding, the department runs nationwide tests called the Nation’s Report Card and gathers data on school enrollment, campus crime, teacher staffing, and a host of other issues.
Another major job is enforcing civil-rights laws that forbid discrimination in federally supported schools on grounds like race, sex, or disability. During the Biden years, the department barred schools from treating students unfairly because of gender identity. Last week the Trump camp sued California for refusing to order transgender girls and women out of girls sports.
What has Trump said about the Education Department?
Abolishing the Education Department is a main goal in Trump latest plan of 2025. We’re not doing well with the world of education and we haven’t for a long time, Trump said in March as he signed an executive order with small kids lined up at desks behind him.
President Trump has repeatedly attacked the school choice policy, arguing that its work under Democratic leadership has pushed policies aimed at racial equity and support for transgender students-ideas he labels partisan and intrusive-primarily through civil-rights law enforcement.
What did the Supreme Court do?
Over twenty states, along with teachers unions and dozens of local school systems, banded together in court to contest the proposed staffing cuts, and their cases were eventually merged into a single proceeding. They warned in their brief that slashing the work force “down to the plywood” would harm classrooms, cripple districts, and hurt kids nationwide.
On Monday a six-justice majority of the High Court lifted a temporary stay imposed by lower courts, clearing the way for Trump aides to trim roughly one-third of the departments staff of more than 4100 and to shift many duties to states while the broader litigation proceeds. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, issued a pointed dissent, labeling the ruling “indefensible” and warning that it unreasonably widens executive power.
Trump cheered the ruling on Truth Social, and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon promised in a statement to hand power back to states and slash red tape. The planned cuts will wound some offices especially severely. The Office for Civil Rights will shed roughly half its staff and lose seven of its eleven regional doors, while the Federal Student Aid office, which oversees the sprawling loan program, will also see jobs vanish. The Institute of Education Sciences, which runs the tests known as the Nation’s Report Card, is on the chopping block too.
Could Trump simply wipe the agency off the map?
He cannot do that by himself. Any repeal bill would still need sixty “yes” votes in the Senate, meaning at least seven Democrats would have to climb aboard a train most observers say is headed nowhere fast. A 2023 House vote to dissolve the department, tucked inside a parents rights package, flopped; it managed only 161 yes votes after sixty Republican representatives joined every Democrat to say no. The measure was defeated.
What’s the Departments backstory?
For about a century a smaller version of the Education Department wandered the halls of government before vanishing again. Back in 1867, President Andrew Johnson approved a bill that created the first national education department; lawmakers quickly rolled it back into a mere office because they worried it might open the door to federal meddling in local schools.
The federal footprint in education grew after World War II as Washington pumped money into programs like the G.I. Bill, which gave millions of veterans benefits including free tuition at colleges across the nation. Later, landmark civil-rights laws handed the government fresh tools to guard against discrimination in schools on grounds of race, sex, or other protected categories.
Education remained tucked inside the sprawling Department of Health, Education, and Welfare until 1980, when that giant agency split in two and the Education Department officially took shape. The new, stand-alone agency opened its doors in May of that year and began settling into its new role.
What would be the implications of eliminating the department?
Getting rid of the Education Department would send a strong message even before any policy changes took effect. Without a Cabinet-level office devoted just to schooling, the White House would lose a loud, focused voice that repeatedly reminds the country of the day-to-day struggles teachers, parents, and students face. Pushing new ideas, tracking how well they work, and shining a spotlight on lagging areas-already tricky-would become even tougher when leadership is divided across several agencies.
How those remaining responsibilities are divided up would really determine the day-to-day fallout. President Trump imagined plugging key tasks, like administering federal loans and monitoring civil rights in classrooms, into the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, or even Defense.
His vision cools the enthusiasm of many Democrats, yet polls show significant skepticism about shuttering the department even among independents. A March Economist/YouGov survey noted that two-thirds of Americans either want the office to grow or stay as is. The same month Quinnipiac University polled voters nationwide and found 60 percent opposed the plan while only 33 percent backed it, though two-thirds of Republicans still favored the cut.
