WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Thursday calling for the shutdown of the US Education Department, according to a White House official, advancing a campaign promise to eliminate an agency that\u2019s been a longtime target of conservatives.
\nThe official spoke on the condition of anonymity before an announcement.
\nTrump has derided the Department of Education as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, finalizing its dismantling is likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979.
\nA White House fact sheet said the order would direct Secretary Linda McMahon \u201cto 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.\u201d
\nThe Trump administration has already been gutting the agency through layoffs and program cuts. Its workforce is being slashed in half and there have been deep cuts to the Office for Civil Rights and the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nation\u2019s academic progress.
\nThe department sends billions of dollars a year to schools and oversees $1.6 trillion in federal student loans.
\nCurrently, much of the agency\u2019s work revolves around managing money \u2014 both its extensive student loan portfolio and a range of aid programs for colleges and school districts, from school meals to support for homeless students. The agency also plays a significant role in overseeing civil rights enforcement.
\nFederal funding makes up a relatively small portion of public school budgets \u2014 roughly 14 percent. The money often supports supplemental programs for vulnerable students, such as the McKinney-Vento program for homeless students or Title I for low-income schools.
\nColleges and universities are more reliant on money from Washington, through research grants along with federal financial aid that helps students pay their tuition.
\nRepublicans have talked about closing the Education Department for decades, saying it wastes taxpayer money and inserts the federal government into decisions that should fall to states and schools. The idea has gained popularity recently as conservative parents\u2019 groups demand more authority over their children\u2019s schooling.
\nIn his platform, Trump promised to close the department \u201cand send it back to the states, where it belongs.\u201d Trump has cast the department as a hotbed of \u201cradicals, zealots and Marxists\u201d who overextend their reach through guidance and regulation.
\nYet even some of Trump\u2019s allies have questioned his power to close the agency without action from Congress, and there are doubts about its political popularity. The House considered an amendment to close the agency in 2023, but 60 Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it.
\nDuring Trump\u2019s first term, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos sought to dramatically reduce the agency\u2019s budget and asked Congress to bundle all K-12 funding into block grants that give states more flexibility in how they spend federal money. It was rejected, with pushback from some Republicans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Thursday calling for the shutdown of the US Education Department, according to a White House official, advancing a campaign promise to eliminate an agency that\u2019s been a longtime target of conservatives. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity before an announcement. Trump has derided …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":78671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78673,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78658\/revisions\/78673"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}