By Stacy M. Brown
The Trump administration has begun the formal dismantling of the United States Department of Education. The Supreme Court’s decision lifting an injunction on mass layoffs cleared the way for the administration to start breaking apart the agency and transferring its responsibilities to other federal departments.
“When the executive publicly announces its intent to break the law and then executes on that promise, it is the judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness and not expedite it,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent this year.
The dismantling aligns with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan which calls for eliminating the federal role in education and replacing it with state block grants without oversight.
The National Education Association (NEA) reported that the plan would abolish Title I funding and jeopardize the more than 2.8 million students who rely on it in the nation’s highest poverty schools. Their analysis shows that losing Title I could eliminate one hundred eighty thousand teaching positions.
“Taking a wrecking ball to public schools will inflict damage on millions of low-income students across the country,” said Becky Pringle, president of the NEA.
She also said that Americans did not support ending the federal government’s commitment to equal educational opportunity.
The dismantling is already underway. Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote that the 43-day government shutdown proved how little the department would be missed. Days later she posted a video of a ticking clock and the message that the department’s final phase had begun.
Education Week reported that as many as seven major offices are expected to be moved to other federal agencies. These include programs for students with disabilities, the Office for Civil Rights, postsecondary education, and divisions that oversee core K through 12 funding.
“If you take the major organs out of a human, do you still have a human or do you have a corpse,” a former department staffer told Education Week.
The movement of responsibilities threatens the protections and funding that schools depend on. IDEA funds support more than 7.5 million students with disabilities. Pell Grants help millions of low-income college students attend school. Title I reduces class sizes and funds reading specialists and intervention programs. The NEA warns that dismantling the department will reduce special education services, increase class sizes, and leave millions of students without essential support.
In the District, where Black students make up the largest share of enrollment, advocates fear that federal oversight will disappear.
“If we no longer have a department we may not necessarily really have the research and support to really make sure that all students are achieving at high levels,” Patrick Rice of the Black Educational Advocacy Coalition noted.
He said the department has provided the accountability districts often lacked.
Civil rights organizations warn that Project 2025 rejects enforcement of Title VIincluding the ability to challenge school policies that have discriminatory effects.
“Denying these truths does not make them disappear, it deepens the harm,” Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, said.
Educators nationwide say students and staff will feel the impact immediately.
“Students are not going to get the support they need,” Denise Specht, president of Education Minnesota, stated in the NEA analysis. She said staff who provide vital services will lose their jobs.
Will Ragland of the Center for American Progress added that removing Title I funding “would be devastating to local schools students families and communities” and he said it would mean losing thousands of teachers.
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