Education Department On Deathwatch

The Trump administration has quietly launched the most serious push in decades to shrink the federal education bureaucracy and move power back toward states and local parents.

Story Snapshot

Major K-12 and college grant programs are being managed by other agencies as part of a long-term plan to wind down the federal Education Department.
A new Trump executive order directs the secretary of education to take “all necessary steps” to close the department and return authority to states, within the limits of federal law.
Critics in Washington warn of lawsuits and claim the moves are “illegal,” but they admit Congress created the department and must ultimately decide its fate.
For conservatives, the fight is about ending a failed federal experiment, stopping woke indoctrination, and restoring local control over what children learn.

Trump’s Strategy: Break Up the Bureaucracy, Shift Power Back Home

President Trump’s team is using a simple strategy that speaks to many parents’ common sense: shrink the Washington office that tried to run local schools and send control closer to home. The U.S. Department of Education announced six new “interagency agreements” with the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Interior, and State, described as a way to “break up the federal education bureaucracy” and “return education to the states.”^[8] These agreements move day-to-day management of key programs, while the Education Department keeps formal legal responsibility.

Under these agreements, the Department of Labor will now handle management of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, as well as many institution-based college grants that used to sit inside the Education Department.^[5] The Department of Interior will take over Indian education programs, and the Department of Health and Human Services will manage on-campus child care support and foreign medical accreditation.^[5] The State Department will oversee international education and foreign language programs.^[5] In each case, the Trump team argues these agencies are closer to the actual work than distant Washington education bureaucrats.

What Exactly Is Moving — and What Stays Put for Now

The shift is not symbolic; it affects tens of billions of dollars in federal education spending. Reporting estimates that the transfers for K-12 and postsecondary offices will affect roughly $31 billion, including about $28 billion in grants for elementary and secondary schooling and more than $3 billion in postsecondary operations.^[1]^[5] That means state and local leaders will deal more with agencies focused on jobs, health, or foreign affairs, rather than a stand-alone education bureaucracy that often layered on red tape but did not teach a single child.

At the same time, some politically sensitive areas remain inside the Education Department, at least for now. Special education, civil rights enforcement, and federal student aid programs have not yet moved, though officials say they are exploring options.^[4]^[5] This two-track approach lets the administration prove these transfers work before asking Congress to finish the job. Supporters note that some of these programs lived in other agencies before Congress created the department in 1979, so, in many ways, this is a reset to a more limited federal role that respects the Constitution’s silence on education and leaves core control with the states.^[7]^[9]

The Legal Fight: How Far Can a President Go Without Congress?

Conservatives cheering this move also know there is a legal ceiling. The Education Department was created by Congress, and legal experts across the spectrum agree that only Congress can fully abolish it.^[9] President Trump’s “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities” executive order leans into that reality by directing the secretary of education to “take all necessary steps” to close the department and return authority to states “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” The current transfers are part of that step-by-step plan.

To stay within the law, the administration is using a long-standing tool called interagency agreements and citing the Economy Act, which lets one federal agency buy services from another.^[1]^[7] Under this model, the Education Department keeps ultimate responsibility on paper, while another agency does the daily work.^[5]^[7] Free-market scholars who believe the department is unconstitutional themselves say this approach is a “small step in the right direction” and likely legal, even if it does not go as far as many conservatives want.^[7] The bigger question is whether Congress will eventually follow through and finish what Trump started.

Democrats, Unions, and Bureaucrats Push Back Hard

The usual Washington chorus is already trying to stop the changes. Progressive policy groups claim shifting programs to other agencies will “undermine education” and confuse families, arguing that moving programs like TRIO and GEAR UP to the Labor Department will hurt college access for low-income students.^[2] A union leader representing Education Department workers accuses Secretary Linda McMahon of “unlawfully dismantling” the agency, pointing to warnings from Democrats in Congress that she lacks authority to do so.^[3] Senate Democrats have called the agreements “illegal” and say they create “pointless new bureaucracy.”^[3]

The Trump administration plans to transfer several core Education Department responsibilities, including its civil rights and special education programs, to other federal agencies as part of its efforts to dismantle the department.https://t.co/jMaDV9rf9n

— POLITICO (@politico) June 16, 2026

Yet for many conservative parents, those complaints ring hollow. The same politicians and advocacy groups defending the department were silent while federal bureaucrats pushed gender ideology, race-based “equity” training, and unproven mandates onto local schools for years. Trump’s broader education agenda has included orders to end federal funding for “indoctrination” in K-12 schools and to direct agencies to support school choice instead of one-size-fits-all systems. For families who watched test scores fall while woke content rose, the real “harm” has been the status quo.

What It Means for Parents, Taxpayers, and Local Control

For everyday parents and taxpayers, the bottom line is simple: Washington is finally being forced to prove it adds value or get out of the way. The Education Department has already gone through major staff cuts, with plans that would slash nearly half the workforce and reduce its footprint across all divisions. The administration’s budget calls for a $12 billion cut to the department, along with consolidating many programs into simpler, flexible funding that flows more directly to states. Supporters say this will reduce waste, tame the bureaucracy, and give communities more say over how to help their own students.

The road ahead will not be easy. Court fights are likely, and Congress still holds the final vote on whether the department survives. But the direction is clear: instead of growing another federal empire, the Trump administration is testing whether states, local school boards, and parents can do better without Washington looking over their shoulder. For conservatives who have long believed education should be a local, family-centered responsibility, this moment marks the most serious challenge yet to a failed federal experiment in schooling.^[8]