Trump directs Education Department to begin shutting down with executive order

• President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to shut down the Department of Education, which was a key campaign promise. The order initiates the process of shuttering the department and directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take steps toward transferring the agency’s essential services to other government departments.
• Trump cannot close the federal agency on his own because congressional approval is required.
• The order reads for McMahon to “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 effectiveness and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

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President Donald Trump took a major step toward dismantling the Department of Education. Trump signed an executive order on Thursday, March 20, to shut down the agency, which was a key campaign promise.

What does the order do?

The order initiates the process of shuttering the department and directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to make preparations to transfer the department’s essential services to other government departments.

However, as Straight Arrow News recently reported, Trump cannot close the federal agency on his own because congressional approval is required.

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The order directs McMahon to “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.”

Why can’t Trump do it alone?

Congress would need 60 votes to break a filibuster in the Senate, where GOP lawmakers currently hold 53 seats, to eliminate the agency. Senate Democrats have shown no sign they’ll support abolishing the agency.

How are Democrats responding?

“Trump and Musk are taking a wrecking ball to the Department of Education and firing half of its staff,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement on Thursday.

Murray promised to fight what she dubs a “Trump and Musk slash and burn campaign.”

The Trump administration cannot dismantle the department through executive action alone, but can slash staffing and cut what it deems inefficient programs. Straight Arrow News’ Karah Rucker breaks down what Trump can do on his own.

What happens next?

Even before its signing, the order was challenged in court by a group of Democratic state attorneys general in a lawsuit meant to block the administration from closing the department and suspend layoffs to nearly half of the agency’s staff that were announced last week.

What are civil rights groups saying?

Critics of the plan, including the NAACP, condemned the order.

“This is a dark day for millions of American children who depend on federal funding for quality education, including those in poor and rural communities with parents who voted for Trump,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

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What is the White House saying?

The Trump administration argued the department has “failed students, parents and teachers.” Trump also said the agency has spent more than $3 trillion since its inception in 1979 without improving student test scores.