₦airaland Forum

Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that instructs the US education secretary, Linda McMahon, to start dismantling the Department of Education, seemingly attempting to circumvent the need to obtain congressional approval to formally close a federal department.

The administration may eventually pursue an effort to get Congress to shut down the agency, Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House on Thursday, because its budget had more than doubled in size in recent years but national test scores had not improved.

The federal government does not mandate curriculum in schools; that has been the responsibility of state and local governments, which provide 90% of the funding to schools. Nevertheless, at the White House, Trump repeated his campaign promise to “send education back to the states”.

a person holds a sign that reads 'education is power save our schools'
What is the US Department of Education and what does it do?
Read more
The executive order targeting the education department, which has been expected for weeks, directed McMahon to take all necessary steps to shut down key functionalities. Trump added at the signing ceremony that he hoped McMahon would be the last education secretary.

“My administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department. We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible. It’s doing us no good,” Trump said.

McMahon appeared to smile in acknowledgment as she sat in the front row at the signing event in the East Room. Trump spoke from a stage in front of a row of state flags, and flanked on each side by a group of schoolchildren sitting at small desks.

The bulk of the education department’s budget is made up of federal grant and loan programs, including the $18.4bn Title I program that provides funding to high-poverty K-12 schools and the $15.5bn Idea program that helps cover the education costs for students with disabilities.

The White House said those programs, as well as the $1.6tn federal student loan program, would not be affected by the order. It was not immediately clear what spending cuts the administration would be able to achieve without cutting those initiatives.

The move comes after the administration has already taken steps to undercut the department’s authority by instituting a round of layoffs that has reduced its workforce by nearly half and cancelled dozens of grants and contracts.

The idea of shutting down the education department dates back to efforts by Republicans in the 1980s. But the push has become increasingly mainstream in recent years as pro-Trump grassroots activists took aim at agendas that promoted education standards and more inclusive policies.

Black students listen in a classroom
Trump’s plans to axe US education department put marginalized students most at risk, experts warn
Read more
Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, has separately introduced a one-sentence bill on Friday that would terminate the education department at the end of 2026. Similar efforts have failed to get enough votes to pass in previous years.

The Trump administration’s efforts to shutter the education department have largely followed the playbook in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s rightwing manifesto to remake the federal government, which envisions the department as a “statistics-gathering agency that disseminates information to the states”.

Democrats on Capitol Hill denounced the executive order and warned it could leave in jeopardy millions of low-income families, who rely on federal funding in schools.

“Shutting down the Department of Education will harm millions of children in our nation’s public schools, their families and hardworking teachers. Class sizes will soar, educators will be fired, special education programs will be cut and college will get even more expensive,” Hakeem Jeffries, the US House minority leader, said in a statement.


The progressive wing of the House Democratic caucus also denounced Trump’s order as an unconstitutional attempt to evade seeking congressional approval to implement his political agenda.

“The reality is that the Trump administration does not have the constitutional power to eliminate the Department of Education without the approval of Congress – however, what they will do is defund and destabilize the agency to manufacture chaos and push their extremist agenda,” said the Democratic congressman Maxwell Frost.

But without cutting out the department itself, the incoming Trump administration, buoyed by a rightwing backlash to public schools that intensified after the Covid-19 pandemic, could alter key parts of the department’s budget and policies in ways that would be felt in schools nationwide.

Some Republicans support the idea of sending block grants to states that aren’t earmarked for specific programs, letting states decide whether to fund low-income students or students with disabilities instead of requiring them to fund the programs for those students. Programs that don’t affect students directly, such as those that go toward teacher training, could also be on the chopping block. Expanding the use and promotion of school vouchers and installing “parents’ rights” policies are also likely.

composite image of man, TikTok notification on phone, rows of people in uniform, and hand signing document
All the executive orders Trump has signed so far
Read more
In late January, Trump signed executive orders to promote school choice, or the use of public dollars for private education, and to remove funding from schools accused of “radical indoctrination”. Trump also revived a “1776 commission” to “promote patriotic education”.

The education department boasted that in the first week of the Trump administration it had “dismantled” diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Soon after Trump took over, the department was loaded with key staffers tied to a rightwing thinktank, the America First Policy Institute, often referred to as a “White House in waiting”. The thinktank has supported driving out diversity programs and banning books, which the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism documented in a report on the institute’s ties to the education department. The policy institute has promoted installing Christianity in government, including in schools.

The department ended investigations into book banning and got rid of a book-ban coordinator position last month in a move announced by Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights, who previously held a role at the thinktank.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/20/trump-executive-order-education-department

Advanced country dismantling department of education?

The US demands high numbers of illiterates to fill up the factory’s, while they outsource the highly skilled labor to far cheaper destinations.

They just need to breed morons that will work the work.

Like, In 2025, an advanced nation is axing the department of education?

…..and the facts about it is that, those poor morafvckin majority obsessed red states will be impacted the most.

Dunces felt the harm won’t get to them! With Medicaid and Medicare inflames, they better start investing in coffins, cos many will meet God

Maybe Mr Trump is taking the smaller government mantra too far, but it is a known fact that your educational attainment depends on your skin colour and where you live in the US - inner cities worst, worse for black neighbourhoods while predominantly white neighbourhoods which are often affluent do best academically, which has a bearing whether your ward would get a good college nay Ivy League or not. Maybe this dismantling would provide more funds for black and poor neighbourhoods. I don't know why Democrats are mad cos they tend to represent poorer neighbourhoods (though personally I have been sympathetic to the Democrats causes since my teenage years of Clinton's presidency). A state like Maryland, for example, would benefit more because it is mostly black and would have a freer hand to operate & compete.

The whole idea of dismantling may seem wrong in the global context, but in the American context I think Mr Trump could be said to have acted in the public interest.

Ok, very soon he will sign order to disband America.

Is there really an issue if the funding for schools is passed down to the respective states?

AlwynDigital:
Is there really an issue if the funding for schools is passed down to the respective states?

Funding for curriculums.. maybe he got to know people are embezzling the money. Hence, states and local government should to then start funding it

It is necessary because it's standard has almost become old

They require new models

Tomorrow when the people championing this cause can't find quality education nor be able to compete with their counterparts who are immigrants, they will claim that immigrants are taking their jobs or that companies are moving abroad.


These elites are doing everything to encourage more factory workers who they will pay next to nothing so they can lining their pockets and pay more dividends. This was why they were encouraging people to give birth to more kids and not paying benefits that will ensure that the kids have a quality life.

If corruption is the problem, you don't destroy everything to fight corruption. You can investigate and remove the corrupt elements but not destroy a system altogether. This was how Buhari came singing to root out corruption meanwhile he fostered and made corruption absolute

Every thing Trump does is aimed to affect minorities negatively. He and his gang make a lot of noise about "wokeness" and attack transgenders so that people like me would agree with him. However, I've since come to realise that his intention is actually to attack and reduce the relevance of non-white people. That is the true racist aim of these people. I know it is not very clear now, but abolishing the dept of education is aimed at non-white people. I just know it. They way this man is going, I won't be surprised if he issues an executive order to cancel the bill that abolished segregation and even going as far as abolishing the one that granted former slaves citizenship status.

Tunaji:
Maybe Mr Trump is taking the smaller government mantra too far, but it is a known fact that your educational attainment depends on your skin colour and where you live in the US - inner cities worst, worse for black neighbourhoods while predominantly white neighbourhoods which are often affluent do best academically, which has a bearing whether your ward would get a good college nay Ivy League or not. Maybe this dismantling would provide more funds for black and poor neighbourhoods. I don't know why Democrats are mad cos they tend to represent poorer neighbourhoods (though personally I have been sympathetic to the Democrats causes since my teenage years of Clinton's presidency). A state like Maryland, for example, would benefit more because it is mostly black and would have a freer hand to operate & compete.

The whole idea of dismantling may seem wrong in the global context, but in the American context I think Mr Trump could be said to have acted in the public interest.

Is there any logic you guys wouldn't turn upside down?

NobleStag007:
Funding for curriculums.. maybe he got to know people are embezzling the money. Hence, states and local government should to then start funding it

Trump, the greatest grafter ever liveth, should be talking about corruption?

trump please sign execxutive order to deport me to the us pls oo

Commentor:
Trump, the greatest grafter ever liveth, should be talking about corruption?

You prefer he allows the corruption?

NobleStag007:
You prefer he allows the corruption?

What corruption?

Give occasions and proof.

because its budget had more than doubled in size in recent years but national test scores had not improved.


I too like Trump