The Education Department on Tuesday announced four more “interagency” agreements sharing key responsibilities with other federal agencies.
The development marks Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s latest move to effectively dismantle her agency, in line with President Donald Trump’s executive order last March essentially abolishing the department and returning control to the states.
With this week’s directive, McMahon has now signed a total of 14 interagency agreements. The latest partnerships mean certain special education and rehabilitative services will be transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services, while the Department of Justice will start taking over the Education Department’s civil rights enforcement, student privacy protection, and training and advisory services.
“The Trump Administration has been clear: as we scale back federal micromanagement when it hinders success, we are equally committed to bolstering the efficacy of federal oversight where it is essential,” McMahon said in a statement.
“Through our partnership with HHS, we will align federal services with the goal of strengthening academic outcomes and supporting individuals with disabilities so that they can achieve greater independence, key life skills, and meaningful employment,” she continued. “The Department of Education will also team up with DOJ to ensure stronger, more coordinated civil rights enforcement and robust protections for student privacy. These agreements align federal responsibilities with the agencies best positioned to support them, strengthening the effectiveness and impact of critical services.”
Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, previously told the Washington Examiner that the interagency agreements matter “because the next Democratic president would then have to cancel them, and then they would have to spend a lot of time and energy unwinding them and moving people back.”
McMahon also sought to lay off around 1,400 of the department’s 4,200 employees last March, though the move received legal pushback.
The education secretary said in November that she was actively talking to lawmakers about making the changes permanent.
“I’ve talked to dozens of members of Congress to explain to them exactly what we’re doing, to bring them up to speed and to say to them, ‘Look, when we have completed some of these transfers, that are working incredibly well, then we will be looking to Congress to codify those, make them permanent,’” she said.
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCES DOWNSIZING WITH SIX INTERAGENCY AGREEMENTS
McMahon’s efforts to transfer education funding and authorities to other federal agencies and to the states have received significant pushback from critics, including lawsuits contending she cannot unilaterally off-load department responsibilities without congressional approval.
The Supreme Court handed her a win last August, allowing the dismantling of the Education Department to continue while legal challenges play out in lower courts. But it remains to be seen if McMahon can achieve her goal of kicking herself out of a job, as Congress again authorized her department’s budget earlier this year for roughly $79 billion, around the same amount lawmakers allocated the previous year.