President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to dismantle the Education Department. Surrounded by schoolchildren seated at desks, each with their own small copy of the order, Trump instructed McMahon to shut down the department “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education, and return authority over education to the States and local communities.”
The move was decades overdue, and Trump deserves great credit for having the political courage to make it. The department, whose primary function is to administer federal funding, about $70 billion annually, has long been the nation’s poster child for waste, ineffectiveness, and ideological rot. An act of Congress is required to shutter the department entirely, but Trump’s executive order is a good step toward its richly deserved end.
The sheer scope of the department’s failures should astound even the weariest skeptic. Founded in 1979 by then-President Jimmy Carter as a favor for teachers unions that had supported his campaign for president, the department has overseen a precipitous decline in education achievement despite gobsmacking spending increases. Today, the United States spends $20,387 per pupil, the third-highest among 37 developed nations, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This fails to produce any results, at least not any good ones. The 2022 OECD placed the U.S. 34th in math and 16th in science.
In 2024, the department’s budget ballooned to $268 billion, of which 70% never made it to classrooms but instead paid for booted and ineffective administration. What has the nation gotten in return for its money? Shamefully low proficiency. Fewer than half of fourth and eighth graders are proficient in reading and math, according to the latest National Assessment of Education Progress, with cities doing the worst. In Chicago, 88% of third graders were not proficient in math and reading.
The department has also turbocharged the spread of destructive anti-American ideology. It has used federal money and the threat of its withdrawal to bully local school districts into adopting “progressive” policies and programs, which are best understood as newfangled methods to prevent actual progress. With diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, the department planted the seeds of the student “activism” we’ve seen on campus in the past year. The department’s ideological bending of curricula with the application of federal standards and accountability measures has embedded bias and falsehood into learning. Eliminating the Education Department will go a long way toward reasserting ideological neutrality in what children and young adults learn.
Much of the department remains even after Trump’s executive order. The president said he would preserve Title I funding for low-income schools, Pell Grants, and money for children with disabilities. To complete the overhaul of the department, McMahon will need to reform these programs and return much more responsibility to the states.
Congress must now take decisive action by converting all federal education funding into block grants.
TRUMP IS RETURNING EDUCATION TO THE STATES AND TO PARENTS
This approach would work well for several reasons. First, it would reduce administrative bloat. Federal bureaucrats would no longer influence how tax dollars are spent on education, with that responsibility transferring to states, which understand the needs of their communities. It would also improve accountability. Elected state and local officials would no longer be able to blame faceless and distant bureaucrats for the failures of education but would have to answer to voters directly. Block grants would reduce the spread of harmful ideologies and allow states to decide what values they want to impart to children.
Trump’s order is a good first strike at the system. Now, Congress must step in, and states must rise to the challenge. An education system grounded in excellence, cost efficiency, and open inquiry has been a dream for too long. It’s high time to make it a restored reality.