WILL TRUMP’S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION STRATEGY ACTUALLY CUT THE BUREAUCRACY? On March 11, the Department of Education issued a press release announcing that it had “initiated a reduction in force impacting nearly 50% of the department’s workforce.” When President Donald Trump was inaugurated, the release said, the Education Department had 4,133 employees. After the new cuts, the department will have 2,183 workers.
That was a reduction of 1,950 federal employees. Of that number, 572 accepted either an offer to resign and then not have to work but still be paid through Sept. 30 or an offer to accept a buyout of up to $25,000 immediately. The remaining number of departing workers, 1,378, would be placed on administrative leave before being fired. “Pursuant to regulatory requirements and the department’s collective bargaining agreement, all impacted employees will receive full pay and benefits until June 9th, as well as substantial severance pay or retirement benefits based upon their length of service,” the announcement said.
The usual suspects went nuts. On March 13, the Democratic attorneys general of 19 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the administration from making the cuts. The suit is led by New York Attorney General Letitia James — you may remember her as the official who campaigned on a promise to get Trump and then sought to destroy the Trump financial empire with a lawsuit that many experts deemed baseless. The states’ lawsuit claims the president does not have the constitutional authority to make far-reaching cuts in the Education Department or in other federal agencies like it.
James and her colleagues essentially say Trump cannot act without Congress. The lawsuit argues that 1) Congress established the Department of Education, and the president cannot eliminate it without Congress; and 2) the same is true for specific offices in the department, such as the Office for Civil Rights and the offices giving out student loans and other aid. “Over time, Congress has enacted more statutes authorizing additional functions for the Department of Education and appropriating additional funds for it to administer,” the lawsuit says, and the president can’t close those down without Congress, either.
It is true that, in addition to whatever educational goals it was pursuing, Congress, in effect, set up a series of booby traps for any president who might want to get rid of the Department of Education. Not just the department itself but several specific offices inside the department that were established in law and apparently cannot be eliminated by presidential fiat.
That reality was very much in evidence when it came time, on March 20, to hold a White House event announcing what some had hoped would be the effort to “eliminate” the Department of Education. Surrounded by conservative educational reformers, Trump was very careful with his words. “In a few moments, I will sign an executive order to begin eliminating the federal Department of Education once and for all,” he said. Pointing to terrible national test results, Trump noted the enormous amounts of money the United States spends on education, only to be ranked “near the bottom of the list in terms of success.” He made the case that it was time to do something different.
Trump noted that the administration and the new secretary of education, Linda McMahon, had already cut the number of department employees by nearly half. But he stressed that the department’s “useful functions,” which he defined as “Pell Grants, Title 1 funding [for low-income schools], resources for children with disabilities and special needs,” will be “fully preserved.”
“They’re going to be preserved in full and redistributed to various other agencies and departments that will take very good care of them,” Trump said. “But beyond these core necessities, my administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department.”
It should be noted that those “core necessities” that Trump promised to preserve fully make up the great majority of the Department of Education’s spending. The lawsuit from the Democratic states essentially argues that it is impossible to preserve the core functions fully with 2,183 employees, the number left after the cuts and buyouts. “All of these significant and statutorily mandated functions were covered by a lean staff of only 4,133 people,” the lawsuit says. “This massive reduction in force is equivalent to incapacitating key, statutorily mandated functions of the Department, causing immense damage to the plaintiff states and their educational systems.”
But Trump said those key functions will remain. On March 21, the day after the White House event, he announced that he is moving management of the Department of Education’s huge $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio to the Small Business Administration. The president also said that management of the Education Department’s spending on special needs students and nutrition programs would be moved to the Department of Health and Human Services.
So, what does that mean? For one thing, the big spending programs, most of them loan and direct aid programs, will continue, just under new management. But even as Trump cut the staff that administered them at the Department of Education, he might have to add staff to manage them at the Small Business Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Will there be a net reduction in federal workers involved? Maybe. If Trump ends up cutting 1,950 workers at the Education Department — that is, if none are reinstated via the various legal actions now underway — how many will be added elsewhere? That’s unclear. And what functions of the Department of Education will be “sent to the states”? That’s also unclear. And what functions, such as the massive student loan program, might be privatized, as some conservatives want? That’s probably unlikely.
So, is this worthwhile? Many conservatives want to see a reduction both in the size and scope of the federal government. Failing that, they, like nearly everyone else, would like to see an increase in efficiency. If Trump’s action does nothing more than reduce the size of the bureaucracy involved in handing out billions of dollars in taxpayer money, and make the remaining part more efficient, that would be a plus. Despite the recent Democratic and media lionization of federal workers, the fact remains that the federal bureaucracy is too big, too slow-moving, and too resistant to innovation. Taking it on is a worthwhile start.