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Donald Trump tried to close the Department of Education with the stroke of a pen.
The president once famously said that he loves "the poorly educated."
On Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing recently sworn-in Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the Department of Education, marking the most aggressive move yet in his administration’s assault on public schools.
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McMahon, who was in attendance at the event in the East Room of the White House, is a former professional wrestling executive with no backgroundineducation policy. She was confirmed by the Senate two weeks ago. In an email to staff shortly after being sworn in, she described eliminating the department as a “momentous final mission,” echoing Trump’s long-standing pledge to shift education policy entirely to state and local governments.
Related: Trump moves to abolish Education Department amid push against 'wokeness'
The signing during one of Trump’s made-for-TV press occasions fulfills a key goal of Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint created by the Heritage Foundation. While Trump and his allies distanced themselves from Project 2025 during the 2024 presidential campaign, the executive order aligns with its recommendation to dissolve the Education Department.
A group of Republican governors attended the event in support of the move, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Idaho Gov. Brad Little, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.
Trump claimed that states like Florida and Texas will achieve educational standards comparable to those of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. But the reality is that these Nordic nations have built their success on precisely the kind of public investment and government oversight that Trump is working to dismantle. Their education systems are fully publicly funded, tuition-free, and designed to ensure equity and access for all students, with a strong emphasis on personalized learning and teacher support. According to the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment, these countries consistently outperform the U.S.—Finland ranked 20th, Sweden 22nd, Norway 32nd, while the U.S. trailed behind at 34th.
Trump’s administration has already begun staff layoffs and halted civil rights enforcement programs, including those protecting LGBTQ+ students and students of color. His broader plan will shift taxpayer dollars away from public schools and toward private institutions through voucher programs.
"She's been a hard worker," Trump said about the founder of the anti-government extremist group Moms for Liberty Tiffany Justice, whom he welcomed to the event. The Southern Poverty Law Center has listed Moms for Liberty as an anti-government extremist group that stemmed from conservative outrage over mask mandates and COVID-19 precautions during the early days of the pandemic. Moms for Liberty has advocated for the removal of books written about or by LGBTQ+ people by taking over school boards. In 2023, the group resoundingly lost elections in which its candidates ran.
Until the end of the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Education played a key role in protecting LGBTQ+ students by enforcing anti-discrimination policies under Title IX and investigating complaints of harassment or exclusion. The department also promoted inclusive policies in schools, ensuring that LGBTQ+ students had access to safe learning environments, protections against bullying, and equal opportunities in education.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, condemned the move, warning that eliminating the department affects the most vulnerable students.
“The Department of Education, and the laws it is supposed to execute, has one major purpose: to level the playing field and fill opportunity gaps to help every child in America succeed,” Weingarten told The Advocate. “Trying to abolish it — which, by the way, only Congress can do — sends a message that the president doesn’t care about opportunity for all kids. Maybe he cares about it for his own kids or his friends’ kids or his donors’ kids—but not all kids.”
She stressed that the department provides crucial funding to students who rely on it.
“The department is legally required to distribute funds that help 26 million kids living in poverty (Title I), 7.5 million students with disabilities (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), 10 million students who need financial aid to attend college or pursue a trade (Pell grants) and 12 million students who benefit from career and technical education (Perkins grants),” she said. “Any attempt by the Trump administration or Congress to gut these programs would be a grave mistake, and we will fight them tooth and nail.”
Weingarten dismissed Trump’s justification that eliminating the department would return power to the states, calling it a misleading excuse to strip students of protections and resources.
“The directive to ‘return decision-making to the states’ fails the smell test,” she said. “States and districts already govern schools through locally elected school boards, as they should. They put up most of the money and control most of the decisions—from approving curriculum to deciding who graduates.”
Despite Trump’s rhetoric about eliminating federal control over education, the Department of Education does not set curriculum or school policies, which are determined by state and local governments. Instead, the department oversees federal funding for low-income students through Title I, provides support for students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, enforces civil rights protections for marginalized students, including LGBTQ+ youth and students of color, and administers federal student loan programs, including Pell Grants and loan forgiveness initiatives.
“Any critical function such as that will remain,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on the White House driveway ahead of the event, according to a pool report.
LGBTQ+ advocacy groups also denounced Trump’s order, warning that it will disproportionately harm marginalized students.
“Trump’s latest effort to circumvent Congress will have devastating consequences for children and communities,” GLSEN executive director Melanie Willingham-Jaggerstold The Advocate in a statement. “The U.S. Department of Education conducts essential business that sets our nation up for success by ensuring that federal civil rights laws are enforced and that schools are adequately funded to provide opportunity for every student. In just a few days on the job, Secretary Linda McMahon has shown that she lacks the courage to fight for students and schools. Donald Trump’s selfish campaign to rob children of their future to pay for tax cuts for billionaires is cowardly.”
Willingham-Jaggers accused Trump of using LGBTQ+ youth as scapegoats in his broader campaign to dismantle public education.
“He’s tried to scapegoat LGBTQ+ youth and the growing diversity of the next generation to enact a radical agenda that only benefits the few at the top,” they said. “We stand united with students, educators, parents, and communities in opposing this short-sighted effort to dismantle public schools and leave an entire generation of Americans without the resources and education they need to succeed.”
Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson highlighted the history of freedom that education has brought with it. “All of us invest in education, to ensure that educators are compensated for their work and that students have access to the technology and resources they need — no matter their zip code or major. But this administration doesn’t care about supporting our students," she said in a statement. "Their claims of ‘returning control to the states’ are a brazen lie. From their pause on federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania over a transgender student who has since graduated, to politically-motivated investigations like those into the Maine Department of Education and school districts across the country, this administration has made clear that they only care about enacting their Project 2025 agenda to dismantle our public schools and demolish the nation’s public education system."
While Trump’s executive order sets the process in motion, fully dismantling the department requires congressional approval. Senate Democrats are expected to block any attempt to formally dissolve the agency.
“Should we do more to improve our public schools by, for example, expanding CTE and aligning curriculum with apprenticeships and pathways so students can access middle-class jobs straight out of high school? Absolutely,” Weingarten said. “That’s why educators, students, and parents rallied at more than 2,000 Protect Our Kids events across the country on Tuesday.”
“We implore Congress to make clear to the president that the federal government will not, in the face of this order, abdicate its responsibility to all children, students, and working families, who deserve a future full of promise and possibility, not diminished dreams,” Weingarten added.
David Johns, executive director and CEO of the National Black Justice Collective, issued this statement:“This executive order to dismantle the Department of Education is a direct attack on public education, democracy, and the civil rights of all students. It is a calculated step in the agenda to dismantle public education, funnel taxpayer dollars into private school vouchers, and eliminate protections for Black students, LGBTQ+ students, students from low-income backgrounds, students in rural communities, and students with disabilities, leaving young people without the support needed to succeed. To be clear, the goal remains changing the rules of the game via policy and subsequent practice to further enrich a small group of extremely wealthy, mostly white men, at the expense of everyone else."
“We expect legal challenges to follow, and we urge Congress, state leaders, and education advocates to take immediate action to block this unconstitutional power grab," Johns added. "We call on parents, students, families, and concerned citizens to contact their elected leaders in both caucuses and at every level of government to demand the protection of crucial and earned civil rights and voice their opposition to dismantling the Department of Education. The future of public education—and the future of our children—is on the line.”
Chasten Buttigieg, a former teacher, author, and husband of former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, criticized the move during an appearance on MSNBC with Alicia Menendez, arguing that Trump’s administration is not working to improve education but rather to destroy it.
“The first thing you do isn’t break the Department of Education,” Buttigieg said. He said that teachers would welcome investments in education from a president who cared. "But as we've seen with the gutting of civil rights offices, laying off half of the workforce — that is not a president who's investing in education. That is a president who's hell-bent on breaking it.”“
“Across America, in red and blue states, children rely on the Department of Education for critical support and for an opportunity for a fair chance to grow and thrive. President Trump is again prioritizing callous ideological actions over the needs of people in seeking to dismantle the Department of Education,” said a statement from Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward. “As we have made clear from the start of this administration, attempts to accelerate dangerous and harmful policies from the Project 2025 playbook will be swiftly challenged in court. That goes for this attempt to undermine educational resources for all. We will be filing litigation against this action and will use every legal tool to ensure that the rights of students, teachers, and families are fully protected. Since Inauguration Day, the Trump-Vance administration has been taken to court more than 100 times, and we will do it again this time.”
