Nobody saw this coming! It blindsided everyone. Congress created the Department of Education (ED) and only Congress can dismantle it. The DOGE cuts were one thing, but no one imagined the Trump administration could ship swaths of ED over to the Department of Labor, the Department of the Interior, Health and Human Services, and the State Department.
Verdict: OVERREACTION. In Washington, it was an open secret that this was coming. As department officials have noted, the “interagency agreements” used here are a standard feature of federal activity. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s team had already piloted the first of these moves, using a previous interagency agreement to shift Career and Technical Education over to the Department of Labor. Administration sources were pretty open that that agreement would be a model for future reorganization. Indeed, this is something senior staff at ED and the White House have been working on since the spring, especially after President Trump’s executive order in March urging McMahon to find ways to shutter the department.
What’s different here is how ambitiously the agreements are being used—that really is unprecedented. While the formal responsibility for these programs will remain at ED, the actual work, staff, and funds will move. And it’s true that, back in January, I don’t know anyone who expected the administration to pursue this track, much less to do it so aggressively. So, “blindsided”? Not so much. But a lot more than people actually expected at the beginning of this year? Absolutely.
This will be terrible for students, families, and educators. It’s a devastating blow to American K–12 and higher education. Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, denounced Trump and McMahon for “turn[ing] their backs on our students, families, and communities to pay for billionaire tax cuts.”
Verdict: OVERREACTION. For better and worse, this is a reshuffling of federal activity. It doesn’t alter federal spending for these programs, their eligibility criteria, or the rules governing disbursement of funds. And, of course, the Department of Education manages no schools or colleges, employs no teachers, and doesn’t actually educate any students. The Trump administration certainly could urge Congress to reduce spending on affected programs, but there’s nothing in the announcement on that score and no reason to think this changes any of the relevant political dynamics.
That said, new systems could create confusion, and separating program responsibility (which stays at ED) from the day-to-day work (which moves elsewhere) could generate problems. At a private meeting with ED staff, McMahon conceded as much. She said, “Let’s move programs out on a temporary basis. Let’s see how the work is done. What is the result? What is the outcome?” These are the right questions to ask, with the answers deserving close scrutiny. And if any of the changes cause headaches, the administration should expect blowback from irate state officials or education advocates.
Actually, this is a huge win for America’s students, reversing 45 years of federal overreach, empowering states, and slashing red tape. As Congressman Tim Walberg, chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, cheered, “The Trump administration is making good on its promise to fix the nation’s broken system by right-sizing the Department of Education to improve student outcomes.”
Verdict: OVERREACTION. It’s not clear how much this really matters. If employees at the Department of Labor are more competent than those at ED, then the potential benefits are obvious. But it’s not clear why that’d be the case. There also could be synergies from having Labor handle programs with workforce implications or State in charge of foreign language programs. But it’s hard to see how any of this amounts to big change. As the Fordham Institute’s Checker Finn wryly asked, “How [does] relocating, say, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education from ED to the Labor Department—from one federal bureaucracy to another—[do] anything to ‘return education to the states,’ eliminate government regulation, or rein in bureaucratic practices?”
