On March 20, President Donald Trump signed the much-anticipated executive order (EO) to dismantle the United States Department of Education (USED). Consistent with many of his previous EOs, the title of the EO suggests a worthy goal, in this case: Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities. The content of the EO, by contrast, ‘names and shames’, chastising former President Jimmy Carter and teachers’ unions for urging Congress to create the department in 1979. This EO is more like the airing of grievances than providing a solution or constructive path forward for American education.
The EO directs the Secretary of Education “…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 while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”
As in many previously issued EOs and directives, the administration offers a solution before understanding the problem or even very much at all about the current agency and programs in place. For example, the EO cites the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) as justification for the EO, despite having already demolished the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) by first putting the Director on administrative leave and then cutting the staff to just three people.
The EO has a second substantive provision that charges Secretary Linda McMahon with ensuring that recipients of federal education funds are in “rigorous compliance with Federal law and Administration policy.” The EO specifically spotlights the need to “terminate illegal discrimination obscured under the label ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ or similar terms and programs promoting gender ideology.” It is unclear how this would be enforced, or which federal funds would be affected, in the absence of a department.
Meanwhile, a piece of legislation, the Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions (DETERRENT) Act (H.R. 1048), is headed to House floor this week. According to the Association of American Universities (AAU) and other higher education associations (letter), the Act falls short of meaningfully addressing national security or foreign malign influence threats and would add significant impediments to conducting critical research activities, duplicate existing interagency efforts, and put in place a problematic expansion of data collection by USED. It is unclear how this data would be collected or these new reporting requirements would be enforced with the heavily depleted staffing at USED or if the agency gets dismantled.
As Senators made clear during the confirmation hearing of Secretary McMahon last month, the Department was established by an Act of Congress, and has since been modified through legislation and appropriations, and therefore any efforts to dismantle it should involve Congress. The education and research community were hopeful that the Senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, with jurisdiction over USED, would call the Secretary back up. Instead, much to the community’s dismay, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Chairman of the HELP Committee, pledged to introduce a bill to eliminate USED “as soon as possible.” In the House of Representatives, Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced similar legislation bask in January.
By way of background, USED disperses about $150 billion in grants each year, which is only about 10 percent of the total our nation spends on K-12 education. USED’s staff make relatively few decisions about what happens in schools, compared to state and local officials.
Multiple parties have already filed lawsuits challenging the legality of the reduction in force (RIF) – reportedly 4,100 employees in January and closer to now 2,200 after recent massive layoffs – on the grounds that reduced staffing leaves the Department unable to fulfill its congressionally-mandated responsibilities. Keeping with the confusion and inefficiency, entire teams across the Education Department’s Federal Student Aid and Technology Offices have been brought back after initially being cut during the agency’s massive RIF actions. More lawsuits are expected in the wake of this new EO.
The mission of FABBS is to advance the behavioral and brain sciences to support better outcomes – including educational – for all. Over the years, FABBS has weighed in on a variety of USED policies, practices, and budgets recognizing challenges and opportunities and in the service to continual improvement.
