White House Announces Plan To Shut Down Major Federal Education Department

On Thursday, the Trump administration revealed a major plan to change how education works in the United States.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the goal is to take power away from Washington and hand it to states and local school leaders. She said this shift will reduce federal control and make schools more responsive to community needs.

McMahon described the plan as the administration’s “most decisive steps yet” to limit Washington’s influence over education. During the briefing, she repeated the idea that local voices matter more than federal rules. She also argued that the recent government shutdown proved that the country could manage without the Department of Education.

“The Democrat’s government shutdown proved, without a doubt, Americans don’t need the Department of Education,” McMahon said during White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s news briefing.

She went further, calling this change the department’s final major mission. “That’s why our final mission as a department is to fully empower states to carry the torch of our educational renaissance,” she added. “Education is local. It should be overseen locally by those who best know local needs.”

Leavitt agreed and said the new agreements will reduce unnecessary layers inside the Department of Education. “This common sense action brings the Trump Administration much closer to finally bringing education where it belongs — at the state and local level, not in Washington, D.C.,” she said.

At the center of this shift are six new partnerships between federal agencies. These partnerships will move billions of dollars in education funding to other departments. The biggest change is that Title I funding, which helps schools in low-income communities, will be handled by the Department of Labor instead of the Department of Education.

Supporters inside the administration say this move will make funding more efficient. They claim that local control allows for quick decision-making, while federal systems can be slow and full of delays. In their view, states understand their students better and can adjust programs faster.

However, education experts across the country are raising concerns. They worry that moving important programs could create confusion, especially for children who rely on several forms of support at the same time.

Rhode Island’s K-12 education chief, Angélica Infante-Green, explained the problem in simple terms. “People might think it’s just funding and giving them the money, but it’s not,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It is about how to co-mingle some of the funds to educate a child. So if a child is in special education but is also a multilingual learner and they’re in poverty, how do you use that to educate the child holistically?”

Many opponents also worry that other federal agencies may not have the same experience as the Department of Education. They fear that programs for vulnerable communities might weaken if the agencies taking over do not understand the daily needs of schools.

Even with the criticism, the Trump administration is moving forward. McMahon insists that students, not federal systems, should be the center of American education. She believes these changes will push schools to focus more on learning and less on government rules.

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