Trump expected to sign executive order to abolish US education department

Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Thursday that instructs the US education secretary, Linda McMahon, to start dismantling the agency, seemingly attempting to circumvent the need to obtain the congressional approval needed to formally close a federal department.

The order – which has been anticipated for weeks given Trump campaigned on a promise to end the education department – directs McMahon to “take all necessary steps” shut down key functionalities “and return education authority to the states”.

Trump’s order targeting the department comes after the administration has already taken steps to undercut its authority by instituting a round of layoffs that has reduced its workforce by nearly half and cancelled dozens of grants and contracts.

The idea of shutting down the education department dates back to efforts by Republicans in the 1980s. But the push has become increasingly mainstream in recent years as pro-Trump grassroots activists took aim at agendas that promoted education standards and more inclusive policies.

Trump adopted the mantle on the campaign trail and promised to return education policy to the states, although education has long been the responsibility of state and local governments, which provide 90% of the funding and the federal government does not mandate curriculum.

The bulk of the education department’s budget is made up of federal grant and loan programs, including the $18.4bn Title I program that provides funding to high-poverty K-12 schools and the $15.5bn Idea program that helps cover the education costs for students with disabilities.

The White House said those programs, as well as the $1.6tn federal student loan program, would not be affected by the order. It was not immediately clear how many spending cuts the administration would be able to achieve without cutting those initiatives.

Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, has separately introduced a one-sentence bill on Friday that would terminate the US Department of Education at the end of 2026. Similar efforts have failed to get enough votes to pass in previous years.

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s rightwing manifesto for the Trump administration, lays out how dismantling the federal education department would work, leaving behind – if anything – a husk focused solely as a “statistics-gathering agency that disseminates information to the states”, writes Lindsey Burke, the author of the education chapter and leader of Heritage’s education policy center.

But without cutting out the department itself, the incoming Trump administration, buoyed up by a rightwing backlash to public schools that intensified after the Covid-19 pandemic, could alter key parts of the department’s budget and policies in ways that would be felt in schools nationwide.

Some Republicans support the idea of sending block grants to states that aren’t earmarked for specific programs, letting states decide whether to fund low-income students or students with disabilities instead of requiring them to fund the programs for those students. Programs that don’t affect students directly, like those that go toward teacher training, could also be on the chopping block. Expanding the use and promotion of school vouchers and installing “parents’ rights” policies are also likely.

In late January, Trump signed executive orders to promote school choice, or the use of public dollars for private education, and to remove funding from schools accused of “radical indoctrination”. Trump also revived a “1776 commission” to “promote patriotic education”.

The education department boasted that in the first week of the Trump administration it had “dismantled” diversity, equity and education programs.

Soon after Trump took over, the department was loaded with key staffers tied to a rightwing thinktank, the America First Policy Institute, often referred to as a “White House in waiting”. The thinktank has supported driving out diversity programs and banning books, which the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism documented in a report on the institute’s ties to the education department. The policy institute has promoted installing Christianity in government, including in schools.

The department ended investigations into book banning and got rid of a book-ban coordinator position last month in a move announced by Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights, who previously held a role at the thinktank.