On Tuesday, the Education Department revealed that it had laid off over 1,300 employees, essentially crippling the agency responsible for managing federal student loans, tracking educational progress, and enforcing civil rights protections in schools.
As a result of the cuts, the department’s workforce, which began the year with 4,133 employees, will now be reduced to about half that number, only two months into President Trump’s term. Along with the 1,315 staff members dismissed on Tuesday, 572 employees opted for voluntary separation packages in recent weeks, and 63 probationary workers were let go last month.
These reductions could signal further actions by the Trump administration to dismantle the Education Department, which is a goal Mr. Trump has expressed, though the department cannot be entirely eliminated without Congressional approval.
Speculation about potential layoffs had been circulating after employees received an email around 2 p.m. on Tuesday, informing them that the agency’s Washington offices would be closed on Wednesday and would reopen the following day.
The email from the department’s security office did not explain the reason for the closure. However, the administration had sent similar vague notices about temporary office closures ahead of significant layoffs at other agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
At the close of last year, the Education Department had approximately 4,200 employees, making it the smallest workforce among the 15 cabinet-level executive departments.
Mr. Trump has expressed his desire for state and local school districts to take full responsibility for overseeing education in the United States. This approach aligns with the parents’ rights movement, which emerged in response to school closures and other pandemic-related restrictions.
This movement gained momentum by rallying around opposition to progressive ideologies in school curricula. Activists argued that these topics undermined parental authority and values.
In an interview last week on Fox News, Education Secretary Linda McMahon mentioned that Mr. Trump planned to sign an executive order aimed at closing the department, though she did not specify when this would happen.
An executive order to close the department would challenge the legal authority of Congress, which established the department by statute and must approve any such action. With a divided Senate, it is unlikely that the administration would gain enough support to proceed with closing the department, especially considering that recent public opinion polls show that about two-thirds of Americans oppose the department’s closure.
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