As of March 20, 2025, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that dismantles the Department of Education (DOE).
The executive order states, “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to enable parents, teachers, and communities to best ensure student success, the Department of Education’s main functions can, and should, be returned to the States.”
The Department of Education has a few roles in the education system such as, overseeing the educational policy, ensuring equal education opportunities for people across the nation, and administering funding to less fortunate schools.
According to Trump there are a multitude of reasons why the dismantling of the DOE is a vital decision. In the executive order that was published on the official White house website he stated that the program is not accomplishing the goals that it had originally aimed to.
Trump said, “Today, American reading and math scores are near historical lows. This year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that 70 percent of 8th graders were below proficient in reading, and 72 percent were below proficient in math. The Federal education bureaucracy is not working.”
In his statement he also mentioned the tax rates and how it affects the local taxpayers saying, “Taxpayers spent around $200 billion at the federal level on schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, on top of the more than $60 billion they spend annually on Federal school funding.”
So, with the dismantling of the DOE, where is the money going? The Secretary of Treasury has said that this duty will pass on to the Department of Treasury, meaning the funds formerly run by the DOE will be overtaken with the Treasury. They have decided to give the funding distribution responsibilities to two separate programs, news as to which programs is still unclear.
Trump also feels that this order will also attempt to save the economy by lowering taxpayers dollars. Without the DOE, Trump ensures that this will strengthen our economy and that the nation’s education is perfectly secure and guaranteed to maintain stability.
As to the other responsibilities the DOE had, overseeing the educational policy and ensuring equal educational opportunities, we are unsure who will be responsible for those areas.
