On May 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that dismantles the Department Of Education (DOE). This has caused a panic over the nation as he has been very unclear on the details as to what happens next. Without the DOE funding for Individual Education Programs (IEP) across the nation will be depleted. So what has Trump posed as a viable reason to dismantle such an important program and where are the current funds going?
There has been a level of uncertainty that Trump has caused with the direction of the funding. It is vital that we have a secure place for such important funds but Trump has been unclear as to where they will be transferred. When the executive order had first passed he claimed that the states would be in charge of holding and distributing these funds, but as he noticed the panic this has caused our nation he quickly retracted that statement and said the Treasury would take charge. The funds of one of our most important programs has been put in the hands of an indecisive president who bit off more than he can chew.
The DOE supports funding for schools that don’t receive as much money through their local taxpayers to help support their IEP programs.
Trump claims that taxpayers pay to much, “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.[…]While the Department of Education does not educate anyone, it maintains a public relations office that includes over 80 staffers at a cost of more than $10 million per year.Closing the Department of Education would provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them.”
He then goes on to claim that it is the DOE’s fault for low test scores, “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.”
Trump has massively misunderstood the situation leading to his contradictory statement. He has admitted that it is not the DOE’s job to educate but to fund minority programs such as the IEP and then continues to state that the low test scores of the majority of students is due to the DOE. Trump chooses to attack the wrong program causing a negative impact for our nation.
