The Education Department’s Office of Inspector General plans to conduct a “series of reviews” into the recent mass layoffs at the department, according to a letter obtained by NBC News.
The Trump administration has sought to dismantle the Education Department, which President Donald Trump has long wanted to do but cannot fully achieve without congressional approval.
That has not stopped him from trying. In March, Trump signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin winding down the department. The order came shortly after the Education Department announced it was reducing its workforce by about 50%, which McMahon said reflected the department’s commitment to “efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers.”
Trump has said he wants states to have oversight over the education system. The federal workforce cuts have alarmed education advocates, who worry the layoffs will mean fewer resources for disadvantaged students and other problems.
Eleven Democratic senators expressed their concerns to the Education Department’s acting inspector general, René Rocque, writing to her on March 27 to ask for an investigation into the administration’s intention to dissolve the department and warning that the cuts could have “disastrous consequences.”
The department’s inspector general’s office confirmed Thursday that it had responded to the senators but declined to comment further.
Rocque wrote in the department’s letter to the senators, which was sent Wednesday and viewed by NBC News, that the office would conduct “a series of reviews to provide information on the Department’s programs and operations following recent workforce changes.” She said that she hoped to report on her office’s progress this summer and that she would share results of the reviews with the senators.
She also wrote that her staff would conduct reviews of selected offices in the department to identify the effects of staffing cuts and that their reports would include suggestions to “help ensure productive and efficient operations” after the workforce changes.
The inspector general’s office is an independent entity within the Education Department that is tasked with identifying fraud and criminal activity involving department funds and operations. The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the office’s plans to review the mass layoffs.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, one of the Democrats who had asked for an investigation, said she was pleased with the office’s decision. The senators had asked for an evaluation of the financial feasibility of state and local governments’ taking over education funding and for an analysis of the possible far-reaching effects of dismantling the Education Department.
“I called for an independent investigation into Donald Trump’s dismantling of the Department of Education after hearing from parents, teachers, and students about the chaos he unleashed,” Warren, who has launched a campaign called “Save Our Schools” to defend public education, said in a statement to NBC News. “This investigation will help reveal what’s at stake for those families.”
The National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, called the reviews “a positive first step,” though its president, Becky Pringle, said in a statement that she believed “Congress and the courts need to step in.”
“Firing — without cause — nearly half of the Department of Education staff means those who ensure students can access educational opportunities without discrimination are no longer able to help,” she said in a statement to NBC News. “The dedicated public servants who helped families navigating the federal student aid process, ensured colleges provided the programs they advertised, and that loan servers did not improperly profit off students are gone. And the experts who track student achievement are no longer there to do their jobs.”