U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has said she wants to “peel back the layers of federal bureaucracy.”
Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Trump administration unveiled a sweeping plan Tuesday to sidestep Congress and outsource large pieces of the U.S. Department of Education, telling lawmakers and staff that it would shift work dedicated to, among other things, elementary and secondary education, postsecondary education and Indian education to other federal agencies.
All three of those offices were originally placed at the department by Congress when it created the agency in 1979, and these moves are being made without Congress’ consent.
According to two people who were briefed on the plan by the Trump administration, and who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, the administration has forged six new agreements between the Education Department and other agencies, offloading day-to-day operations of congressionally-required programs while retaining a small contingent of staff at the department.
For example, under these new agreements, much of the work of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, which includes managing Title I, a key federal funding stream that helps schools support low-income students, would shift to the U.S. Department of Labor, as would much of the work of the Office of Postsecondary Education.
The U.S. Department of the Interior would take on much of the work of the department’s Office of Indian Education.
The U.S. Department of State would take on international education and foreign language studies programming.
Responsibility for the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program, which offers childcare on college campuses to low-income student-parents, would move to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In a USA Today op-ed published Sunday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote of this kind of agreement: “We’ll peel back the layers of federal bureaucracy by partnering with agencies that are better suited to manage programs and empowering states and local leaders to oversee the rest. These partnerships are commonplace across the federal government to improve service delivery and increase efficiency.”
In July, the Education Department announced one such agreement with the Labor Department, in which Labor took on responsibility for adult education and family literacy programs previously administered by the Education Department, though an Education Department release insisted, “The programs will be managed alongside [Education Department] staff, with continued leadership and oversight by [the Education Department].”
Tuesday’s agreements do not include a handful of the department’s signature responsibilities, including special education, student civil rights enforcement and student loans.
In a Tuesday statement, McMahon said, “The Trump Administration is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states.”
Opponents of the administration’s move say, given that Congress created these offices and explicitly located them inside the Education Department, the White House cannot legally move their work without Congress’ approval.
U.S. Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., a senior member of the Senate education committee, said in a statement, “This is an outright illegal effort to continue dismantling the Department of Education, and it is students and families who will suffer the consequences as key programs that help students learn to read or that strengthen ties between schools and families are spun off to agencies with little to no relevant expertise and are gravely weakened—or even completely broken—in the process.”
In briefing lawmakers and staff, the department insisted that these programs’ statutory responsibilities would remain at the department, even if the work would be done elsewhere.
It’s unclear if retaining a modicum of department staff, in partnership with other agencies, will be enough to convince the courts the administration is following federal law.
According to NPR’s two sources, the briefing was led by Lindsey Burke, now deputy chief of staff for policy and programs at the department, who also co-authored the education section of the conservative government blueprint, Project 2025, outlining how to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.
“The federal Department of Education should be eliminated. When power is exercised, it should empower students and families, not government,” Burke wrote.
There will likely be legal challenges opposing Tuesday’s moves.