White House Drafting Executive Order To Begin Dismantling Education Department: Report

Top Trump officials are reportedly circulating a draft executive order to launch the process of dismantling the Department of Education.

The draft order would be a step toward fulfilling a key campaign promise President Donald Trump made to return education policy back to the states. The order would not direct the dismantling of the department, but request a plan to do so from the Education secretary, according to ABC News.

The order would also call on Congress to pass legislation striking the department from federal statute. Trump may sign the order soon, according to ABC News, but no set date has been determined.

The order, if signed, would likely be carried out by Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Education, Linda McMahon. Some officials in the Trump administration are pushing for the president to hold off signing the order until after McMahon’s confirmation, according to The Wall Street Journal, presumably to avoid hindering her nomination in the Senate.

McMahon’s nomination is currently paused in the Senate as lawmakers wait to receive ethics paperwork. Her nomination hearing has not been scheduled.

Trump could order cuts to certain areas of the Department of Education and roll back or stop some controversial actions the department took under former President Joe Biden, such as mass forgiveness of student loans. Deconstructing the department would take an act of Congress, however.

The Department of Government Efficiency, the government cost-cutting crusade led by Elon Musk, has begun to look at ways of trimming the Department of Education through executive action, according to The Washington Post.

Some employees at Education have already been put on leave from the agency as a result of Trump’s executive order cutting DEI initiatives out of the government. Dozens of employees in the department’s diversity, equity, and inclusion accessibility office were barred from the agency under guidance from the White House’s Office of Personnel and Management

The guidance directs government agencies to notify: “all employees of DEIA offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately as the agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs.”