How Dismantling the Department of Education Would Harm Students
Tim Walker | 04 February 2025 | NEA Today
In a widely expected move, President Donald Trump will at any minute issue an executive order—or a series of orders—aimed at dismantling the U.S. Department of Education (ED), while also urging Congress to abolish it outright. Eliminating the department, which was established by President Jimmy Carter and Congress in 1980, due to the advocacy of NEA and others, has been a key focus of Trump’s anti-public education rhetoric, as a candidate and now as president.
Since Inauguration Day, the White House has issued reckless, destructive, and even illegal directives to destabilize public schools and target some of our most vulnerable students. They include stripping schools of critical funding, launching national school voucher programs, providing more funding and less oversight for private charter operators, and greenlighting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on public schools..