Power stripped from Education Department in latest Trump administration move to dismantle it

The Trump administration announced Tuesday that the Department of Education signed a series of interagency agreements to shift power from a handful of its offices and programs to other federal agencies as it works to dismantle the federal department for good. 

"The Trump Administration is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states," Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a Tuesday press release. "Cutting through layers of red tape in Washington is one essential piece of our final mission. As we partner with these agencies to improve federal programs, we will continue to gather best practices in each state through our 50-state tour, empower local leaders in K-12 education, restore excellence to higher education, and work with Congress to codify these reforms."

The Department of Education announced six interagency agreements (IAAs) Tuesday with the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the State Department and the Department of the Interior to co-manage or take a growing role in managing certain offices and programs, according to a background call with the media. 

"We at the Department of Ed have engaged with other partner agencies over 200 times through IAAS to procure various services of other partner agencies over the years. Even the Biden administration did it to help implement the First Step Act, entering into an IAA with the Department of Justice. And so this is a tool that's frequently used," a senior Education Department official said Tuesday during a call with the media. 

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One agreement includes the Department of Labor establishing an elementary and secondary education partnership to "empower parents and states, promote innovation, and deliver program improvements," according to press release on the announcement. 

The Department of Labor also will take a "growing role in managing" the Education Department's higher education grant programs and institution-based grant program, according to the press call. 

Additionally, the Department of the Interior will take a "growing role" in administering the Indian Education program, according to the call. The Department of Education also signed a pair of Health and Human Services agreements related to the Department of Education's foreign medical accreditation programs and establishing a new program called Child Care Access Means Parents in School to promote on-campus child care for parents enrolled in college. 

The announcement also included establishing a new program with the State Department to oversee international education and foreign language studies programs.

"These partnerships really mark a major step forward in improving management of select programs and leveraging these partner agencies' administrative expertise, their experience working with relevant stakeholders and streamline the bureaucracy that has accumulated here at Ed over the decades," a senior department official said during the call. "We are confident that this will lead to better services for grantees, for schools, for families across the country as a result of these partnerships."

The announcement follows Trump's pledge to dismantle the agency altogether, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital Tuesday. 

"President Trump promised the American people he would dismantle the Department of Education. Today, Secretary McMahon is delivering on that promise with bold, decisive action to return education where it belongs — at the state and local level," Huston said. "The Trump Administration is fully committed to doing what’s best for American students, which is why it’s critical to shrink this bloated federal education bureaucracy while still ensuring efficient delivery of funds and essential programs. The Democrat shutdown made one thing unmistakably clear: students and teachers don’t need Washington bureaucrats micromanaging their classrooms."

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March calling on McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely." 

The Department of Education was established in 1979 and requires Congressional action to officially shutter, but has not taken meaningful steps on Trump's order to eliminate the federal department. McMahon also has previously acknowledged that Congress is needed in order to officially shutter the Education Department, with the administration instead working to dismantle it by allocating its authority to other federal agencies. 

Shuttering the Department of Education was among Trump's lengthy list of campaign platforms, with the then-2024 presidential candidate touting that he would end the federal bureaucracy at the agency by punting its responsibilities to the states, subsequently elevating the control local communities and parents have over schooling. 

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"The Department of Education has entrenched the education bureaucracy and sought to convince America that Federal control over education is beneficial," Trump's executive order said in March. "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." 

The federal government just emerged from the longest shutdown in U.S. history, at 43 days, with McMahon authoring an op-ed claiming the shutdown exposed how "little the Department of Education will be missed."

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"Our nation just experienced the longest government shutdown in its history," McMahon wrote in the USA Today piece published Sunday. "The 43-day shutdown, which came smack in the middle of the fall semester, showed every family how unnecessary the federal education bureaucracy is to their children’s education. Students kept going to class. Teachers continued to get paid. There were no disruptions in sports seasons or bus routes." 

"The shutdown proved an argument that conservatives have been making for 45 years: The U.S. Department of Education is mostly a pass-through for funds that are best managed by the states," she continued.