By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-19 23:21:34 | Updated at 2025-03-20 15:21:20
16 hours ago
US President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order on Thursday calling for the shutdown of the US Education Department, according to a White House official, advancing a campaign promise to eliminate an agency that has been a long-time target of conservatives.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity before an announcement.
Trump has derided the Department of Education as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, finalising its dismantling is likely to be impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979.
A White House fact sheet said the order would direct Secretary Linda McMahon “to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure [of] the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programmes and benefits on which Americans rely”.
The Trump administration has already been gutting the agency through lay-offs and programme cuts. The department is working to cut in half its workforce and reduce the Office for Civil Rights and the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nation’s academic progress.
