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President Trump Signs Executive Order to DISMANTLE Education Department

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It’s official: President Trump has just signed an executive order directing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the Department of Education.

Totally eliminating the Education Department will require Congressional approval, but the executive order marks a huge step towards putting children’s education back in the hands of the parents — where it belongs.

President Trump signed the executive order live on TV, in front of a classroom of children, who signed along with him.

Watch here:

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Fox News has more details on what the executive order entails:

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to scale down the Department of Education — a move that is expected to spur lawsuits challenging the directive and will likely require Congressional approval.

Trump frequently has discussed plans to nix the Department of Education dating back to the campaign trail, and said in September 2024 that he wanted to cut down on the federal government’s influence over education to “stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth.”

“Everybody knows it’s right, and we have to get our children educated,” Trump said Thursday. “We’re not doing well with the world of education in this country, and we haven’t for a long time.”

As a result, a White House fact sheet on the executive order said, the directive aims to “turn over education to families instead of bureaucracies,” and instructs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

Still, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier Thursday that the executive order would not entirely shutter the agency, but would only “greatly minimize” it.

Additionally, she said that the remaining agency would still oversee Pell Grants and student loans that provide financial aid for undergraduate students.

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“It’s not going to be shut down,” Leavitt said. “Pell Grants and student loans will still be run out of the department in Washington, D.C., but the great responsibility of educating our nation’s students will return to the states.”

The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Fox News Digital to clarify what the remaining Department of Education would do. The Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

NBC News added:

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to start dismantling the Department of Education.

“It sounds strange, doesn’t it? Department of Education. We’re going to eliminate it,” Trump said while speaking in the East Room of the White House at a ceremony where he was flanked by children seated at school desks.

Congressional approval would be needed to fully abolish the department. Trump said that he hoped Democrats would vote in favor legislation to do that.

“I hope they’re going to be voting for it,” Trump said of congressional Democrats, “because ultimately it may come before them.”

Congress established the Department of Education in 1979 during President Jimmy Carter’s administration, and any effort to abolish the department would face major obstacles from Democrats in the Republican-controlled Senate, where 60 votes are required to overcome a filibuster and advance a measure to a final vote.

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday morning that the department would not be completely eliminated, saying its “critical functions” would continue, including the enforcement of civil rights laws and oversight of student loans and Pell grants.

“The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today,” Leavitt said, adding that the executive order directed McMahon “to greatly minimize the agency. So when it comes to student loans and Pell grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education.”

The executive order also will not affect department activities aimed at meeting the educational needs of students with disabilities or Title I funding, which goes to school districts with a high proportion of students from low-income families, a senior administration official told NBC News on Wednesday.

At her Senate confirmation hearing last month, McMahon acknowledged the need to coordinate with Congress to close the department.

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“Certainly President Trump understands that we’ll be working with Congress,” she said in response to a question from Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. “We’d like to do this right. We’d like to make sure that we are presenting a plan that I think our senators could get on board with and our Congress could get on board with that would have a better functioning Department of Education, but certainly does require congressional action.”

Always the showman, President Trump setup a mini-school room and invited school aged kids in to sign the order with him.

He even sat at a small desk!

Trump does everything with style and flair:

Did you know the Department of Education has squandered THREE TRILLION DOLLARS since it’s inception?

What a massive waste:

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Here are some short remarks from President Trump:

And I thought this was fascinating from Glenn Beck….

You can always count on Glenn to come up with different and unique angles on things, and he did it again here, pointing out the original charter of the Dept. of Education was NOTHING like what it became:

Has anyone who opposes Trump’s dismantling of the Department of Education actually read its founding documents?

From the Department of Education Organization Act: “The establishment of the Department of Education shall NOT increase the authority of the Federal Government over education or diminish the responsibility for education, which is reserved to the States and the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the States.”

“It is the intention of the Congress in the establishment of the Department to PROTECT the rights of State and local governments and public and private educational institutions…and improve the control of such governments and institutions over their own educational programs and policies.”

By stripping the Department of its power, Trump is UPHOLDING the will of Congress, not defying it.

What a great insight, thank you Glenn!

So true!

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Every single one of these agencies has vastly outgrown it’s original purpose.

You can watch the entire ceremony including President Trump’s full remarks here:

And while they were beefing last week, it was nice to see Thomas Massie praise President Trump and offer a Bill in Congress that would work hand in glove with President Trump’s Executive Order:

Here’s more, from Fox News:

President Donald Trump is moving forward with plans to abolish the Department of Education.

Trump is expected to sign an executive order following through on a campaign promise to disband the department, claiming on the campaign trail that the department was full of “radicals, zealots and Marxists.”

A White House fact sheet states that the move will “turn over education to families instead of bureaucracies. Trump and proponents of eliminating the department have long said the agency has failed American students.

“NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores reveal a national crisis — our children are falling behind,” Harrison Fields, the White House principal deputy press secretary, told Fox News. “Over the past four years, Democrats have allowed millions of illegal minors into the country, straining school resources and diverting focus from American students.”

“Coupled with the rise of anti-American CRT and DEI indoctrination, this is harming our most vulnerable,” he added. “President Trump’s executive order to expand educational opportunities will empower parents, states, and communities to take control and improve outcomes for all students.”

The directive comes after the Senate voted to confirm Linda McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), to lead the agency on March 3. McMahon issued a memo later that day outlining her support for the Trump administration’s plans for the department and that she would oversee a “new era of accountability” in the agency’s final days.

“The reality of our education system is stark, and the American people have elected President Trump to make significant changes in Washington,” McMahon said in the March 3 memo. “Our job is to respect the will of the American people and the President they elected, who has tasked us with accomplishing the elimination of bureaucratic bloat here at the Department of Education — a momentous final mission — quickly and responsibly.”

Following reports that Trump planned to sign the executive order, the American Federation of Teachers issued a statement imploring Congress to oppose the executive order and “to make clear to the president that the federal government, in the face of this order, will not abdicate its responsibility to all children, students and working families, who deserve a future full of promise and possibility, not diminished dreams.”


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