MIAMI – President Donald Trump could take the first steps this week to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, sources tell CNN.
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The network reports that White House officials have prepared an executive order directing newly-sworn-in Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the dismantling process.
He could sign the document as soon as Thursday, CNN reports, but plans haven’t been finalized.
According to CNN, the draft order directs McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Education Department” while operating to the “the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”
It reads, “The experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars—and the unaccountable bureaucrats those programs and dollars support—has failed our children, our teachers, and our families.”
Fully eliminating the department, however, would require congressional approval.
At a campaign stop in Wisconsin in September, Trump told a cheering crowd, “I say it all the time, I am dying to get back to do this. We will ultimately eliminate the Federal Department of Education…we’ll send it back to the states…and you know, some states will do a fantastic job, some won’t…and it is the same ones that are laggards right now.”
Florida is ranked as one of the least educated states in a 2024 survey, coming in at number 48. Scholaroo’s data team analyzed the states with the highest and lowest levels of education on two factors: educational level and school quality.
Karla Hernandez-Mats, who leads the Miami-Dade teachers’ union, told Local 10 News in February that even with public will at his sails after winning the popular vote, she doesn’t think Trump has the votes in Congress to make the campaign promise a reality.
“Trump doesn’t have the power to end the department himself, but the president has the ability on his own to shrink the department’s footprint—and then ask Congress to do the rest,” Brooke Shultz wrote for EdWeek.
If eliminated, and if Congress continues to authorize appropriations for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Title 1 funding that the majority of school sites in Miami-Dade and Broward rely on for special needs education and funding to assist students in low-income areas, the teacher union presidents worry if the State of Florida would in fact direct those funds to those services or decide to do something else with the taxpayer money, like expand the voucher system families can apply to to direct public tax dollars to private school tuition, gutting the public schools of the critical funding they say is needed to assist special needs children and students from low-income families.
What is Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)? “The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law that makes available a free appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation and ensures special education and related services to those children, supports early intervention services for infants and toddlers and their families, and awards competitive discretionary grants.”
According to the State of Florida’s website, Title I provides additional resources to schools with economically disadvantaged students.
UTD said more than 70% of school sites in Miami-Dade are Title 1 schools. BTU said that percentage is at more than 80% in Broward.
Hernandez-Mats also expressed discontent that Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire from South Africa who is not familiar with the United States’ public school system, and would never rely on America’s public school education for his children due to his wealth, is making “off the cuff” funding decisions on how Americans’ tax dollars are spent which could strip funding for teachers and hurt our most vulnerable school children.
She said taxpayer dollars should not be funding welfare cuts for billionaires on the backs of everyday Americans.