President Donald Trump Signed an executive order Thursday to sharpen the Ministry of Education – a movement that is expected to stimulate lawsuits that challenge the directive and probably require the approval of the congress.
Trump has often discussed plans for the Ministry of Education Dating from the campaign track and said in September 2024 that he wanted to reduce the influence of the federal government on education to “stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate American youth.”
“Everyone knows it’s good, and we have to raise our children,” Trump said on Thursday. “We are not doing well with the world of education in this country, and we are not doing it for a long time.”
As a result, a facts in the White House said at the executive order, has the directive aimed at “transferring education to families instead of bureaucracies”, and instructs the Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to take “all the necessary steps to increase the education and return education to the States, programs and non -interested and non -interested and not interested, initiated, initiated, initially initiated, Programs, programs and agencies in the calculation of the slides, and the bureaucracy of the Americans, closing the closing “.
Trump went out to sign an executive order to abolish the Ministry of Education
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on March 20, 2025 to deduct the Ministry of Education. (Pool)
Nevertheless, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt of the White House told Repectors earlier on Thursday that the executive order would not close the agency completely, but only “minimizes” it.
Moreover, she said that the remaining agency would still supervise Pell subsidies and student loans that offer financial assistance to students.
“It will not be closed,” Leavitt said. “Pell subsidies and student loans will still be sustained from the Washington department, DC, but the great responsibility to teach the students of our nation will return to the States.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital to clarify what the remaining department of education would do. The Ministry of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comments from Fox News Digital.
In the meantime, a Gallup survey shows in February that the satisfaction of Americans about education has fallen considerably in the past decade. The poll showed that only 24% of Americans are satisfied with the quality of education in the US from January 2025, compared to 37% in January 2017.
President Donald Trump said in February that he hoped that educational secretary Linda McMahon himself would work “out of a job”, in the midst of discussions to close the agency. (Noam Galai/Getty images)
The White House has risen against the state of American training and falling test scores of American students.
Critics in the White House have pointed to the ‘Nations Report Card’, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) from 2024 released every two years, published on January 27. The Examests fourth and eighth-grade students and almost found stagnant math scores for eighth degrees compared to 2022 and Leesscores took 2 points at both rank levels.
The Ministry of Education, founded in 1979, aims to improve the coordination of federal education programs and to support state and local school systems, according to its website. It also supervises student loans and financial aid programs and non -discrimination policy.
The executive power needs the congress to sign off when eradicating the agency, on the basis of Article II of the US Constitution. Moreover, this measure would require 60 votes in the Senate, and there are currently only 53 Republicans.
Nevertheless, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., In a Wednesday X-post that the Senate uses the budget-reducing process to pass the measure, for which only 51 votes would be needed. Massie has led legal efforts to deduct the agency and introduced a measure on January 31 to NIX the Ministry of Education by December 2026.
There is also some support in the Senate for such legislation.
“I agree with President Trump that the Ministry of Education has failed his mission,” said Senator Bill Cassidy, R-La., In a statement to Fox News Digital. “Since the department can only be concluded with approval of the congress, I will support the goals of the president by submitting legislation to achieve this as quickly as possible.”
Even without completely closing the agency, the Trump government has moved to significantly reduce its strength. On 11 March, the Ministry of Education unveiled Planning Planning to reduce its staff of just over 4,000 people in two.
Trump still needs the help of the congress in the plan to abolish the education department
The Senate confirmed Linda McMahon to serve as Minister of Education on 3 March. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
If the efforts to close the agency, Becky Pringle of the National Education Association warned that the university would become more expensive for families and that students with disabilities would suffer.
“As a successful, Trump’s continuous actions will harm all students by sending class sizes, reducing training programs for work, making higher education more expensive and becoming out of reach for middle -class families, to take away special educational services for students with disabilities and to get the protection of the civil rights of students,” said Pringle on Wednesday evening.
Likewise, the American Federation of Teachers ran earlier in March to oppose all executive orders to dismantle the agency. The Teachers’ Association pointed to an NPR/PBS news/marist survey that was held in February and that has “strongly opposed” more than 60% of Americans to eradicate the agency.
The executive order instructs Minister of Education Linda McMahon to move forward, which makes plans facilitated to close the agency. (Getty Images)
After reporting on Wednesday evening about the intention of Trump to sign the directive on Thursday, the American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten announced that the trade union would challenge the order.
“See you in court,” said Weingarten.
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Legal actions that oppose Trump’s actions are already underway. A group of lawyers of 21 states filed a complaint with the US court for the Massachusetts district March 13 after the dismissals at the agency.
The lawsuit said that efforts to dismantle the agency, including through the dismissals, “are an illegal violation of the separation of powers and the obligation of the executive power to ensure that the law is carried out faithfully.”
Fox News’ Patrick Ward and Lawrence Edwards have contributed to this report.
