US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order aimed at “eliminating” the US Department of Education, a decades-old goal of the right, which wants individual states to run schools free from the federal government.
Surrounded by schoolchildren sitting at desks set up in the East Room of the White House, Trump smiled as held up the order after signing it at a special ceremony.
Trump said the order would “begin eliminating the federal Department of Education once and for all.”
Photo: Reuters
“We’re going to shut it down, and shut it down as quickly as possible. It’s doing us no good,” Trump said. “We’re going to return education back to the states where it belongs.”
The department, created in 1979, cannot be shuttered without the approval of the US Congress, but Trump’s order would likely have the power to starve it of funds and staff.
The move honors one of Trump’s campaign promises and is among the most drastic steps yet in the brutal overhaul of the US government that Trump is carrying out with the help of technology tycoon Elon Musk.
The order directs US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States.”
Democrats and educators have criticized the move.
US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it a “tyrannical power grab” and “one of the most destructive and devastating steps Donald Trump has ever taken.”
Republican leaders, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, were in the audience for the signing ceremony.
Trump has cast the move as necessary to save money and improve educational standards in the US, claiming that they are lagging behind those in Europe and China.
Education has been a battleground for decades in the US culture wars, and Republicans have long wanted to remove control of it from the federal government.
Trump’s appointment of McMahon — the former chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment — to lead the department was widely seen as a sign that its days were numbered.
Trump promised on the campaign trail to get rid of the department and devolve its powers to US states, but the White House earlier said that a rump education department was likely to stay on to deal with “critical functions,” including loans and some grants for low-income students.
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