NWLC Slams Trump Administration for Gutting Department of Education and Failing Students
Today the Trump administration announced plans to partially dismantle the Department of Education through a reorganization that would shift parts of the agency to other federal agencies, including the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, which administers K-12 grant programs; the Office of Postsecondary Education, which administers programs to help students access and complete college; the Indian Education program; and programs that oversee child care access, foreign medical education, and foreign language education.
In addition to gutting the already battered federal agency, the move attempts to skirt the Congressional approval needed to close the Department. President Trump’s campaign pledge to dissolve the Department of Education resulted in an executive order in March, though the administration has not been able to achieve this goal given the need for Congressional approval.
In response, Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center, issued the following statement:
“Since Congress established the Department of Education in 1979, it has played a crucial role in ensuring that every student has access to equal educational opportunity under the law. Unfortunately, in following Project 2025, the Trump administration is set on unlawfully dismantling this critical civil rights agency.
“The offices targeted by this latest attack provide billions of dollars in grant funding and essential resources for local school systems to identify gaps in learning, remove disparities in access to education, and otherwise ensure educational opportunity. Moving these functions to other agencies is not only nonsensical given their tangential relationship to education, but also will harm the students who need them the most, particularly students from low-income communities, students of color, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities.
“At the same time the Trump administration promotes pronatalist policies, it seems utterly unconcerned about taking care of the children who are already here. Instead, students who are the most vulnerable to discrimination and educational disparities are victims of the administration’s assault on public education. Every student, no matter their race, religion, disability, sex, or socioeconomic status, deserves access to free, quality public education.”
