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By Andrew Stanton
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The Department of Education (ED) has come under scrutiny from President Donald Trump, who has argued its authority should be transferred to the states.
The president was said to be preparing an executive order that would move to dismantle the ED altogether, though Congress would need to act to codify such an order.
Conservatives have long argued the ED should be abolished, pointing to data that shows it has not improved test scores and has only widened the so-called "achievement gap" since its implementation under former President Jimmy Carter.
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Data from the Nation's Report Card, an annual survey conducted by the ED, shows math and reading scores have only modestly approved since its inception.
Newsweek reached out to the Department of Education for comment via email.
Why It Matters
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is not planning to sign an executive order to begin dismantling the Education Department on Thursday, following weeks of questions about its future.
If he revisits the idea of moving to eradicate the department, it would face fierce opposition from many education advocates who say eliminating the ED could have significant disruptions for students and teachers alike.
Others, however, say the department has become a bloated bureaucracy that is not particularly effective, and that states are better prepared to handle their own education policies.
What to Know
Since 1980, when the ED was established in its current form, reading and math scores have slightly improved — despite a pandemic-triggered decline over the past few years — according to the Nation's Report Card, officially known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Department of Education policies, however, are only one of many factors reflected in those scores, Jon Vallant, director of the Brookings Institute's Brown Center for Education Policy, told Newsweek.
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Some changes can be attributed to federal policy, such as test scores rising in the 2000s due to the Bush-era No Child Left Behind program. Other changes have more to do with economics and other social factors such as the emergence of cell phones in schools, Vallant said.
The latest downward trends have more to do with COVID-19, which disrupted education around the country due to prolonged school closures, than any action taken by the department, he said.
"I think it is very difficult to know from NAEP scores what was the effect of the department, or any other single factor," he said.
"The NAEP report card is very good at at telling us where students are at any given time and giving us an overall trends in changes of student performance. It's very bad at helping us point to one explanation."
NAEP's long-term assessment of math scores from 1978 to 2012 showed an 11 percent increase in scores among 9-year-olds, an 8 percent increase among 13-year-olds and a 2-percent increase among 17-year-olds. From 2012 to 2022, scores dropped 4 percent among 9-year-olds and about 5 percent among 13-year olds.
Reading scores showed smaller improvements prior to 2012.
Scores improved about 5 percent among 9-year-olds from 1975 to 2012, 3 percent among 13-year-olds and less than half a point among 17-year-olds. From 2012 to 2022, they dropped nearly 3 percent among 9-year-olds and 13-year-olds.
There is no available data for 17-year-olds past 2012.
Vallant noted that fully eliminating the Department of Education would legally have to go through Congress, rather than an executive order. But the president could ask Education Secretary Linda McMahon, newly confirmed by the Senate, to trim the department within more narrow legal confines.
In a foreshadowing of what could come, McMahon sent out a memo to ED employees describing agency's "final mission" after she was confirmed.
An unwinding of the ED would make it more difficult to keep up with core functions like managing funds and investigating discrimination claims, Vallant said. But the administration would not have the legal authority to unilaterally cancel programs aimed at boosting math and reading scores.
Student loans are another area that would be affected by scaling back ED operations.
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"Where I think we would start to see real effects on something like math and reading scores would be if this administration starts to impound funds and essentially say the funds Congress gave, that Congress appropriated to go to these schools—if the executive branch stras saying, no we aren't going to be giving those funds out, then you're in a world of teacher layouts and programs cancelled," he said. "But legally, they can't do that."
Vallant said he would only expect teacher layoffs and mass cancellations of programs if the White House "impounded" or otherwise redirect education funds that have already been appropriated by Congress. "But legally, they can't do that."
He said both the federal and state governments should be focused on improving math and reading scores instead of emphasizing recent culture war issues after COVID had a detrimental effect on students. This could mean doubling down on high-quality curricula and crafting new policies on issues like AI in schools.
What People Are Saying
President Trump to reporters last month: "We spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, and we're ranked at the bottom of the list. We're ranked very badly. And what I want to do is let the states run schools."
Elon Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency, in a post to X in February: "When not wasting money on bureaucracy, the Department of Education has been funding anti-Americanism, gender nonsense and anti-meritocratic racism."
Joanne Weiss, former chief of staff to the U.S. Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration, previously told Newsweek: "The purpose of the U.S. Department of Education is to support states in making sure learning opportunities exist for every child, including those from low-income families, for students learning English, and for students with disabilities. In the face of deep and persistent learning losses, that work has never been more important. The Administration's actions are sowing confusion and chaos for districts and states just when they need to be focused on recovery."
What Happens Next
Any efforts to fully close the Department would need support from a filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes in the Senate. It would be highly unlikely for Democrats to join Republicans in that vote, meaning the dismantling of the ED would need to be done internally through cuts and moving of the department's various remits to other agencies.
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