Trump Signs Executive Order to Facilitate Closure of the Department of Education, Returning Authority to the States
On March 20, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed Executive Order 14242, "Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities," at the White House in Washington, directing the Secretary of Education, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the U.S. Department of Education and return authority over education to the states and local communities, while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.
The order recounts that taxpayers spent around $200 billion at the federal level on schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, on top of more than $60 billion a year in federal school funding, and that the Department of Education — one of the newest Cabinet agencies, created by Congress in 1979 at the urging of President Jimmy Carter — has since entrenched the education bureaucracy. The Department does not educate anyone, the order says, yet it maintains a public relations office of over 80 staffers costing more than $10 million a year.
Citing this year's National Assessment of Educational Progress, the order says 70 percent of eighth graders were below proficient in reading and 72 percent were below proficient in math, with American reading and math scores near historical lows. It also argues that closure would drastically improve program implementation in higher education: the Department manages a student loan portfolio of more than $1.6 trillion — roughly the size of Wells Fargo, one of the nation's largest banks — while its Office of Federal Student Aid has fewer than 1,500 employees. "The Department of Education is not a bank," the order says, and bank functions must return to an entity equipped to serve America's students.
The order further directs that the allocation of any Department of Education funds be subject to rigorous compliance with federal law and administration policy, including the requirement that any program or activity receiving federal assistance terminate illegal discrimination obscured under the label "diversity, equity, and inclusion" or similar terms, and programs promoting gender ideology.
The order's own language sets its limits: the push toward closure is confined to what the law permits, the order is to be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations, and the Department itself was created by an act of Congress — so whether its main functions would ultimately all return to the states remained undecided on the day it was signed. (Source: The White House)
Source: The White House
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
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