Trump moves to dismantle education dept
Flanked by students and educators, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to essentially dismantle the federal Department of Education, making good on a longstanding campaign promise to conservatives.
The order is designed to leave school policy almost entirely in the hands of states and local boards, a prospect that alarms liberal education advocates.
Order was a first step "to eliminate" the department, Trump said at a signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House. Shuttering the agency completely requires an act of Congress, and Trump lacks the votes for that.
The signing followed the department's announcement last week that it would lay off nearly half of its staff, in step with Trump's sweeping efforts to reduce the size of a federal government he considers to be bloated and inefficient.
Education has long been a political lightning rod in the United States. Conservatives favor local control over education policy and school-choice options that help private and religious schools, and left-leaning voters largely support robust funding for public schools and diversity programs.
But Trump has elevated the fight to a different level, making it part of a generalized push against what conservatives view as liberal indoctrination in America's schools from the university level down to K-12 instruction.
He has sought to re-engineer higher education in the United States by reducing funding and pushing to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies at colleges and universities, just as he has in the federal government.
The White House also argues the Education Department is a waste of money, citing mediocre test scores, disappointing literacy rates and lax math skills among students as proof that the return on the agency's trillions of dollars in investment was poor.
The department oversees some 100,000 public and 34,000 private schools in the United States, although more than 85% of public school funding comes from state and local governments.
