WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 20: U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order to reduce the size … [+] and scope of the Education Department alongside school children signing their own versions, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on March 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. The order instructs Education Secretary Linda McMahon, former head of the Small Business Administration and co-founder of the World Wrestling Entertainment, to shrink the $100 billion department, which cannot be dissolved without Congressional approval. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Today President Donald Trump issued his anticipated executive order to close the U.S. Department of Education. But the order is short on specifics; what can President Trump and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon actually legally do?
The Department of Education was created in 1979, but many of its signature responsibilities actually pre-date the department itself. While the department may administer these programs, it did not create them.
Title I, which provides federal funding to help bolster local education resources for low-income families, was established as part of the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was originally passed as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975.
Those two programs account for over $30 billion in funding from the department to local school districts. Established by Congress, these are programs that in theory cannot be simply ended by a President.
After citing rationale for closing the department, the critical portion of the executive order is this
The Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the 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 maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law” is the crux of the matter. The department cannot be dissolved without an act of Congress, though the administration could continue to hollow out the department by firing more staff. As CNN reported, White House press secretary said ahead of the signing that the order would move to “greatly minimize the agency,” and that certain “critical functions” would remain under the department umbrella.
“Critical functions” could be any of the grant programs that were created by Congress. Project 2025 proposed turning Title I and IDEA funds into block grants to the states to use as they wish, with Title I funding to be reduced to zero in ten years. And Trump has also said that he would cut off funding to schools that did not comply with certain of his requirements.
Other functions of the department have already been hit by personnel cuts, including the Office of Civil Rights (as reported by CNN) and the National Center for Educational Statistics (as reported by ABC News). The NCES collects and compiles data about U.S, education, including the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the source of data that the executive order cites in its rationale for the closing of the department.
School funding expert Bruce Baker, writing for the Albert Shanker Institute, estimates that eliminating federal aid would lead to major drops in student achievement, a sort of federally-induced learning loss. The effect of turning them to block grants would depend on how the state used the money; Baker notes the irony that state grants would be based on need, but the state would not be under any obligation to give the money to districts where that need exists. Baker predicts the block grants would exacerbate the achievement gaps in most states.
In the end, the executive order doesn’t tell us much that we didn’t know–Trump intends to end the department, somehow, while maintaining some of the programs, in some form.
Education Reform Now, an education reform advocacy group, has created a simple explainer for breaking down the areas of authority over the department and its program and showing what legal limits Trump and McMahon will face. First, who has the actual power for certain acts?
Who has the power?
Education Reform Now
Which programs would require an act of Congress for change?
The department’s programs
Education Reform Now
The only question really answered today is whether or not Trump really try to shut down the department. We now know the unsurprising answer is yes. We still don’t know what, exactly, that will look like.
