In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s signing of an executive order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, concerns mount as uncertainty looms. The executive order was signed on March 20 and aims to fulfill the president’s controversial campaign pledge to reduce the size of federal spending and government.
“Today’s Executive Order is a history-making action by President Trump to free future generations of American students and forge opportunities for their success,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a news release, describing the signing as a historic effort “to return power over education to states and local communities.” She added, “We are sending education back to the states where it so rightly belongs.”
According to the Federal Register, the directive is identified as Executive Order 14242 of March 2025 and titled, “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities.”
“Education is fundamentally a state responsibility,” the Department of Education media release continued. “Instead of filtering resources through layers of federal red tape, we will empower states to take charge and advocate for and implement what is best for students, families, and educators in their communities.”
The statement also insisted that closing the department would not lead to depriving students of much-needed resources and that the government would continue to support K-12 schooling and those with special needs, college borrowers, and those relying on essential programs. “We’re going to follow the law and eliminate the bureaucracy responsibly by working through Congress to ensure a lawful and orderly transition,” the news release said.
The U.S. Department of Education was first established by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and was created by Congress to ensure access to quality education nationwide and to consolidate efforts and issues regarding education on a federal level.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), an organization associated with the AFL-CIO, and represents 1.8 million members and 3,000 affiliates nationwide, expressed her union’s concern over Secretary McMahon’s initial announcement.
“Denuding an agency so it cannot function effectively is the most cowardly way of dismantling it,” Weingarten said in an impassioned statement after Secretary McMahon initially announced cuts to the department in early March. “The massive reduction in force at the Education Department is an attack on opportunity that will gut the agency and its ability to support students, throwing federal education programs into chaos across the country.
“Ten million students who rely on financial aid to go to college or pursue a trade will be left in limbo,” Weingarten continued. “States and districts will be forced to navigate funding crises without federal support, hurting millions of students with disabilities and students living in poverty. This move will directly impact the 90 percent of students who attend public schools, by denying them the resources they need to thrive,” she explained.
However, advocates of President Trump’s overall agenda to cut federal spending and to grant more powers to state governments through the reduction of federal bureaucracy, organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and various other conservative think tanks, have been among his most vocal supporters as debates continue between the so-called cultural and political left and right.
“Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated,” wrote Lindsey M. Burke on page 319 of the “Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” in its section regarding the Department of Education. “When power is exercised, it should empower students and families, not government,” Burke continued.
“Federal intervention in education has failed to promote student achievement,” Burke said of what she identified as an educational system in need of radical reform. “After trillions spent since 1965 on the collective programs now housed within the walls of the department, student academic outcomes remain stagnant. On the main National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), reading outcomes on the 2022 administration have remained unchanged over the past 30 years,” she continued.
“Declines in math performance are even more concerning than students’ lack of progress on reading outcomes,” Burke said of American students in general. “Just one-third of eighth graders nationally are proficient in reading and math. Just 27 percent of eighth graders were proficient in math in 2022, and just 31 percent of eighth graders scored proficient in reading in 2022,” she said.
Although the department reportedly cannot be formerly dismantled or shut down without the approval of Congress, the fallout could present opportunities for parents to take charge of their children’s education.
Researcher, author, and education consultant, Dr. Anthony Muhammad, told The Final Call that the announced cuts and uncertain future of the Department of Education should serve as a warning for Black people to organize their efforts beyond the traditional Civil Rights demands of petitioning the government for jobs and justice.
“The federal government does not have any constitutional mandate towards education and the 10th Amendment says that anything not explicitly identified in the Constitution is state’s rights,” Dr. Anthony Muhammad explained. “Schooling and education are not mentioned even once, so the federal government’s involvement in education is strictly financial. By most estimates, states provide 90 – 95 percent of funding for schools,” he said.
Dr. Anthony Muhammad stated that federal resources generally fund Title Programs for special education, poverty, gender equity, and post-secondary grants, financial aid, and student loans. While the department is relatively new and schools operated for decades without it, schools would find it challenging to function without their support today.
“Oversight responsibilities will be handed over to the states, and education won’t be overseen by the federal government, so the quality of education is going to differ from state to state,” he explained. “You could end up with 50 different interpretations of federal law and responsibility to vulnerable students that you didn’t have when it was overseen by one federal agency. It’s kind of an overblown thing, but it could be a sign of more things to come,” he said.
“Some state could interpret having a Black History Month play, or a Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. essay contest as a violation of their political priorities and then decide to withhold certain funds from districts because of those violations,” Dr. Anthony Muhammad said of the potential for “weaponized” policies or political agendas.
The cuts at the federal level will trickle down and eventually impact the state level. According to NPR, nearly 600 Department of Education workers have chosen to leave by resigning or retiring since President Trump’s executive order and an additional 1,300 were told they would be losing their jobs. “That leaves 2,183 remaining department staff, according to the administration. Which means the Education Department will soon be roughly half the size it was just a few weeks ago,” noted npr.org on March 14.
According to the Pew Research Center, “About four-in-ten U.S. adults (44%) said they had a favorable opinion of the department in a 2024 Pew Research Center survey conducted online, while 45% had an unfavorable opinion. That put it near the bottom of the 16 federal agencies and departments we asked about in terms of favorability, along with the Justice Department and the IRS.”
“We’re reaching a point, as Minister Farrakhan said, ‘the onion of civility is being pulled back’ and we shouldn’t be fooled that it’s anything other than that,” said Dr. Anthony Muhammad. “It is unfortunate that we have to go through these lessons of disappointment and betrayal to learn to unify, but it’s going to happen one way or another,” Dr. Anthony Muhammad added.
How the cuts may impact students who need additional assistance remains to be seen but what is happening bears witness to the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his National Representative, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.
In his monumental book, “The Fall of America,” the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad writes on page 92 in the chapter “Destruction of America’s Education”: “The plague of Allah (God) against the educational system of America is something that the philosophers and scientists should look into, as the destruction of America’s education is the destruction of their wisdom to educate people.
“There are many who look on the destruction without taking a second thought of the destruction of America’s education. Education is a guide for the people to keep and maintain a civilized life. It is education that civilizes us. Now to see the citizens of America rebelling against the American educational system is something that the wise of the wise should take thought of.”
Final Call staff contributed to this report.
