The Systematic Dismantling of Federal Education Protections: A Dangerous Precedent

The Facts: Administrative Restructuring Through Interagency Agreements

On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced six interagency agreements that would transfer significant responsibilities from the Department of Education to other federal agencies, including the Departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services, and State. This move represents the latest step in President Trump’s longstanding campaign promise to “return education back to the states” and effectively dismantle the 46-year-old Department of Education.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon characterized this initiative as a “test run” to determine whether relocating programs to other agencies would function “in a more streamlined fashion and much more efficiently.” She indicated that the department would deliver outcomes to Congress with the hope that legislators would vote to codify these transfers permanently. However, any such legislative effort would face significant challenges in the Senate, where Republicans hold only 53 seats and most legislation requires 60 votes to advance.

This announcement follows a March executive order in which President Trump directed Secretary McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of her own department. The Supreme Court’s July decision allowing the administration to proceed with mass layoffs and dramatic downsizing of the Education Department further enabled this restructuring agenda.

Program Transfers and Their Implications

The interagency agreements involve substantial program reassignments with far-reaching consequences. The Department of Labor will assume responsibility for administering elementary and secondary education programs currently managed by the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, including “managing competitions, providing technical assistance, and integrating ED’s programs with the suite of employment and training programs DOL already administers.”

Additionally, Labor will take on greater management of higher education grant programs including TRIO, GEAR UP, the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, and programs supporting Historically Black Graduate Institutions. The Interior Department will administer Indian Education programs, while HHS will oversee the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation’s work, along with the Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program that supports low-income parents in postsecondary education through campus-based child care services. The State Department will assume responsibility for all foreign education programs.

Immediate Backlash and Legal Challenges

The announcement prompted immediate and forceful opposition from Democratic members of Congress and labor unions. Senator Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, condemned the move as an “outright illegal effort to continue dismantling the Department of Education.” She warned that “students and families will suffer the consequences as key programs that help students learn to read or that strengthen ties between schools and families are spun off to agencies with little to no relevant expertise.”

Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut characterized the effort as “death by a thousand cuts,” arguing that “imposing massive, chaotic, and abrupt changes on a whim will waste millions of dollars in duplicative administrative costs and impose wasteful burdens on the American education system.” Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia emphasized that the mass transfer would result in “inconsistent enforcement of federal education policy” and undermine protections for “students of color, students with disabilities, English as a Second Language students, and low-income students.”

Union Response and Worker Concerns

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252 representing Education Department workers, called the move “unlawful” and “an insult to the tens of millions of students who rely on the agency to protect their access to a quality education.” She emphasized that scattering core functions across other agencies would weaken the national mission of comprehensive educational support.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, warned that “spreading services across multiple departments will create more confusion, more mistakes and more barriers for people who are just trying to access the support they need.” She characterized the restructuring as a “deliberate diversion of funding streams that have helped generations of kids achieve their American dream” that would “undermine public schools as places where diverse voices come together and where pluralism, the bedrock of our democracy, is strengthened.”

A Dangerous Erosion of Educational Equity and Civil Rights Protections

This systematic dismantling of the Department of Education represents one of the most concerning assaults on federal institutions in recent memory. The fragmentation of education programs across multiple agencies with different missions, expertise, and priorities threatens to create a chaotic patchwork of services that will inevitably fail our most vulnerable students.

The Department of Education was established precisely to ensure consistent federal standards, protect civil rights, and provide equitable educational opportunities across state lines. Scattering these responsibilities to agencies like Labor and Interior—which lack the specialized expertise in education policy—risks creating bureaucratic nightmares for students, families, and educators who depend on coordinated federal support.

The Civil Rights Implications

Perhaps most alarmingly, this restructuring threatens to undermine critical civil rights protections that the Department of Education has historically enforced. The Office for Civil Rights, which investigates discrimination complaints based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, and age, represents a cornerstone of educational equity in America. The article notes that the department is “still exploring the best plan” for this office along with the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services and Federal Student Aid—suggesting these essential protections may be compromised or diluted through this haphazard restructuring.

When educational civil rights enforcement becomes fragmented across multiple agencies without specialized expertise, we risk returning to the era of unequal educational opportunities that prompted the creation of the Department of Education in the first place. Students with disabilities, English language learners, and minority students deserve consistent federal protection, not a patchwork of agencies that may prioritize other missions over educational equity.

The States’ Rights Fallacy

The administration’s justification that this restructuring returns education “back to the states” represents a dangerous oversimplification of federalism. While states rightly maintain primary responsibility for education, the federal government has crucial constitutional obligations to ensure equal protection, prevent discrimination, and provide for the general welfare. The Department of Education serves as the essential mechanism for fulfilling these obligations in the educational context.

Returning education exclusively to the states would inevitably create fifty different systems with fifty different standards of protection—a recipe for inequality and inconsistency that undermines the very purpose of federal constitutional guarantees. Students in Mississippi deserve the same basic educational protections as students in Massachusetts, and only a strong federal department can ensure this fundamental equity.

The Slippery Slope of Institutional Dismantling

This effort to dismantle the Department of Education through administrative action rather than legislative process sets a dangerous precedent for circumventing congressional authority. If an administration can effectively eliminate an entire department simply by transferring its functions elsewhere, what prevents future administrations from similarly dismantling other vital institutions? The Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, or any other agency could face similar fragmentation through administrative fiat rather than democratic debate.

This approach represents an end-run around the constitutional separation of powers and the legislative process that should govern such fundamental structural changes. Congress created the Department of Education through proper legislative channels, and only Congress should determine its fate through the same democratic process.

The Human Cost of Bureaucratic Chaos

Beyond the constitutional concerns, this restructuring will inevitably harm real students and families who depend on consistent federal educational support. Low-income parents relying on campus child care programs, Native American students benefiting from Indian Education programs, and disadvantaged students accessing TRIO and GEAR UP initiatives deserve stability and reliability in the services that support their educational journeys.

Creating “a bit of a lag” between signing agreements and full execution, as the department official acknowledged, means uncertainty and disruption for the very populations these programs are designed to serve. This administrative chaos represents an unacceptable disregard for the human impact of ideological restructuring.

Conclusion: Defending Educational Equity

As someone deeply committed to democratic principles and educational equity, I view this administrative dismantling of the Department of Education as one of the most concerning developments in recent educational policy. It threatens to undermine decades of progress in educational civil rights, create bureaucratic chaos for vulnerable students, and establish a dangerous precedent for circumventing congressional authority in institutional restructuring.

We must defend the vital role of the federal government in ensuring educational equity and protecting civil rights. The Department of Education serves as a essential guardian of equal educational opportunity, and its systematic dismantling represents an assault on the very principles of educational access and equity that form the foundation of our democracy. Congress must reassert its authority and protect this vital institution from administrative destruction.