{"id":394871,"date":"2025-11-21T15:07:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T15:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/394871\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T15:07:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T15:07:21","slug":"education-departments-dismantling-leaves-schools-fearing-disruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/394871\/","title":{"rendered":"Education Department’s dismantling leaves schools fearing disruption"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Trump administration says its plan to dismantle<\/a> the Education Department offers a fix for the nation\u2019s lagging academics \u2014 a solution that could free schools from the strictures of federal influence. <\/p>\n

Yet to some school and state officials, the plan appears to add more bureaucracy, with no clear benefit for students who struggle with math or reading.<\/p>\n

Instead of being housed in a single agency, much of the Education Department\u2019s<\/a> work now will be spread across four other federal departments. For President Donald Trump, it\u2019s a step toward fully closing the department<\/a> and giving states more power over schooling. Yet many states say it will complicate their role as intermediaries between local schools and the federal government.<\/p>\n

The plan increases bureaucracy fivefold, Washington state\u2019s education chief said, \u201cundoubtedly creating confusion and duplicity\u201d for educators and families. His counterpart in California said the plan is \u201cclearly less efficient\u201d and invites disruption. Maryland\u2019s superintendent raised concerns about \u201cthe challenges of coordinating efforts with multiple federal agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStates were not engaged in this process, and this is not what we have asked for \u2014 or what our students need,\u201d said Jill Underly, Wisconsin\u2019s state superintendent. Underly urged the Trump administration to give states greater flexibility and cut down on standardized testing requirements.<\/p>\n

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said schools will continue receiving federal money without disruption. Ultimately, schools will have more money and flexibility to serve students without the existence of the Education Department, she said.<\/p>\n

Yet the department is not gone \u2014 only Congress has the power to abolish it. In the meantime, McMahon\u2019s plan leaves the agency in a version of federal limbo. The Labor Department will take over most funding and support for the country\u2019s schools, but the Education Department will retain some duties, including policy guidance and broad supervision of Labor\u2019s education work.<\/p>\n

Similar deals will offload programs to the Department of Health and Human Services, the State Department and the Interior Department. The agreements were signed days before the government shutdown and announced Tuesday. <\/p>\n

Inking agreements to share work with other departments isn\u2019t new: The Education Department already had dozens of such agreements before Trump took office. And local school officials routinely work with other agencies, including the U.S. Agriculture Department, which oversees school meals. What\u2019s different this time is the scale of the programs offloaded \u2014 the majority of the Education Department\u2019s funding for schools, for instance.<\/p>\n

Yet Virginia schools chief Emily Anne Gullickson, for one, said schools are accustomed to working with multiple federal agencies, and she welcomed the administration\u2019s efforts to give states more control.<\/p>\n

Where some see risk of upheaval, others see a win over bureaucracy<\/p>\n

Response to the plan has mostly been drawn along political lines, with Democrats saying the shakeup will hurt America\u2019s most vulnerable students. Republicans in Congress called it a victory over bureaucracy. <\/p>\n

Yet some conservatives pushed back against the dismantling. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said on social media that moving programs to agencies without policy expertise could hurt<\/a> young people. And Margaret Spellings, a former education secretary to Republican President George W. Bush, called it a distraction to a national education crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoving programs from one department to another does not actually eliminate the federal bureaucracy, and it may make the system harder for students, teachers and families to navigate and get the support they need,\u201d Spellings said in a statement.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little debate about the need for change in America\u2019s schooling. Its math and reading scores have plummeted<\/a> in the wake of COVID-19. Before that, reading scores had been stagnant for decades, and math scores weren\u2019t much better.<\/p>\n

McMahon said that\u2019s evidence the Education Department has failed and isn\u2019t needed. At a White House briefing Thursday, she called her plan a \u201chard reset\u201d that does not halt federal support but ends \u201cfederal micromanagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers union and one of McMahon\u2019s sharpest opponents, questioned the logic in her plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would you put a new infrastructure together, a new bureaucracy that nobody knows anything about, and take the old bureaucracy and destroy it, instead of making the old bureaucracy more efficient?\u201d Weingarten said at a Wednesday event.<\/p>\n

Schools fear the impact of lost expertise on education laws<\/p>\n

The full impact of the shakeup may not be clear for months, but already it\u2019s stoking anxiety among states and school districts that have come to rely on the Education Department for its policy expertise. One of the agency\u2019s roles is to serve as a hotline for questions<\/a> about complicated funding formulas, special education laws and more.<\/p>\n

The department has not said whether officials who serve that role will keep their jobs in the transition. Without that help, schools would have few options to clarify what can and can\u2019t be paid for with federal money, said David Law, superintendent of Minnetonka Public Schools in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat could happen is services are not provided because you don\u2019t have an answer,\u201d said Law, who is also president of AASA, a national association of school superintendents.<\/p>\n

Some question whether other federal departments have the capacity to take on an influx of new work. The Labor Department will take over Title I, an $18 billion grant program that serves 26 million students in low-income areas. It\u2019s going to a Labor office that now handles grants serving only 130,000 people a year, said Angela Hanks, who led the Labor office under former President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

At best, Hanks said, it will \u201cunleash chaos on school districts, and ultimately, on our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Salem, Massachusetts, the 4,000-student school system receives about $6 million in federal funding that helps support services for students who are low-income, homeless or still mastering English<\/a>, Superintendent Stephen Zrike said. He fears moving those programs to the Labor Department could bring new \u201crules of engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know what other stipulations will be attached to the funding,\u201d he said. \u201cThe level of uncertainty is enormous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other critics have noted the Education Department was created to consolidate education programs that were spread across multiple agencies.<\/p>\n

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the ranking member on the House Education and Workforce Committee, urged McMahon to rethink her plan. He cited the 1979 law establishing the department, which said dispersion had resulted in \u201cfragmented, duplicative, and often inconsistent Federal policies relating to education.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP education writers Moriah Balingit in Washington, Bianca V\u00e1zquez Toness in Boston and Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press\u2019 education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list<\/a> of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Trump administration says its plan to dismantle the Education Department offers a fix for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":394872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[13671,934,187361,187359,276,107883,69,407,4934,187358,57,3755,86,17847,82,17845,26451,181121,187357,2739,64215,3663,3669,50,80,17849,187360,17850,29156,61,67,370,132,68,906,2057,2058,93,14831,1398],"class_list":{"0":"post-394871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-ak-state-wire","10":"tag-alaska","11":"tag-angela-hanks","12":"tag-bobby-scott","13":"tag-california","14":"tag-david-law","15":"tag-donald-trump","16":"tag-education","17":"tag-education-funding","18":"tag-emily-anne-gullickson","19":"tag-general-news","20":"tag-george-w-bush","21":"tag-government-policy","22":"tag-jill-underly","23":"tag-joe-biden","24":"tag-linda-mcmahon","25":"tag-lisa-murkowski","26":"tag-local-news-for-apple","27":"tag-margaret-spellings","28":"tag-massachusetts","29":"tag-mathematics","30":"tag-minnesota","31":"tag-mn-state-wire","32":"tag-news","33":"tag-politics","34":"tag-randi-weingarten","35":"tag-stephen-zrike","36":"tag-u-s-department-of-education","37":"tag-u-s-department-of-labor","38":"tag-u-s-news","39":"tag-united-states","40":"tag-united-states-government","41":"tag-unitedstates","42":"tag-us","43":"tag-virginia","44":"tag-wa-state-wire","45":"tag-washington","46":"tag-washington-news","47":"tag-wi-state-wire","48":"tag-wisconsin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}