President Donald Trump is expected to take the extraordinary step this week of directing his secretary of education to dissolve the U.S. Department of Education by executive order, according to sources familiar with a draft.
A draft of the executive order calls on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate a department closure by taking all necessary steps “permitted by law,” the sources said.
Linda McMahon testifies before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on her nomination to be Education Secretary at Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 13, 2025.
Tierney L. Cross/Reuters
However, such a move would require congressional approval; any proposed legislation would likely fail without 60 Senate votes.
McMahon has previously acknowledged she would need Congress to carry out the president’s vision to close the department she’s been tapped to lead.
“We’d like to do this right,” she said during her confirmation hearing last month, adding: “That certainly does require congressional action.”
The move has been months in the making, helping the president inch one step closer to fulfilling his campaign promise of returning education to the states.
The draft is clear about the necessity to do so, sources said.
“The Federal bureaucratic hold on education must end,” a draft of the president’s executive order stated, according to those familiar with the document. “The Department of Education’s main functions can, and should, be returned to the States.”
McMahon is also compelled by the draft to allocate federal funding for education programs subject to rigorous compliance with the law and administration policy.
“The experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars – – and the unaccountable bureaucrats those programs and dollars support – – has failed our children, our teachers, and our families,” the draft said, according to sources.
However, critics argued that the department provides vital financial assistance and grant programs. It holds schools accountable for enforcing nondiscrimination laws for gender, race and disability — specifically, Title IX, Title VI and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Americans with Disabilities Act.
Closing the agency would “really cripple the ability to function and aid the support that these students need to really succeed from an academic standpoint,” Augustus Mays, vice president for partnerships and engagement at the advocacy group The Education Trust, told ABC News.
Education experts suggested that shuttering the ED could gut public education funding and disproportionately impact high-need students across the country who rely on statutorily authorized programs, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Title I, which provides funding for low-income families.
An end to the department could also leave billions of dollars’ worth of funds, scholarships and grants hanging in the balance for millions of students in the U.S.
The draft also instructed any program or activity receiving federal funding to “terminate” its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, citing concerns for race- and sex-based discrimination.
Department of Education headquarters is seen in Washington, D.C., Feb. 14, 2025.
Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP
The draft’s circulation comes just days after the agency launched EndDEI.Ed.Gov, a website that allows users to submit discrimination-focused complaints and aims to strictly enforce the Title VI civil rights law in schools.
The current version of the executive order blasted education spending that does not correlate with adequate results on exams like the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which has been dubbed “the nation’s report card,” sources said.
Meanwhile, it directed McMahon to return decision-making authority to parents and families in order to improve the “education, well-being, and future success” of the nation’s children.
McMahon allies believe that her experience as the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment will aid her in being an agent of change, a disrupter and the dismantler that the department needs.
In a department-wide email on Monday, the newly sworn-in secretary said her final mission is to do a “historic overhaul” of the agency that cuts red tape and restores the American education system.
“My vision is aligned with the President’s: to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children,” McMahon’s memo said.
Dozens of ED employees have already been placed on paid administrative leave, pressured to retire or laid off in the first few months of Trump’s second term.