Trump signs order closing Education Department to ‘maximum extent appropriate’

President Donald Trump on Thursday afternoon ordered U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education,” marking the boldest push from the president to shut down the agency since its establishment under the Carter administration over four decades ago. 

Trump also said prior to the signing that he intends to disperse the department’s core functions — such as Pell Grants, Title I funding, and providing funding and resources for students with disabilities — to other parts of the government. 

“They’re going to be preserved in full and redistributed to various other agencies and departments that will take very good care of them,” he said. “My administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department. We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible.” 

“It’s doing us no good,” he added. 

The directive was originally expected to be released earlier this month. It comes less than two weeks after the Trump administration, under Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s leadership, abruptly cut the department’s workforce by half, shuttered over half of its civil rights enforcement offices, and fired all but a handful of National Center for Education Statistics employees. 

The layoffs preceding the Thursday order impacted nearly 1,300 workers in addition to the nearly 600 employees who accepted “buyouts.”

Trump has repeatedly and forcefully threatened to shut down the department since his first term in the White House, citing what he has called the agency’s “bloated budget” and a need to return education control to the states. His push to dismantle the department is in line with the 2024 Republican agenda, which included closing the department to “let the States run our educational system as it should be run.”

In a Thursday speech, just prior to signing the order, Trump also cited low student test scores as reason to close the department. 

“After 45 years, the United States spends more money in education by far than any other country, and spends, likewise, by far, more money per pupil than any country,” he said. “But yet we rank near the bottom of the list in terms of success. That’s where we are — like it or not — and we’ve been there for a long time.”

Abolishing the 45-year-old agency altogether, however, requires a Senate supermajority of 60 votes. A similar proposal from conservatives in the House failed in 2023 when 60 House Republicans joined Democrats to defeat the measure.

Given the current closely divided Congress, many have considered it a longshot that lawmakers would approve the department’s demise.  

However, in his Thursday speech, Trump said he hopes Democrats would be onboard if the legislation to officially close the department eventually comes before Congressional lawmakers.

Editor’s note: This story is developing and will be updated