Congress sent a spending bill to President Donald Trump in February, providing $78.9 billion in funding to the Education Department. That is about the same amount that taxpayers provided last year.
That might seem surprising because almost one year ago, Trump signed an executive order to abolish the agency.
“Today, American reading and math scores are near historical lows,” the order reads. “This year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that 70 percent of 8th graders were below proficient in reading, and 72 percent were below proficient in math. Closing the Department of Education would provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them.”
The administration treated the signing ceremony as a major event. Media were invited to the White House, where the president was surrounded by young children seated at school desks, who signed their own versions of the executive order.
Media reported that Trump’s action was “gutting,” “dismantling,” and “shutting down” the agency.
“‘A dark day’ for American children: Trump issues order to kill the Department of Education,” bemoaned the 19th, a nonprofit news organization.
Democrats and the representatives of various interest groups decried the action and warned of devastating consequences.
“The real victims will be our most vulnerable students,” National Education Association President Becky Pringle said. “Gutting the Department of Education will send class sizes soaring, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle-class families, take away special education services for students with disabilities, and gut student civil rights protections.”
Many conservatives and activists cheered the action.
“President Trump is once again proving he keeps his promises,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts crowed. “He’s putting America first, restoring common sense, and dismantling the bloated, ideological bureaucracies that have hollowed out our institutions—starting with the Department of Education.”
Republican members of Congress also tossed laurels.
“The federal government doesn’t belong in the classroom, plain and simple,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said. “Promises made, promises kept.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon proclaimed, “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.” She described dismantling the federal “bureaucracy” as her “historic final mission.”
Yet close observers of federal education policy understood that the executive order was more political symbolism than policymaking. That is because an executive order cannot supersede a law, and the Education Department and its myriad programs were mostly created through laws.
Congress established the Education Department in 1979 by statute and assigned to it administrative authority over federal elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education programs. The department is also responsible for collecting statistics on student performance through the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and for funding research on teaching practices.
Federal funds comprise only about 10% of spending on schools, but states and local education rely on those dollars. Public schools in low-income areas of the country are especially dependent on federal funds. So, too, are school districts that serve large numbers of children with disabilities. Some of the voters in these areas are new members of the Trump GOP and might not like having federal school aid slashed.
Trump’s Education Department budget request to Congress reflected his administration’s straddling stance. To please small-government activists, Trump requested $66.7 billion in funding for the year, which was 15% less than the department got the previous year.
But he did not demand a reduction in the $18 billion Title I education grants program. The administration “recognizes the importance of funds under Title I-A Grants … which serve as a critical source of support for LEAs in communities of concentrated poverty.” Trump’s team also requested $14.9 billion for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act grant program, $677.5 million more than the previous request.
The House of Representatives mostly agreed with Trump’s budget request, but the Senate had other ideas. It proposed $78.9 billion in funding and refused to accede to Trump cuts, such as axing funding for student English language acquisition programs. Ultimately, Congress adopted the Senate’s legislation, which was rolled into a minibus spending law and sent to Trump’s desk. Legislators also enacted provisions that curbed the administration’s authority to move funds from one Education Department program to another.
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The president and McMahon continue to proclaim they are returning authority over education to states and parents. As so often occurs in Washington, the rhetoric and the reality are not identical. The Education Department has not been abolished, nor has the federal government ended its role in schooling.
Nonetheless, the Education Department is being downsized. Its employee headcount has been cut by one-half, and McMahon has been outsourcing its work to other federal agencies. Congress expressed some concern with the department’s “unprecedented use” of these interagency agreements, and cautioned the ED against outsourcing duties that are explicitly assigned to it by law. Otherwise, legislators greenlighted the continued hollowing out so long as the Education Department provides Congress with biweekly briefings on its implementation.
Kevin R. Kosar (@kevinrkosar) is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and edits UnderstandingCongress.org.
