Why Trump’s goal to abolish key federal agency will be an 'extremely difficult task': report

04 January

One longtime goal of the conservative movement has been to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. But that may prove to be out of reach despite President-elect Donald Trump having Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress.

The Guardian reported Saturday that the Department of Education, which was first established under the late former President Jimmy Carter's administration, has been in the right's crosshairs since its inception. Reporter Rachel Leingang wrote that Trump alone "cannot eliminate a department, making it an extremely difficult task to accomplish." She also noted that "Congress is requested to approve the creation or demise of an agency," rather than the executive branch.

Project 2025 — the far-right Heritage Foundation's notorious policy blueprint for Trump's second administration — has also called for the abolition of the Education Department. But Rick Hess, who is the director of education policy studies at the Koch-funded American Enterprise Institute, said that merely eliminating the department wouldn't be sufficient.

"At some level, it’s the wrong conversation, because you could abolish the Department of Education and little to nothing would actually change unless Congress also voted to cut or zero out funding for the various programs," he said.

Because Senate rules require 60 votes to bypass a filibuster by either party, it's not likely that the 53-seat Republican majority will be able to win over seven Democrats to eliminate the Education Department. But funding for federal education programs will be up for debate in each respective chamber's appropriations committees and on the floor when government funding bills are being negotiated. Hess viewed the debate over the continued existence of the Education Department as "symbolic" given what it represents according to conservatives.

"They think it’s a gross violation of the constitutional scheme,” Hess told the Guardian. “They think it takes too much power from communities and shifts it to bureaucrats in Washington.”

Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) said during his campaign that eliminating the Department of Education would save $30 billion. He also suggested it was no longer needed, claiming it was only established so "little Black girls could go to school down South" when schools were being racially integrated.

However, Penn State associate professor Kelly Rosinger, who specializes in education policy studies, argued that eliminating the Education Department would "clear signal that we don’t view education as important in a democratic society."

"There is some very real damage that could be done, regardless of whether a Department of Education exists, but especially if it doesn’t," Rosinger said.

She also expressed concern that Project 2025 — which calls for increased privatization of public schools in the form of vouchers — would eventually make Americans "lose trust in public education to be able to do the job that the federal, state and local governments are supporting it to do, in order to justify further defunding public schools and colleges."

Click here to read the Guardian's article in its entirety.

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