Education Department paves way for its own destruction

The Department of Education is paving the way for its own destruction after laying off half of its workforce on Tuesday, leaving President Trump allies eager for more hits while the agency’s defenders prepare legal action.

A senior department official said the layoffs, which came about a week after Education Secretary Linda McMahon was confirmed, were for “reductive” and “unnecessary” positions, emphasizing the move would not interfere with congressionally mandated programs.

While some see the next step in McMahon and Trump’s stated plans to kill the department as moving those required programs to different government agencies, other groups are planning protests and waiting in the wings for the moment the department fails to meet its legal obligations.

“Trust me when I say that there are parents across this country who are going to be watching this very closely, and the minute there is not a direct compliance with statutory requirements, with federal law … this and every move will be challenged in court,” said Keri Rodrigues, the president of the National Parents Union.

The Department of Education started with more than 4,000 employees when Trump took office. It only has 2,183 after Tuesday’s announcement.

The senior Education official admitted “every part of the department will be impacted in some way” after the major cuts but said only internal roles that were duplicative were targeted.

The agency said the move will not inhibit student aid, Free Application for Federal Student Aid forms, formula funding to states, operations for students with disabilities, civil rights investigations or any statute-mandated obligations from Congress.

But a former Department of Education employee, who asked for anonymity, said, “There’s absolutely no way that the programs will be able to function for the American people with the reduction in staff that just occurred.”

Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have taken a hatchet to the federal workforce, laying off thousands across multiple government agencies and spurring a bevy of legal challenges. But the Education Department is unusual in that the cuts come while the president openly calls for expunging it completely.

Opponents argue McMahon’s promise that core programs won’t change is meant to buy the administration time to keep up its dismantling efforts.

“Utter horse crap,” Will Ragland, vice president of research for advocacy and outreach at the Center for American Progress, said about claims the department can handle its essential programs with half of the employees.

“Yesterday’s move was a giant first step to their ultimate goal — to eliminating, not only the Department of Education, but likely a lot of the protections and funding … [for] low-income students and students with disabilities,” added Ragland, who is also a former Education Department employee.

The department ordered employees home at 6 p.m. Tuesday and told them not to come into the office Wednesday due to “security concerns” after the mass layoff announcement.

While the staffers who remain are coming back into the office Thursday, so are the protesters.

The Sunrise Movement is calling for people to rally to “save our schools” Thursday in front of the Department of Education starting at 5 p.m. local time.

“We’re hoping to draw attention to these cuts and also make it clear that young people are not going to stand by as Donald Trump attempts to steal our future,” said Denae Ávila-Dickson, communications manager for the activist group.

The former department employee who requested anonymity told The Hill civic action and pressure on Congress are a better short-term plan than lawsuits, which will take a long time.

“That is never a fast strategy, and a lot of stuff will be undone and hard to put back together again,” they said.

“I think that the thing that could be impactful is that if parents and communities are affected, reach out to their member of Congress to push back on some of this. I think that that’s the better, shorter-term piece of it,” the former department employee added, pointing out there are budget votes coming up that lawmakers could use to curb McMahon’s power.

The president said McMahon was in charge of the layoffs, and the Education secretary told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham the cuts are the “first step of eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat.”

The department cannot be completely eliminated without an act of Congress, which stands little chance of overcoming the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.

But actions such as firing employees or getting rid of programs not in statute are under the purview of the administration.

The abolishment of the department was one of Trump’s promises on his campaign trail and has been a Republican goal for years.

Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman senior research fellow in education policy at the Heritage Foundation, said he “certainly hopes” the department can keep up with its congressionally mandated programs, but he’s looking ahead to when those programs are no longer under the its authority.

“The secretary has some authority to move programs to other agencies,” Butcher said.

“I think that would be a logical next step, although I think there are a couple of things that [department staffers] probably have in mind,” Butcher added, saying moving the programs is something they can do “before they need to really work with Congress” on shuttering the department completely.

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