Can Trump make good on his pledge to scrap the Department of Education?

Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Donald Trump aims to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, requiring congressional approval.
• The department oversees key programs like Title I and special education funding, impacting Utah schools.
• Utah educators remain uncertain but continue utilizing federal funds for Title I and homelessness support.

WASHINGTON — Shuttering the U.S. Department of Education has long been one of President-elect Donald Trump's more controversial promises.

"We will move everything back to the states where it belongs," Trump said in one campaign speech during his successful march back to the White House. "They can individualize education and do it with the love for their children."

But what are the odds of the Republican leader actually making good on his pledge to scrap the 45-year-old Department of Education?

And if it does happen, how would it impact Utah's public schools?

For starters, closing the department would require congressional approval — and even with his party controlling both sides of Congress, it's unlikely Trump would have sufficient support, The Washington Post reported.

But it's possible.

And even if the president-elect doesn't fully end the agency, he could scale back or consolidate some of the federal programs.

Many Republican lawmakers are all in with Trump, arguing that the education department is unnecessary, ineffective and a tool for the "woke" agenda.

During his campaign, Ohio Sen.-elect Bernie Moreno called for scrapping the agency. "We're going to get rid of some of these agencies that don't make sense, like the Department of Education, and just move that money to the states."

Utah Sen. Mike Lee, meanwhile, recently told the Deseret News that passage of the REINS Act, which requires legislative approval for bureaucratic decisions that impact the budget, could lead to the elimination of entire bureaucratic departments such as the Department of Education.

The federal government was never intended to make decisions for individual school districts, added Lee.

So what exactly does the Department of Education do?

For starters, the Department of Education does not dictate what educators teach in the classroom.

Instead, the department's largest K-12 role is overseeing implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which requires states to monitor their schools' progress and intervene in poorly performing schools in exchange for federal money, including funding from Title I, an $18.4 billion program, according to Education Week.

The department also administers the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act — a $14.2 billion program that helps schools pay for special education services for students with disabilities.

And, as The Washington Post reported, the agency is charged with enforcing civil rights laws that bar discrimination in federally funded schools on the basis of race, sex and other factors.

The Biden administration has tried to expand that power, for instance, to prohibit schools from discriminating against students on the basis of gender identity.

Trump could do the same — but in the opposite direction and, perhaps, bar schools from allowing transgender girls and women to compete on women's sports teams.

In higher education, meanwhile, the Education Department oversees the Free Application for Student Aid, or FAFSA, and the massive federal student loan and grant programs (the federal direct student loans program has a portfolio of outstanding loans totaling over $1 trillion).

Under President Joe Biden, the Department of Education canceled more than $167 billion in student debt for 4.75 million borrowers, about 10% of those who hold a federal student loan, The New York Times reported.

Trump and other Republicans have often opposed that effort, arguing it is an unfair giveaway to the college educated and an overstep of the agency's authority. The Supreme Court concurred, shutting down some of Biden's plans.

In 2020-2021, the most recent year for which federal data is available, the federal government picked up the tab for 10.6% of the nation's spending on public schools — and that share was elevated due to the infusion of COVID-19-relief funds, Education Week reported. Conservatives argue the money should be sent back to the states so they can decide how to spend it.

Eliminating the Education Department probably won't occur without a fight.

Last August, Margaret Spellings, who served as U.S. Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush, told Education Week that superintendents and school boards will likely vigorously push back on any reduction or elimination of federal dollars that helps them "stay out of the red."

For Utah educators — it's wait and see

So how are education leaders in the Beehive State prepping for possible elimination of the Education Department?

"It's still not really clear to any of us which of those campaign promises are going to become actionable," Sarah Young, the Utah State Board of Education's chief of staff, told the Deseret News. "From our perspective, here in the state of Utah, we will just continue on in terms of utilizing the federal funds that we have."

Currently in Utah, federal funds are being used to assist the state's Title I schools, as well as students experiencing homelessness.

"That work will continue on a day-to-day basis in Utah schools until we receive notification from the federal level that there's going to be a change," Young said.

During the 2023-2024 school year, 108,592 Utah students attended a school where Title I was schoolwide, according to Young.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

Related topics

Utah K-12 educationPoliticsEducationU.S.Utah

Jason Swensen

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Jason Swensen is a writer for the Church News and contributor to the Deseret News. He has won multiple awards from the Utah Society of Professional Journalists. Swensen was raised in the Beehive State and graduated from the University of Utah. He is a husband and father — and has a stack of novels and sports biographies cluttering his nightstand.