Education Dept. to relocate headquarters as Trump dismantles agency
by Darryl Coote · UPIMarch 27 (UPI) -- The Department of Education has announced it is relocating its headquarters to a smaller office in Washington, D.C., as the Trump administration dismantles the agency.
The department has been located in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building on 400 Maryland Avenue SW in the nation's capital since it began operations in May 1980, when the facility was called Federal Office Building No. 6.
Since President Donald Trump returned to office, the Education Department has announced plans to shed nearly 50% of its more than 4,133 employees as part of plans to eliminate the agency and return control over education to the states.
Announced by Education Secretary Linda McMahon in a statement Thursday, the department will relocate a block away to 500 D Street SW.
Reasons for the move include saving taxpayer dollars and eliminating wasted space in the building. According to the Department of Education, only 30% of the Lyndon Baines Johnson was occupied.
The relocation is expected to occur in August. The Department of Energy will then assume the lease of the building and move in from its James V. Forrestal building, located about three blocks away.
Democrats were quick to chastise the move as part of Trump's plan to dismantle the Education Department, which they argue is illegal on the grounds that only Congress has the power to close the agency.
"Leaving the Lyndon B. Johnson headquarters building does not cut bureaucracy -- it rearranges it," Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., ranking member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, said in a statement, adding that it wasn't clear if McMahon had notified remaining staff at the building or consulted with Congress before announcing the move.
"This decision to close the department's physical building is not just a symbolic move -- it reflects a broader effort to reduce the federal government's role in ensuring people have equal access to a quality education."
According to the Department of Education, the move is expected to save more than $4.8 million a year, and more than $350 million in deferred maintenance costs for the Energy Department's aging facility.
"Relocating to the LBJ building will deliver significant taxpayer savings and will ensure the Energy Department continues to deliver on its mission," Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement.
Trump gave the Education Department its mission, which is to be dismantled, in March 2025 via an executive order, explaining, "We're going to be returning education back to the states where it belongs."
The Education Department was created by Congress under President Jimmy Carter in 1979 to give education its own Cabinet-level agency following decades of expansion in federal education funding, with the aim of improving the coordination and management of federal education programs.
Conservatives and Republicans have long been critical of the department, and have sought to either weaken or outright dismantle it, especially in the early 1980s.
The push slowed over the following decades, and Trump helped to revive it. The 2024 Republican platform called for closing the department.
"One year ago, President Trump signed one of the most consequential executive orders of his presidency -- to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states," McMahon said Thursday.
"Thanks to the hard work of so many, we have made unprecedented progress in reducing the federal education footprint, and now we are pleased to give this building to an agency that will benefit far more from this space than the Department of Education."
Rachel Gittleman, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252 union, which represents Department of Education employees, lambasted the move, and vowed to stand up to the Trump administration.
"AFGE Local 252 will continue fighting to hold this administration accountable and stand with professionals who work every day to ensure every student is treated with dignity, fairness and respect," Gittleman said in a statement.
Trump's dismantling of the Education Department is being fought in court by a coalition of 20 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia.