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LAST UPDATE | 20 Mar
DONALD TRUMP HAS signed an order aimed at shutting down the Department of Education, a decades-old goal of the American right, which wants individual states to run schools free from the influence of federal government.
Surrounded by schoolchildren sitting at desks set up in the East Room of the White House this afternoon, Trump smiled as held up the order after signing it.
Trump said the order would “begin eliminating the federal Department of Education once and for all.”
“We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible. It’s doing us no good,” Trump said. “We’re going to return education back to the states where it belongs.”
The Education Department, created in 1979, cannot be shuttered without the approval of Congress — but Trump’s order will likely have the power to starve it of funds and staff.
The order comes as efforts are already underway in the department to drastically downsize its staffing and slash funding.
Trump has previously derided the Department of Education as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology, but finalising its dismantling is likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979.
A White House fact sheet said the order would direct secretary former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon “to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure (of) the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely”.
The Trump administration has already been gutting the agency. Its workforce is being slashed in half and there have been deep cuts to the Office for Civil Rights and the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nation’s academic progress.
Advocates for public schools said eliminating the department would leave children behind in an American education system that is fundamentally unequal.
“This isn’t fixing education. It’s making sure millions of children never get a fair shot. And we’re not about to let that happen without a fight,” the National Parents Union said in a statement.
The White House has not spelled out formally which department functions could be handed off to other departments, or eliminated altogether.
At her confirmation hearing, McMahon said she would preserve core initiatives, including Title I money for low-income schools and Pell grants for low-income college students.
The goal of the administration, she said, would be “a better functioning Department of Education”.
The department sends billions of dollars a year to schools and oversees $1.6 trillion ($1.48 trillion) in federal student loans.
Much of the agency’s work revolves around managing money — both its extensive student loan portfolio and a range of aid programmes for colleges and school districts, from school meals to support for homeless students. The agency also plays a significant role in overseeing civil rights enforcement.
Federal funding makes up a relatively small portion of public school budgets — roughly 14%.
The money often supports supplemental programmes for vulnerable students, such as the McKinney-Vento programme for homeless students or Title I for low-income schools.
Colleges and universities are more reliant on money from Washington, through research grants along with federal financial aid that helps students pay their tuition.
Republicans have talked about closing the Education Department for decades, saying it wastes taxpayer money and inserts the federal government into decisions that should fall to states and schools.
he idea has gained popularity recently as conservative parents’ groups demand more authority over their children’s schooling.
Trump promised to close the department “and send it back to the states, where it belongs”. He has cast the department as a hotbed of “radicals, zealots and Marxists” who overextend their reach through guidance and regulation.
At the same time, the president has leaned on the Education Department to promote elements of his agenda.
He has used investigative powers of the Office for Civil Rights and the threat of withdrawing federal education funding to target schools and colleges that run afoul of his orders on transgender athletes participating in women’s sports, pro-Palestinian activism and diversity programs.
The moves are being spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), whose rapid actions have met pushback in courts for possibly exceeding executive authority.
But even some of Trump’s allies have questioned his power to close the agency without action from Congress, and there are doubts about its political popularity.
The House considered an amendment to close the agency in 2023, but 60 Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it.
During Trump’s first term, former education secretary Betsy DeVos sought to dramatically reduce the agency’s budget and asked Congress to bundle all K-12 funding into block grants that give states more flexibility in how they spend federal money.
It was rejected, with pushback from some Republicans.
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“The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.” – Maximilien de Robespierre
@ben wu: keep your quotes to yourself. They literally do nothing for the people who are trying to make ends meet
@Jef Gert: You do not get to dictate what I post.
@Jef Gert: education is literally the route out of poverty
@ben wu: correct ✅
@Jef Gert: that’s idiotic, the quote is highly relevant
@ben wu: whatever the sentiment, old Robbie’s rôle in la Terreur didn’t end well for 10s of thousands of innocent people – or him. Guillotined in the Thermidorian Reaction (waste of lobster IMO).
@Jef Gert: you’re a perfect example.
@Luas Vuitton – Penneys Drag Queen: I’m fine with agreeing on that, since I do know the history.
@ben wu: ” The man who proclaims devotion to the cause of liberation yet is unable to enter into communion with the people, whom he continues to regard as totally ignorant, is greiviously self deceived.”
Educator, Paulo Freire.
@Jef Gert: There should be a thumbs down button on this website.
@Jef Gert: they do nothing??? Are you unwell?
They educate people, without which they have nothing.
As the poster, DO NOT try to tell anyone what they can say. Freedom of speech, trumper!
@Paul C: yes and the U.S. department of education has been a colossal failure. Standards have plummeted and countless billions wasted in the process. Now individual States will get to run education. Hopefully this will result in an increased standard and improved outcomes – something that will benefit the least privileged in society the most.
@Jonathan Moloney: I’m really not sure that’s the plan. Trump hates the individual States with their lefty views. It’s more likely he just ticked the wrong box or was bored.
Rimming and fisting are what the education department are promoting to little kids. It’s disgusting
@ben wu: fair play Ben
@Billy Meehan: You are either sick or demented, or both.
@Jef Gert: it’s about educating people
@Jonathan Moloney: individual states have ALWAYS been responsible for education. They control curriculum standards and requirements and more. The Dept of Education acts as oversight and issues recommendations but these recommendations don’t have to be adopted by the states. A main function of the Department is funding programmes that educate and feed children in the most deprived areas and those with disabilities, defunding the most vulnerable to fund more tax breaks for billionaires, it’s beyond sickening.
@JoeJoe Kilbride: Also, dealing with student loans.
I didn’t want to address a point that Billy made, since they don’t really have one, but if each state sets the curriculum then things like teaching creationism and intelligent design becomes something taught in science classes in certain states. To me, that’s even worse.
Yeah, go for it. Make an uneducated nation even worse.
@Machine Learning IRE: Not really. It’s just putting responsibility back to individual states. In fact, I’m willing to bet that it will have the exact opposite effect of what you’re claiming.
@Vladimir Poutine:
The red states are always rated lower than blue states for education standards.
The red states are the ones that fight the department of education consistently.
This is a push for more charter schools. These are schools set up with a certain ideological mindset, religious, nationalist, race. Give it two years and it will have white only schools.
@Machine Learning IRE: *strategically de-educated
@Vladimir Poutine: it’s clearly a divide and conquer move.
@Machine Learning IRE: maybe it’s because of the education system that they are uneducated and something needs to be done about it.
@Vladimir Poutine: Yeah, national standards are fascism. Let each governor and the parents, who are experts in the education of children, do the job. All teachers should be fired if they don’t teach exactly what each parent wants for their individual child. In fact, go the whole hog. Shut schools, and let parents do the job instead of outsourcing their children’s education to propagandist teachers. (Who thought of that illoogical idea?)
@Vladimir Poutine: of course it won’t. Why? Trump. End of argument. Nothing he does ever works or is for the good of anyone.
@Ted Daly: Ukrainians probably beg to differ.
@Vladimir Poutine: there’s always one
@Patrick Kavanagh: me
The legend trump is doing an amazing job :)
@Vladimir Poutine: no, it’s about allowing crackpot creationism, evangelical and revionism to get an even bigger foothold in US education. And under the thumb.
This is how a dictatorship begins: Divide a nations people, isolate a particular group of people, and blame them; it does not matter what the charge is; just make them outcasts to garner support for a “cause.” Isolate the country and spread misleading propaganda all over it. Begin rewriting “facts” to fit a predetermined agenda, restricting education (less knowledge makes it easier to manipulate and subjugate the serfs), censoring, mocking, and demonizing any opposition, and ultimately enforcing strict, potentially lethal enforcement of challenges to authority. Fourth Reich boom.
@Mike Carson: You are so delusional. You are describing what has literally been happening in America and elsewhere for decades and Trump is dismantling system that allowed it.
@Mike Carson: Surely there will need to be an audit to establish whether the department did what it was supposed to do, where and how funds were spent and whether the outcomes met standards and criteria.
@Athena: Does Trump need to audit anything to justify it?
@Mike Carson: I don’t know, but what if that department spent monies on stupid, counterproductive projects and programs that may not necessarily have anything to do with education but pushing ideologies?
Think about the book controversy we had here a few months back (Irish trad family vs Modern multi culti family).
Who’s saying this isn’t happening elsewhere? I don’t feel at the moment this is to close down access to education, but happily stand corrected.
@Vladimir Poutine: how any sane person can look at Trump and even briefly entertain the though that he has any interest in doing anything to help the poor, the marginalised, the sick, minorities, the needy or basically anyone other than himself is beyond me. It’s truly the unacknowledged mental health crisis of our time
@Athena: 35yrs Special Ed public school system in blue state N.M.
Close it.
@Athena: that wasn’t a controversy, was a few Karen Ma’s with less brainpower than their kids who didn’t understand it was an intentionally exaggerated stereotype.
@Mike Carson: you are so
@Vladimir Poutine: Utter nonsense. The usual Trump is amazing without any evidence whatsoever.
I loving the dismantling of woke :)
Looking forward to the mental gymnastics from his propaganda commitee on here as to how this is a great thing.
@Setanta O’Toole: it’s quite clear the current education systems everywhere create dumb conformists, by design….whether Trump changes it for the better only time will tell….but the fact that most people approve the current system, only proves its effectiveness.
@Setanta O’Toole: it’s amazing
@Dere: Please provide evidence for that assertion, using examples.
Fantastic news they have just spread a horrific leftie agenda that’s needs to be torn down.
@Rian O’Sullivan: I’m embarrassed for you. Truly.
@Ted Daly: Your an embarrassment full stop snowflake.
@Rian O’Sullivan: Is the woke left in the room with you now? Bellend.
@Rian O’Sullivan couldn’t agree more with their pride and trans agenda, not fit for purpose
Trump Jung-Un.
And this is what America voted for ????
@RIP: Actually yes. Educational standards have plummeted in America since the inception of the dept of education. The least privileged in society have been the worst affected – trapped in awful schools in a seemingly never ending cycle. Proficiency rates in reading, writing and math have never been worse. And that’s despite countless billions being spent by the dept of education. It became a corrupt, bloated boondoggle. Hopefully now with it being dismantled standards will improve and those who need it most can get a leg up.
@Jonathan Moloney: the falling standards have nothing to do with the department of education, if it did, then how do you explain how so called blue states consistently outperform so called red states? This will do nothing beneficial for ordinary students. It’s a ruse to dumb down the population further. Sickening.
@Jonathan Moloney: some of the main reasons for poor education outcomes are insufficient funding and overcrowded classrooms. You think these will improve when federal funding is removed? It won’t, it’ll get worse and the divide between the haves and have nots will get wider.
What is this orange eejit thinking
@Karen Marten: Im not sure he thinks – he’s probably half gold fish.
Closing the schools now what the hell. The kids won’t be able to read and write.
@Lance Taylor: The Federal Department of Education isn’t responsible for funding schools, they’re paid for by state and municipal governments.
I’m not saying it’s a good thing.
@Seamus Enright: ah right very misleading. So he is right to shut it down if it doesn’t teach the kids.
@Lance Taylor: Do you remember what ‘Red States’ have been doing in terms of banning or demonising any knowledge or opinions that don’t match the MAGA mindset. The Dept. Of Education in America provides funding, sets standards, reviews compliance with regulations, etc. Dismantling it means there is no push back against whatever a state governor, state legislature, or the Congressional GOP decide should be taught.
@Numinous20111: Also what organisation do you think would represent teachers who fall foul of MAGA’s ideology?
@Numinous20111: you are correct this is a dangerous precedent. Perhaps he is planning to brainwash the kids and take away the safety net. I do not approve here.
@Lance Taylor: I wasn’t saying he was right to shut it down, just that it won’t result in schools closing.
There’s an argument that it was never necessary in the first place because the Federal Government has little influence over education but it does appear to oversee student loans so shutting it down now could cause chaos.
Brown uniforms to become mandatory
@paul hayes: That to clever for the folks on here.
@paul hayes: all Trumps pants are brown by EOB anyway.
@Setanta O’Toole: Tesla’s stockholders undies are already brown and caked!
@paul hayes: I absolutely agree! It’s straight out of the 1930s playbook. But the reference to the brown uniforms will go waaay over the heads of anyone it needs to resonate with sadly.
They have also shut down the department of social welfare so no old age pensions being processed. There will be mayhem yet.
@Mary Conneely: The SSA (i presume this is what you mean) has not been shuttered.
Love him or hate him, mcgregor spoke the truth
@Ben dover: Your name is very apt.
@Thomas Berry: has a boyfriend called Phil McCavity too.
@Ben dover: Your claim that McGregor told the truth when he spouted low grade disinformation is a self-indictment. Nothing McGregor said stands up to any scrutiny, but was intended to play well with reactive mentalities and people who consume a media diet of propaganda. Opinions aren’t fact and claiming freedom of speech doesn’t convert opinions into facts, nor does it disguise naked propaganda as anything else.
@Ben dover: I hate him, and he didn’t. There was an article proving he didn’t yesterday, but shur none of his acolytes will read that because the truth isn’t as catchy as scaremongering and a persecution complex.
@Ben dover:
Ironic isn’t it.
McGregor in 2021 had 19 prior convictions.
He has two convictions of assault in Dublin.
He attacked a bus in America.
Attacked and broke a fan’s phone in America.
Consistently making racist statements
Drives dangerously all the time even with no licence no tax and insurance l.
Being investigated for assault on his yacht, two assaults in separate nightclubs and is under investigated for assaulting a person in Italy. Some of a sexual nature.
Not to mention he has been found to have sexuality assaulted a woman in Dublin.
If McGregor and his like moved out of Ireland it would be much better.
But other than him Ireland is safe. It is officially one of the safest cities in Europe.
@Ben dover: But he actually spoke lies.
@Thomas Berry: Ben Dover and Phil McCavity
@Numinous20111: McGregor was 100% correct
@Ben dover: he didn’t. He absolutely didn’t. Yet I doubt facts will bother his followers
@Ben dover: do you think Andrew tayto McGregor really wrote that?
@Ben dover: no one will listen to those that are dumber than themselves and ‘truth’ is now subjective
Trump is god
People wondered what fascism would look like in 2025…. now we know
@Seddick Mage: You clearly don’t understand fascism.
@Athena: you clearly don’t understand meaningful discourse.
@Athena: your comebacks are as empty as your ….ideas? Jesus wept
@Athena: dullard
@Fergus O’Donnell: Decentralising education policy is precisely the antithesis of Fascism. The fact that so many Irish people can’t see that is a reflection in Irish Education
1984
I would have thought if one developed country in particular could do with a department of education, it would be the States. Their level of education is shocking. I am not talking about their Ivy League schools etc and those privileged enough to attend them. More the education level of the general masses. It is astoundingly poor.
@Eoin Jackson: Blue state N.M. Public School System has an astoundingly low pass rate.
Great plan – guy is a genius.
Smart move. Make the next generation dumber.
@ecrowley ecrowley: wouldn’t have thought that possible where Americans are concerned??
@Harry Callahan: interesting comment given that most of the innovation and medical and technological advancements eminate from the US. lightyears ahead of the EU in these regards.
@Niall English: 54% of Americans read at below a sixth grade level. The education required to make those advancements isn’t accessible to most people.
@Harry Callahan: hee hee hee
@Niall English: They come from foreigners in America. Simply because the funding is often better in universities.
@Setanta O’Toole: yet they have a better quality of life than in the EU. US has a greater income per capita than their European counterparts. Also has a stronger economy, and their increases in productivity far outstrips that of the EU. so even if you have a 6th grade reading ability, you probably are better off in the US than in the EU.
@ecrowley ecrowley: they already are. In Portland Oregon students no longer have to sit maths exams as 1+1=2 is racist, no English as words are violent and also racist . Truth.. look it up.
@Niall English: You do realise that most of these American companies design and develop their products in the EU? Some of the major medtech companies R&D departments’ are even based here in Ireland. The main reason for this, apart from the grants and subsidies, is the talent of Irish and Europeans. Most major technological advancements come from Asia and Europe also. American companies just market them. Even Musk has said there is a brain drain in the USA and not enough talent over there. USA is just a bankroller.
@Niall English: Great for the upper and middle classes Niall, but the US also ranks highest in Poverty rate of 26 OECD countries, and has one of the highest child poverty rates in the world. A means to escape poverty is education, and if it’s inaccessible both through poor standards of education and the inaffordability of a college education to those living in poverty it makes it almost impossible to break the cycle of generational poverty.
@Niall English: Funny you think that despite all metrics placing the USA as the 22nd best country in the world, behind 17 EU countries, Ireland included, and Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.
Guess opinions and facts don’t always align.
@Harry Callahan: really, look at all the things in the world today brought to you by Americans.
@ecrowley ecrowley: is that even possible??!
@Mike Carson: R&D departments are not actually phyisically in ireland. they transfer their R&D costs to their Irish subsidiary as they can write these costs off against corporation tax payable on profits. their operations here are primarily low level manufacturing.
@Niall English: they don’t have a better quality of life. That’s simply not true.
@Niall English: No quality of life,
@Niall English: “from the US” does not many by americans. Even President Musk uses H1-B visa holders to drive ‘innovation’ within his own companies. VP Trump has hired Sriram Krishnan, and Indian, to drive innovationin AI. And not, he’s not an Iroquoi/Cherokee/Apache Indian……..
Why does every single article on The Journal have spelling mistakes, missing words and letters?
@Corrin Hope: Proofreader.
The United States is finished.
That’ll teach ‘em!
Trumpski is doing a great job isn’t he?
Hitler did the same. Fascism 101
The crying lying orange things goal, of dumbing down the magrats that voted for him , has only begun
The ridiculous fact is red states in the USA always rated lower for education in the USA.
Poorer reading rates, math rates and school attendance.
These states always fight the department of education on everything. Jesus some of them even want to teach creation as well as evolution as two separate trains of theories.
This is a push to create more charter schools government funded. They will align with the stupid backwards maga way of thinking.
@Patrick Kavanagh: Keep em dumb says Trump
Aren’t the general Americans ignorant enough?don’t send them back to the stone age. Is Trump jealous of people with.basic education and is that why he is closing the center?
Needs a shake up in fairness, went to much In the wrong direction in the past 15 years, same here in ireland ideas where imposed into the education system rather then actual beneficial curriculum.
@Darran Macken: Can you give examples of what ideas we’re imposed into the educational system?
@Sun Rise: that gays exist and non whites should be treated like human beings.
@Darran Macken: Talking nonsense, as usual.
Make America Dumber Again. Everyone knows what will happen now. States like Mississipi, Florida and Texas etc.. will start teaching kids that Dinosaurs never really existed and the earth is 6000 years old. Oh and Jesus was a Caucasian guy for some reason.
What could possibly go wrong?
They have a department of education???????
That’s a surprise, I presumed it was closed down decades ago.
Dr Elaine Byrne BL. Jesus wept. Taking the State’s shilling.
Philip Dwyer. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! What a clown!
@Luas Lips Houlihan – Dub Drag Queen: yes, using his own evidence against him was particularly satisfying!!
@Luas Lips Houlihan – Dub Drag Queen: I inadvertantly ended up having pints with Philo before. Seemed incapable of saying things that weren’t overtly racist or sleazy. His(sound) family apologised for him everytime he got up. I gather he lives alone now. Shocker. That was before he was famous. Imagine my incredulity when I first saw him in his current manifestation.
@Setanta O’Toole: He’s a bad, sad case. He could use his time and roving skills for some community good, but whatever floats his (small) boat.
Ah here we go. Hope the yanks don’t accept this
@Jimmy Savage: sadly, they will. Now if this was France otoh, the streets would be ablaze………
He loves the poorly educated, so the more the merrier for Trump.
Brilliant decision by Trump. The Department of Education is a useless bureaucracy that has done nothing to improve the quality of test scores among students. The US should move to a full charter-based school system where parents have the freedom to send their kids to whatever school they want. Democrats opposed this because they are in bed with all the teachers’ unions and they want to keep poor kids down. School funding for public schools is decided primarily by property tax. Democrat-run cities like Chicago, New York and Los Angeles carve up school districts to push all the poor people together and all the rich people together. Then they force poor kids to attend public DOE schools because the teachers’ unions don’t want to compete with charter schools. This move is groundbreaking.
That’s just umpossible…
And the 24/7 bar-room brawl continues with the orange buffoon in charge.
I hope none of those kids in his photo op are from the southern states they will soon learn some “education “ from their schools. It’s mad to think we are watching history unfold before us. The collapse of the American empire
@barry williams: Empire??
When any department of Education in any country decides woke agendas are given precedent over important educational subjects then the department has failed its remit. Some of American states have reintroduced Latin as a subject and kids grades has improved as a result.
@Ailbhe MacThomais: And there you are, shyte talking as usual.
@Ailbhe MacThomais: stop the lights.
@Ailbhe MacThomais: Absolutely agree with you the leftist agenda in US education has the system ruined.
@Ailbhe MacThomais: and some think the earth is flat and others change the history they teach…
The Americans are some thickos and unbelievably they are going to be even thicker
Trump likes his fans uneducated, this is one way to keep them obedient. Fascism trotting along nicely
Trump doesn’t like people to constantly appear more intelligent than him.
@p gert: give me two good reasons this is bad. Please
Finally.
We can’t put it to bed that the Earth is 5000 years old. No facts to get in the way of the bible
I cannot see Trump surviving past summer. He will be removed one way or another.
@Hunt Ley: Trump trumped
@Hunt Ley: but his legacy will live on.hes already done a heck of a job already
I love how all this is under the guise of ‘freedom’… free speech they scream, but you can’t say that tho :’)… can’t tell me what to do! But I can tell you lol
I never saw a homeless crow,
@Neuville-Kepler62F:
I never saw a homeless crow,
Builds high rise penthouse view
Wondrous skill with wing and bill
No hands like humans do
Eighteen years of books and tears,
Can read but just can’t do
No boiler fired, no skills acquired
They stand there – not a clue.
So ask a crow ’cause they all know
How to craft, to build, to hone
And not, like lazy cuckoos
Expect others build their home
…R Neuville on Vias Beach
Where is the sniper?
Trump… the one man wrecking ball , plus spray tan . The US Empire has been in decline for many years …and that’s how we got here . The sands are shifting, and its turbulent on the horizon. Interesting times
States rights. When you read about the history of America you find States Rights versus Federal is a big factor in its political makeup.
Dictators Playbook 101.
Most of his voters didn’t see past first grade,so why do they need dept of education. Make sense in crazy land.
An orange hitler who would have thought
Who knew President Comacho was actually going to be a huge improvement.
Mon dieu.
( See Google translate)
have your say