When Trump was elected president, one of his main goals for America was to terminate the Education Department. In doing so, a huge amount of workers who previously operated in that department became unemployed. But let’s back up a bit. What’s the Education Department, and why does Trump want to get rid of it?
About the Education Department
To summarize the Education Department, their main function and contribution to the US government is to establish policies and requirements for public schools, carry out actions to provide equal education opportunities and help fund students and institutions in need.
Why does Trump Want to Disassemble it?
So why does Trump want to disassemble the Education Department? Well, according to Executive Order #14078 of the White House, here are Trump’s three sections of reason: Purpose and Policy, Returning Authority to the States, and General Provisions. To condense those three segments, Trump claims that dismantling the Education Department will “provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them”, cut costs, and return power over education to the states. The Executive Order that provided this information was approved and published on March 20, 2025.
Effects of Executive Order #14078
After this order was passed, multiple battles occurred between the Judge and the Trump Administration regarding the Education Department. Lawsuits, overturnings, and court rulings have been carried out. Now, just a few weeks ago, the New York Times published an article that reads about how mass unemployment has arisen as a result of Trump’s approval of Executive Order #14078.
In the article, Abbie VanSickle starts off by introducing the topic, writing about Trump and the executive order. Then, in the 4th paragraph, she introduces the main subject of the article. In short, a judge in Massachusetts ordered government officials to reassign jobs to thousands of fired workers, and Solicitor General D. John Sauer, a lawyer for the Trump Administration, asked the justices to have the order overturned. Sauer argued that the federal judge had “thwarted the executive branch’s authority to manage the Department of Education.”
In addition to that, VanSickle claimed that multiple school districts in the same area as the judge as well as another judge, Judge Joun, are working to block Trump’s order. Judge Joun discovered that only Congress has the ability to get rid of a Department, therefore the government may have committed something illegal. Previously in March, Judge Joun temporarily ordered the release of the $65 million grant for the in-training teachers by the Trump Administration. That ruling has since been overturned by the Supreme Court in April.
As of now, Solicitor General Sauer and the Trump Administration continue to work against the federal judge in attempts to overturn the temporary order of reinstating the Department of Education’s laid-off employees.
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References
United States, Executive Office of the President. Executive Order 14078: Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities. 20 Mar. 2025. Code of Federal Regulations, vol. 3, http://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/improving-education-outcomes-by-empowering-parents-states-and-communities/. Accessed 25 June 2025.
VanSickle, Abbie. “Trump Administration Asks Justices to Clear the Way for Cuts to Education Department.” New York Times [New York City], 6 June 2025, http://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/us/politics/supreme-court-trump-education-department.html?searchResultPosition=1. Accessed 25 June 2025.
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