Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that won’t actually dismantle the Department of Education, as he promised on the campaign trail – another promise made, promise not kept by the Trumper.
But he’s doing his damndest.
“My administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department. We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible,” Trump said at a ceremonial signing of his executive order, which his press secretary acknowledged earlier in the day on Thursday is toothless.
Even so, the Trump/Musk administration has already cut half the department’s 4,400-person workforce, putting at risk key functions including the administration of federal student loans and funding to students with disabilities.
ICYMI
These cuts are being sold as somehow trying to make education great again, but in reality, what the MAGAs are doing is something we’re already seeing at the state level in places like Arizona, which has cut public education spending to give tax breaks to rich people who are already paying for private school for their kids.
The scheme not working out all that well for the folks out in Arizona, which is facing a projected $1.4 billion budget deficit resulting from the tax breaks.
Can’t wait to see the damage Trump is about to wreak on education nationwide.
“This decision is a step backwards, an affront to everything my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents fought for, and a blatant attempt to raid support for teachers and students to give tax breaks to billionaires,” Virginia Democratic Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan said.
The crazy part to this is how Trump, a failed real-estate tycoon who still sees the world through the lens of buildings that he’d never be able to sell at a good price and development projects that he never had the money to bring to reality, seems to think we need to make these cuts because he has decided there are too many buildings in DC with the name Department of Education on them.
“As a former real-estate person, I will tell you, I ride through the streets of Washington and it says, Department of Education, Department of Education. I said, How do you fill those buildings? It’s crazy what’s happened over the years,” Trump said at the Thursday signing ceremony.
As if you didn’t already know, the Department of Education is, by an order of magnitude, the smallest federal-government department.
And then, seriously, he wants us to believe that he rides through the streets of DC in his presidential limo and takes notes on how many buildings have Department of Education on the signage?
We could believe him if he said he knows where all the McDonald’s are.
Anyway, his EO can’t close the DOE because the department was created by an act of Congress, so unless Congress signs off – and there aren’t enough votes in the Senate to do anything, assuming Chuck Schumer doesn’t get a wild hair – it’s at least still on life support.
“My administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department,” Trump pledged. “We’re going to shut it down, and shut it down as quickly as possible.”
ICYMI
This bluster was music to the ears of our MAGA governor, Glenn Youngkin, whose office issued a statement saying he welcomes “the federal government’s shift of responsibility to the states, and we are grateful that President Trump’s executive order does just that.”
Stage whisper: it doesn’t.
“The EO also makes it clear that there will be no discrimination in the classrooms,” Youngkin said, according to the state taxpayer-funded PR from his office.
Stage whisper: we’re moving back toward Jim Crow.
“As the daughter of educators who grew up in the Jim Crow South, I know that not every child has received the education they deserve,” said McClellan, a Black woman. “As a former state legislator with 18 years in the General Assembly, I know that states and localities struggle to provide what every child needs to learn and succeed. The Department of Education was created to help fill these gaps in state and local support for public schools.
“Although we have more work to do, Trump’s actions will erase the important progress we have made in ensuring every child has the opportunity to succeed,” McClellan said. “Trump’s actions will affect every community in America, but more children with disabilities and those in rural and low-income communities will slip through the cracks.
“Education is the key to individual opportunity and a thriving health economy, communities, and democracy. Democrats will fight to defend every child’s right to reach their full potential, no matter who they are or where they live,” McClellan said.
It’s a safe bet that this push from the MAGAs to take from the working class and middle class to give more to the rich will play out on the campaign trail in the Virginia state races this fall.
“Virginia’s students, parents, teachers, and schools will suffer if the Trump administration cuts education funding,” said Abigail Spanberger, a former Northern Virginia congresswoman who is the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for governor in the 2025 cycle.
“Federal resources fortify critical lifelines for families to receive the support they need, particularly for parents of kids with disabilities, pre-schoolers enrolled in Head Start, students in rural school districts, and Virginians who count on Pell Grants to pursue higher education,” Spanberger said.
“At a time when Virginia ranks last in the country in student math recovery, our Commonwealth needs leaders who are focused on promoting excellence and expanding opportunities for our kids, not creating chaos for families,” Spanberger said. “As governor, I will work aggressively to make sure our schools have the funding they need to address our chronic teacher shortage, contend with learning loss, expand workforce training opportunities, and set Virginia’s next generation on the path to success.”
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Chris Graham
