Top House Democrats urged Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the Trump administration to reverse a Thursday move to begin dismantling the Department of Education.
“Students, teachers, and schools across the country rely on the Department’s important work to ensure that all people are able to access and grow through education, and we have serious doubts the remaining staff at the Department have the capacity to fulfill this mission,” Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.), ranking members on the House Oversight Committee and House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said in a Thursday letter to McMahon.
“We urge you to reverse these short-sighted decisions before they cause any more damage to America’s students, families, and educators,” continued the letter.
On Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order to facilitate his goal of getting rid of the Department of Education. The order recognizes that it would take congressional action to completely close down the department, but Trump ordered McMahon to do all she can to result in its abolition.
“Today, we take a very historic action that was 45 years in the making,” Trump said during a White House signing ceremony Thursday. “I will sign an executive order to begin eliminating the federal Department of Education.”
“The department’s useful functions … will be preserved, fully preserved,” the president added in reference to Pell Grants, Title I funding and programs for students with disabilities. “They’re going to be preserved in full and redistributed to various other agencies and departments.”
Among other requests that Connolly and Scott made in the letter to McMahon were documents allowing for “a reduction in” the workforce of the department and “every statutory responsibility entrusted to the Department that” McMahon “considered in announcing your illegal mass terminations.”
“To ensure that education across the country can continue without disruption, the Trump Administration must rescind this unlawful executive order, abandon these illegal reductions in force, and restore all employees improperly terminated,” the Democrats wrote.
McMahon said Thursday that Trump is committed to doing “everything legally” in his efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.
The Hill has reached out to the White House and the Department of Education for comment.
