On November 18, the Trump administration unveiled a sweeping “restructuring” and dismantling of the US Department of Education—which Trump has pledged to eliminate altogether—that will transfer several key functions to other federal agencies that have little experience in or commitment to education outcomes.

The Education Department announced it finalized “interagency agreements” to transfer primary responsibility for six of its programs to four other federal agencies. The affected programs support student success for youth and adult learners, providing not just billions of dollars in grant funding but also resources, policies, and enforcement for ensuring equal access to educational opportunity. Scattering these programs could collapse long-standing partnerships between the federal government and nonprofits working on public education issues.

More than a mere reorganization, this is a calculated step toward fulfilling President Trump’s campaign promise to close the Education Department, which he has baselessly claimed is infiltrated by “radicals, zealots, and Marxists.” Ending the agency has also long been a goal of the Republican Party and conservative policy organizations, and featured prominently in Project 2025’s plans to use public education to advance far-right political goals.

The administration’s maneuvers will not go unchallenged. In a statement, Kimberly Conway, ACLU senior policy counsel and a former attorney advisor with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, said that the administration “is violating laws that only Congress can change.”

Conway warned that the administration’s plan threatens to destabilize the nation’s education system in ways that will reverberate through classrooms, campuses, and communities.

“By transferring these offices across agencies that lack the expertise to lead education policy,” said Conway, the administration is “eliminating academic supports to close education achievement gaps, deliberately weakening civil rights oversight, and putting millions of students at risk.”

Education Programs Scattered Amidst the Dismantling of the Education Department

Under the administration’s plan, the Labor Department will oversee most programs for elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education, including funding for K–12 schools, Title I services for students from low-income families, teacher professional development, rural schools, and literacy initiatives. Native American education grants will shift to the Interior Department. Foreign medical school accreditation and subsidies for college campus childcare will be absorbed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The State Department will take over international education and foreign language studies, including the Fulbright US Student Program.

Read the full article about the dismantling of the Education Department by Lauren Girardin at Nonprofit Quarterly.