On March 20, President Trump signed a long-awaited executive order (EO) to “facilitate the closure of the Department of Education.” The EO directs the Secretary of Education to act aggressively, within the law, for the dismantling of the Department of Education.

In this piece, Brown Center scholars reproduce the full text of the EO and provide commentary with context and analysis regarding the dismantling of the Department of Education.

“By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to enable parents, teachers, and communities to best ensure student success, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1. Purpose and Policy. Our Nation’s bright future relies on empowered families, engaged communities, and excellent educational opportunities for every child. Unfortunately, the experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars — and the unaccountable bureaucracy those programs and dollars support — has plainly failed our children, our teachers, and our families.”

Primary decision-making power over education already belongs to families, their local communities, and states, as it always has. The U.S. Constitution says nothing about schools, leaving education policy up to state and local governments. The federal government plays a narrowly defined role in the U.S. education system—namely providing funding, enforcing federal civil rights law, and facilitating research and development. Notably, federal law explicitly prohibits the federal government from exerting control over school curriculum, operations, or staffing.

“Taxpayers spent around $200 billion at the Federal level on schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, on top of the more than $60 billion they spend annually on Federal school funding. This money is largely distributed by one of the newest Cabinet agencies, the Department of Education, which has existed for less than one fifth of our Nation’s history.”

These historical claims omit important context. As noted on ED’s website, President Andrew Johnson created a cabinet-level Department of Education in 1867. It was quickly “demoted to an Office of Education in 1868” and existed continuously for more than a century under various cabinet-level departments before its 1979 restructuring as the current form of ED. Inclusive of this earlier history, the federal government has administered funding and other educational programs in some capacity for over 150 years.

Read the full article about dismantling of the Department of Education by Michael Hansen, Katharine Meyer, Rachel M. Perera, and Jon Valant at Brookings.