Donald Trump could make a drastic move to reshape American classrooms within the next 24 hours by shuttering the Department of Education.
The president is expected to sign an executive order as soon as Thursday which would bring about abolishing the federal agency, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon will be tasked with taking ‘all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Education Department,’ the publication reported, citing a draft of the order.
This will be done to ‘the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.’
According to the publication, the draft order reads: ‘The experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars – and the unaccountable bureaucrats those programs and dollars support – has failed our children, our teachers, and our families.’
McMahon on Monday was confirmed to lead the doomed 4,200-person federal agency.
She sent a company-wide email to staff on Monday in which she lauded her mission to dismantle the agency, describing it as a ‘momentous final mission.’
She said she had been ‘tasked… with accomplishing the elimination of the bureaucratic bloat here at the Education Department – a momentous final mission – quickly and responsibly.’
Donald Trump could shutter the Department of Education within 24 hours
McMahon (pictured ahead of Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress) will reportedly be helming the dismantling of her agency
Citing a draft of the order, the publication reported that Education Secretary Linda McMahon will be tasked with taking ‘all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Education Department’
‘I want Linda to put herself out of a job,’ Trump said of McMahon in February.
Established by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, the department provides essential funding to children with disability and low-income students around the country.
National Education Association President Becky Pringle said last month that cutting the department would ‘steal resources for our most vulnerable students, explode class sizes, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, take away special education services for students with disabilities, and gut student civil rights protections.’
The Department of Education has been low hanging fruit for Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative.
Already DOGE has celebrated cutting billions of dollars from the agency, over half a billion of which came from canceling DEI grants.
And last month, Trump said the Education Department was ‘a big con job’ and that ‘I’d like to close it immediately.’
During her confirmation hearing in February, McMahon lauded the work of the Musk-led group.
‘So DOGE, there are a couple of implants at the Department of Education as there are with agencies throughout the district,’ McMahon said. ‘They’re doing an audit.’
During the session she claimed the department was guilty of ‘excessive consolidation of power,’ and called for ‘education freedom, not government-run systems.’
The Department of Education has been low hanging fruit for Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative
McMahon (pictured with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr) vowed to lead the Education Department’s ‘momentous final mission’
‘I want Linda to put herself out of a job ,’ Trump said of McMahon in February
McMahon was recently pictured alongside Marco Rubio and President Trump during a cabinet meeting at the White House
‘Listen to parents, not politicians,’ she said. ‘Build up careers, not college debt.’
Trump vowed during his election campaign to end what he called ‘wokeness’ and ‘indoctrination’ at the agency.
Education Department spokeswoman Madi Biedermann said earlier this week that McMahon was very clear in her intention to bring Trump’s vision to life.
‘He was very clear about what his vision for the department looked like, and Secretary McMahon was clear in the hearing that she is here to implement his agenda,’ she said.
Trump advisers were reportedly considering executive actions to effectively dismantle the Education Department without falling foul of the law as soon as he returned to the White House.
They had reportedly discussed an executive order which would ‘shut down all functions of the agency that aren’t written explicitly into statute or move certain functions to other departments.’
That suggests officials concluded Trump could not get rid of the agency outright without buy-in from Congress, where Republicans hold narrow majorities in both houses.
The order could call for developing a legislative proposal to abolish the department.