Education in Flux: The Continued Federal Push to Dismantle the U.S. Department of Education

A primary goal of the Trump administration has been to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education (US ED), because they claim it has been overrun by liberal thinking and its duties can be done by other agencies. Although the Constitution requires permission from Congress before any department can be abolished or defunded, the administration has successfully downsized the department, and made changes with potentially disastrous consequences to the nation’s most vulnerable students whose public education involves federally mandated financial and programmatic support. These include rural and low income students, and students with disabilities. 

The Department’s workforce has been reduced by almost half and many of the functions of the Department have been offloaded to other agencies. The heavily impacted Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has laid off 90% of their staff and dismissed most of the claims under consideration. The OCR dismissed 90% of the roughly 9,000 new student discrimination and harassment claims in 2025. Additionally, the OCR has fundamentally changed its mission from enforcing civil rights laws in public schools and universities to focusing on gender identity policies, reverse racial discrimination (i.e., “discrimination” against white students), and antisemitism on college campuses–or as the Brookings Institute asserts, OCR “has turned civil rights enforcement into a discriminatory tool.” A Congressional report released in April 2026 detailed the failures of the OCR to protect students from discrimination which also produced financial waste and devastating consequences for students with disabilities.

To date, 148 programs have been transferred to other agencies, mainly to the Department of Labor. There is open debate on the legality of the transfer of these, and other, programs. 

Although the transfers are officially temporary, there are a series of GOP led bills before Congress to permanently transfer the programs by codifying the interagency agreements and permanently moving the functions out of US ED . Already this package of 10 bills has been approved by the House Education and Workforce Committee and now will be considered by the House of Representatives:

• H.R. 9607, Less Bureaucracy, Better Workforce Development Act

• H.R. 9610, Less Bureaucracy, Better K-12 Education Act

• H.R. 9611, Less Bureaucracy, Better Higher Education Act

• H.R. 9605, Less Bureaucracy, Better Foreign Medical Accreditation Act

• H.R. 9604, Less Bureaucracy, Better Tribal Education Act

• H.R. 9606, Less Bureaucracy, Better Child Care for Student Parents Act

• H.R. 9603, Less Bureaucracy, Better International Education Oversight Act

• H.R. 9602, Less Bureaucracy, Better International Foreign Gift Transparency Act

• H.R. 9608, Less Bureaucracy, Better Family Engagement Act

• H.R. 9609, Less Bureaucracy, Better Student Aid Act

Also, bills are being introduced in Congress by Democrats to protect programs in the US ED. For example, Senate bill S.5046, would prohibit the transfer of some offices and functions of the US ED to other agencies.