A Department of Education (ED) official told Fox News Digital that staff are working to put themselves out of a job under President Donald Trump’s orders because the agency is not needed.
“We are going to continue to take steps every single day to wind down the agency to return education to the state to put more power back in the hands of governors and state legislatures and state superintendents and local school board members,” Nicholas Kent, Undersecretary of Education, told Fox News Digital on Monday.
“That is our charge every single day,” he added.
The Department of Education announced on Thursday that the agency will move out of the Lyndon B. Johnson headquarters building, so the Department of Energy can eventually move in by August. The move is what the officials call “a prudent step to save hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and further reduce the federal education bureaucracy.”
Kent’s comments came after the department took a major step toward shutting down for good.
The Trump administration announced last week an interagency agreement between the ED and the Department of Treasury, with an official calling it the “largest” step to shutting the agency down.
The agreement entails moving student lending operations from the ED to the Treasury, which will “assume operational responsibility for collecting on defaulted Federal student loan debt and provide operational support to ED’s efforts to return borrowers to repayment.”
This agreement follows nine agency partnerships over the past year as the ED seeks to minimize itself, shifting power from some of its offices and programs to other federal agencies.
While Congress holds the key to shutting the operation down for good, Secretary Linda McMahon plans to show legislators that the interagency agreements are “proof of concept” that the ED is not needed for federal grant aid and federal student loans to continue flowing to borrowers.
“We are showing Congress and others that this proof of concept works and that we want to continue to work with Congress to memorialize these changes in legislation with the ultimate goal of closing down the department and putting ourselves out of a job,” Kent told Fox News Digital.
McMahon articulated before that the ED is merely a “pass through” for federal funding as opposed to controlling curriculum as others often expect. McMahon also explained that it’s often misunderstood that the ED controls curriculum.
“We don’t. We don’t hire teachers, we don’t buy books, we don’t do any of that. We are a pass through for federal funding to make sure it gets to states. There are competitive grants that the Department of Education works to make sure that that funding that comes from Congress – there is competitive bidding for that,” she said.
Once the administration made progress in shutting down the Department of Education, many critics slammed the idea, especially Democrats. Republicans, on the other hand, have embraced it. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., posted on Tuesday giving “Kudos to President Trump for attempting what even Reagan failed to do —eliminate the Federal Dept. of Education!”
However, Democrats on Capitol Hill denounced the effort.
Democrats slammed the mass layoffs of ED staff. In March last year, McMahon laid off half of the department’s workforce as part of the Trump administration’s broader reduction in government efforts.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, hosted a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on March 11, denouncing the administration’s interagency agreements with other departments.
“Trump is setting these programs up to fail,” Hirono said, joined by fellow Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. She added that by “shoving these programs to departments that do not have the experience or wherewithal to run these programs, he is setting [up] these programs that our kids rely on for failure.”
POWER STRIPPED FROM EDUCATION DEPARTMENT IN LATEST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION MOVE TO DISMANTLE IT
The largest teachers union in the country, the National Education Association, called the effort to dissolve the ED “illegal” soon after the Trump administration announced the partnerships with other agencies. A writer for NEA argued last year that the ED is needed to enforce federal statutes “prohibiting discrimination and ensuring every student has access to an education that will help them reach their full potential.”
Randi Weingarten, the president of the second-largest teachers union in the country, the American Federation of Teachers, said that “our members across the country are worried about the impact this will have on their students.”
SECRETARY OF EDUCATION POINTS OUT THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN SHOWS HER DEPARTMENT IS UNNEEDED
Another method the Trump administration is employing to reduce the ED’s footprint is returning more power to the states.
The ED launched a new process that would allow states to reduce administrative burden in order to use federal money as they see fit. Iowa became the first state to join the effort. The Department of Education sent states a letter in July last year encouraging all states to apply for the waiver to allow their state education officials to have more discretion over federal dollars and reduce compliance costs.
McMahon touted Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ decision to funnel federal dollars directly to students after they were typically gobbled up by compliance costs, a burden imposed upon states by the federal government.
Kent argued to Fox News Digital that the ED has “spent over $3 trillion since 1980 in supporting education from the federal level.”
“Yet our K through 12 NAEP scores continue to decline,” he said.
Fox News Digital previously reported on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), commonly called the “Nation’s Report Card,” showed that 12th-graders’ scores in math and reading plummeted to record lows, continuing an ongoing decline.
“The Federal Education Department is not doing right by students and families. And so our goal in these interagency agreements is to show Congress that there is a better path forward for students and family,” Kent said.
