Republican states are embracing the idea of a future with no federal Department of Education, preparing plans for its Trump-promised demise and voicing confidence their own agencies can pick up the slack.
President Trump has long called for the dismantling of the Education Department, and he’s reportedly eyeing executive actions to gut its major functions while simultaneously pushing lawmakers to perform the coup de grâce.
The heads of the education departments in multiple GOP-led states describe the move as a potential opportunity to get rid of red tape around funding and burdensome reporting requirements on their schools.
The Trump administration is “providing states greater control over the education of the children in their states,” said Frank Edelblut, the Republican commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Education.
Each state has “different needs in order to serve our communities, to meet the educational objectives and needs of our children in our state,” Edelblut said. “And so, we may have to do things differently. And so, I think, really, the conversation around providing states greater control over education is a really important and a healthy one.”
Megan Degenfelder, Wyoming’s GOP state superintendent of public instruction, said that Trump following through on the promise to eliminate the department “really aligns with my belief that education policy should be returned to the States, allowing for more localized and effective decision-making.”
The long-running fight over the federal department exploded last week after reports of Trump’s plans came to light and Democratic lawmakers were locked out of the agency’s headquarters as they were demanding a meeting with the acting secretary to discuss what the plans are inside the department.
Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick for Education secretary, is scheduled for her confirmation hearing on Thursday, and the potential destruction of her would-be job is sure to be a leading topic of senators’ questions.
While the Department of Education only makes up around 10 percent of K-12 school funding, it also runs numerous programs to assist states and protect students.
Democrats’ concerns around GOP plans for the department include future cuts and changes to programs such as Title I, which helps disadvantage schools, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the department’s Office of Civil Rights.
“A productive partnership with and continued funding from the federal government are essential for North Carolina’s students and schools,” said North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction Maurice Green (D).
“About $1.2 billion for North Carolina public schools comes from the U.S. Department of Education annually,” with the majority of funding going to Title I and IDEA, Green added. “The complete loss of this funding would be detrimental to students and result in the loss of thousands of educator jobs.”
But the programs some are most concerned about are the ones that Republican states seem most excited to take over.
Edelblut told The Hill that on Title I, every year he hears from school leaders who “think that the way that those funds are being distributed is not actually serving the best needs of our economically disadvantaged students, and that there may be a better way within the state of New Hampshire to allocate that.”
Trump is reportedly looking to slash Education programs not written into law and vastly cut down the number of employees at the agency.
The Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the department, appears to be among the first targeted for cuts, as it recently cancelled 169 government contracts.
Experts speculate that the powerful Office of Civil Rights, which investigates discrimination cases against schools, could be moved inside the Department of Justice.
“I think it would be helpful to alleviate the burdensome reporting” that office currently requires “and allow school administrators to focus on being instructional leaders,” said Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction Susie Hedalen (R), adding that the reports schools are made to fill out for the federal department are on top of the “intense program” Montana already has for the issue through their own attorney general’s office.
“We’re already ensuring that things are being handled appropriately, and those [federal] reports are often very out-of-date and and not actually helpful in our work,” Hedalen said.
Ryan Walters, the Republican state superintendent for Oklahoma who has vocally embraced Trump’s agenda, is particularly looking forward to taking charge of the nutrition of his schools and special education.
“Special education has been one where the federal government continues to put red tape on this, and instead of helping those kids with special needs […] it becomes all this red tape,” said Walters, who used to work in a special education classroom. “It becomes all this paperwork, rather than telling states, ‘Listen, you need to make sure that these kids are getting a great education.’”
The Hill reached out to the education departments in all 50 states for this story. Most either didn’t respond or declined to comment, with many saying they were waiting for more concrete plans on the matter from the federal government.
Trump’s promise to eliminate the Department of Education is not possible without an act of Congress.
And although Republicans in both the House and the Senate have introduced bills to do just that, it is unlikely members get 60 votes in the Senate to move the legislation to Trump’s desk.
Republicans argue the evidence states should take over is plain in the scores of students around the country.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) recently showed students are still behind in reading and math, and that the gap between high-performing and low-performing students is widening.
“When it comes to education, we’ve seen the federal department’s significant spending power just hasn’t translated into adequate academic results, and this is evidenced by the widening achievement gap and declining reading scores that we saw on the NAEP release just two weeks ago,” said Degenfelder.
Degenfelder says she has confidence in the leadership at the federal Department of Education in following Trump’s directives and changing the agency.
“I really anticipate having more flexibility to use federal funding to best meet the needs of Wyoming students and so without the red tape and bureaucracy from D.C., but receiving that funding in more of a block grant method,” she added. “Then we can more effectively use those funds in ways that we know is going to work best in our state.”
