Leavitt: Department of Education Will Be 'Much Smaller' but Not Gone

The U.S. Department of Education will be "much smaller" but not eliminated by the executive order President Donald Trump is signing, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. 

The department will continue to administer college student loans and Pell grants, enforce civil rights laws, and provide funding for low-income students and special education, Leavitt told reporters, The Guardian reported.

"The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today," Leavitt commented, adding that "any critical functions" will remain after Trump signs the order at an event planned for 4 p.m. ET. 

"When it comes to student loans and Pell grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education. But we don't need to be spending more than $3 trillion over the course of a few decades on a department that's clearly failing in its initial intention to educate our students."

Trump and his allies have often called to dismantle the department, but doing so would require an act of Congress. It has not been made clear if the votes would be there to get rid of the department altogether. 

Trump has also suggested that he could get enough votes in Congress to close the department but claimed teachers' unions are blocking the plan.

The White House said in a fact sheet on Wednesday that Trump would be signing an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure (of) the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely."

The order will also mandate that programs or activities that receive remaining funding through the Department of Education are not to "advance DEI or gender ideology." But even without shutting down the department, cuts being made could mean it would be impossible for it to continue working, NBC News reported.

The Department of Education was established in 1979 by then-President Jimmy Carter. It opened after Congress passed the bipartisan Department of Education Organization Act. 

Trump's Education Secretary Linda McMahon recently cut the department's workforce in half, saying it was the first step in shutting it down in connection with Trump's "mandate." 

"His directive to me, clearly, is to shut down the Department of Education, which we know we'll have to work with Congress, you know, to get that accomplished," she said in a recent Fox News interview. 

She also promised during her Senate confirmation hearing to work together with Congress to end the department. 

McMahon, in an interview Wednesday with Sirius XM's "The David Webb Show," said the department wants to be sure that as "we wind down" its operations that it provides states "with the necessary tools that they have and best practices, which have been successful in other states."

"I think it's important to note what the Department of Education does not do," she said. "The Department of Education doesn't educate anyone. It doesn't hire teachers. It doesn't establish curriculum. It doesn't hire school boards or superintendents. It really is to help provide funding so that the states themselves can help with their own programs. But that creativity and innovation has to come from the state level."

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