U.S. Department of Education Poised to Announce Significant Downsizing

The U.S. Department of Education appears poised to move much of its portfolio to other federal agencies, according to several people invited to a flurry of meetings with department and White House officials and told about some of the changes Tuesday.

As many as seven key agency offices—including divisions that oversee services and funding for students with disabilities, school safety programs, grants for the education of Native American students, and some of the agency’s core funding streams for elementary and secondary education—could be dispersed to other departments, advocates for potentially affected programs said.

A spokesperson for the agency didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The moves would mark the most significant step the department has taken yet to follow through on President Donald Trump’s March executive order, which directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “facilitate” the closure of the 45-year-old agency. News of the transfers was first reported Tuesday morning by the Washington Post.

In recent weeks, McMahon has publicly boasted that furloughing most of the department during the government shutdown had hardly any effect on education, and that her department is unnecessary—even as hundreds of schools missed federal payments, and the agency quietly brought back employees to get money out of the door on time.

McMahon also spoke of transferring department functions to other federal agencies during her February confirmation hearing, such as moving special education services to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The department teased the potential announcement in social media posts, including a video of President Ronald Reagan, who sought to axe the newly created agency during his presidency.

“The clock is ticking,” the department said.

The expected moves come as the department has already radically downsized, shedding nearly half its staff in layoffs and buyout deals earlier this year, and attempting to further slash staff during the federal shutdown in October. (Those layoffs have been reversed and won’t happen until late January at the earliest.)

The U.S. Supreme Court in July gave the Trump administration a green light to continue dismantling the agency while a case challenging March layoffs of agency staff makes its way through the courts.

With the Supreme Court’s OK, the Education Department has also transferred the day-to-day management of career and technical, and adult education programs to the U.S. Department of Labor through an interagency agreement that says officials at the Education Department retain oversight over the programs.

This story will be updated.