WASHINGTON — “On November 18, 2025, the Trump administration began the process of selling off the Department of Education for parts. The administration has let down teachers, families, and students — those currently in classrooms and the generations to come. Further diminishing these offices that protect student rights and stop discrimination and sending them off to be run by agencies that work on public health and short-term training, which lack the skills, expertise, or capacity in education, isn’t about improving student outcomes. It’s about implementing a business model that transforms students into widgets instead of human beings who need support. Our nation’s children need champions in Washington. Now is the time for Congress to stand up for the rights of America’s students and ensure education programs stay where they belong: with the Department of Education.
“The law is clear: only Congress can dismantle the Department of Education. In its 45-year history, the U.S. Department of Education has played an essential role in ensuring all students — particularly those traditionally underserved by America’s schools — are guaranteed their rights to a quality public education, free from discrimination.
“Counter to recent comments made by Secretary McMahon, students and schools were hurt by the shutdown of the federal government. Uncertainty and chaos do not contribute to student learning. Calls and emails from families desperate to learn about their cases with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) went unanswered. Information requests from schools and districts were left unresolved while the government was closed.
“These new directives only serve to further distance students — particularly students of color, those from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, and multilingual learners — from educational opportunities. The other agencies that are now charged with protecting students’ educational civil rights simply do not have the relationships, expertise, or staff capacity to do so.
“Moving functions of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to the Department of Labor will erode oversight of required annual assessments and school accountability, as well as grants that fund a host of important programs, from charter and magnet schools to assistance for students experiencing homelessness. At a time when assessments show that America’s students are struggling, it is nonsensical to risk important federal funding and oversight of how schools are serving students.
“Specifically, moving Title I, the largest federal funding stream providing important resources to the schools serving the lowest-income students in America, to the Department of Labor makes no sense. The same goes for programs for literacy, K-12 family engagement, community schools, migrant education, and professional development for teachers, just to name a few of the programs directly impacted. All of these are definitionally educational programs that need to be invested in, not jerked around for no reason other than ideology. Does anyone think burying family engagement and community schools programs in another agency and starving them of expert staff and resources is going to “fix” the educational system? This administration insults the intelligence of America’s families in implying that it will.
“Other anticipated future moves not included in today’s announcement, such as transferring the authority at OCR or the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), are also deeply troubling. We have already seen the impacts of staff reductions and regional office closures at OCR: higher caseloads for investigators mean fewer investigations and the dismissal of thousands of cases at record pace, leaving students without the appropriate remedies to ensure their federally guaranteed rights to education. Transferring OCR’s authority to another department that is ill-equipped to carry out its critical functions would all but guarantee that civil rights complaints will continue to be dismissed en masse without resolution.
“Today’s actions — and the additional demolitions that are anticipated to follow — are a betrayal to every public school, educator, student, and family in this country. Congress must reclaim its authority and prevent this unprecedented transfer of authority.”- Statement from EdTrust president and CEO, Denise Forte