Trump Administration Takes Next Step in Dismantling ED

The Trump administration has taken another step toward dismantling the Department of Education, creating a new integrated “state plan portal” that will allow the Department of Labor to jointly administer adult education programs with ED.

The portal, announced Monday, will be used to execute key programs outlined in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Funding for these programs, which has historically been managed by ED, will be transferred to the DOL—along with staff members needed to support the programs.

It’s a move that Trump officials say will “position DOL as the centralized hub for federal workforce programs.” 

“To prepare our next generation of American workers, the Trump Administration is taking decisive action to streamline unnecessary bureaucracy and advance the skills needed to fill jobs of the future,” Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a news release.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon added that she is “confident that the Department of Labor is well positioned to cooperatively administer, implement, and streamline these critical career and adult education programs.”

President Trump signed an executive order in March directing McMahon to close down her department “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” Later that month the secretary laid off nearly half the staff. Then, in June, court documents revealed that she intended to continue carrying out the president’s orders by handing over certain career and technical education programs to Labor.

Career and technical education advocates and higher education experts have sounded the alarm, warning that moving these programs could diminish their quality and hasten the demise of the Education Department.

“Donald Trump and Linda McMahon are continuing their attempts to illegally dismantle the Department of Education—and they are risking critical career and technical and adult education programs,” Democratic Senators Patty Murray and Tammy Baldwin, and Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro said in a statement. “Linda McMahon and Donald Trump need to follow the plain text of the law—period. Republicans should join us in insisting that the laws we pass get followed—and to stand up for students and families nationwide in the face of this administration’s continued attacks on our public education system.”