Trump set to sign executive order shuttering the Department of Education

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order Thursday to close the Department of Education, fulfilling a years-long pledge to dismantle the federal agency, the White House confirmed.

Trump will hold an event at the White House to sign the order directing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure 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.”

USA Today first reported Trump’s plans to sign the order on Thursday.

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McMahon recently moved to drastically reduce the size of the Education Department by cutting its workforce in half. She called the job terminations the first step toward shutting down the department.

“That was the President’s mandate,” McMahon said last week in an interview with Fox News. “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.”