I鈥檝e been getting a surprising number of stressed-out emails from college students and teachers asking about what鈥檒l happen to them if President-elect Donald Trump shuts down the U.S. Department of Education. They want to know what鈥檒l happen to their Pell Grants, their schools, or their retirement benefits. The level of concern is remarkable for a 44-year-old Republican promise to close a big, distant federal bureaucracy. Given such reactions, it鈥檚 worth explaining what鈥檚 going on with Trump鈥檚 promise to abolish the department鈥攁nd why a lot of the breathless coverage may be missing the forest for the trees.
First, yes, Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota has already filed a to disassemble the department, and Trump, as in 2016, has he鈥檇 abolish it. But the department isn鈥檛 going to be abolished. How do I know? Because it takes a law to dismantle the department, and that requires 60 votes in the Senate (in order to break a Democratic filibuster). There are only 53 Republican senators鈥攁nd at least two of whom, Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, are no sure thing on this score.
Even if the razor-thin Republican House majority passes a bill and every GOP senator votes for it, Senate Republicans can鈥檛 get enough Democrats to get to 60. So, the department isn鈥檛 getting abolished. It鈥檚 just math. (Those Democrats who retiring Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona for preserving the filibuster in 2021 but suddenly see its merits are, hopefully, feeling a little abashed about now.)
Second, because the talk of 鈥渁bolishing鈥� the department tends to be more metaphorical than concrete, it鈥檚 yielded a lot of ambiguity and confusion. For instance, Rounds鈥� bill 鈥渁bolishes鈥� the department by sending its component parts over to other Cabinet agencies like Treasury and Health and Human Services. Is that abolition? Technically, I guess, since the department would no longer have a webpage.
But, unless Congress specifically moved to slash or eliminate the department鈥檚 programs and funding streams, they鈥檇 still be there. This means that 鈥渁bolishing the department鈥� wouldn鈥檛 necessarily amount to change that anyone outside of Washington would notice. Indeed, since many federal employees who handle various programs would move with them, it鈥檚 not even clear how many of the Department of Education鈥檚 would lose their jobs.
Third, I鈥檓 not suggesting the argument about abolishing the department is a 鈥渄ebate about nothing.鈥� It鈥檚 symbolically important with implications for the size of the federal footprint. At the same time, the actual federal role in education depends far more on whether Republicans are inclined to downsize or eliminate major federal education programs than on whether those programs are housed in a 鈥淒epartment of Education.鈥�
And, despite some of the turbo-charged rhetoric about the department, Republicans have shown little appetite for cutting or reshaping major federal education programs like Title I, special education, Pell Grants, or student loans. Last year, when given the chance to vote on converting Title I into a voucher program, barely half of House Republicans voted to do so. (The proposal lost .) And that didn鈥檛 even require any spending cuts. Republicans have historically shown little desire to reduce spending for low-income students or those with special needs, and that seems even more likely to hold after a Trump victory marked by broad support among and .
And keep in mind that the federal role in education long predated the creation of the department in 1979鈥攕ee, for instance, the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862, the Smith-Hughes Vocational Education Act of 1917, the National Defense Education Act of 1958, and the Higher Education and Elementary and Secondary Education Acts of 1965. With or without a department, then, there will be fights over Washington鈥檚 role in education.
So, ED isn鈥檛 going anywhere. That said, I certainly think it鈥檇 be just fine if the department were dismantled. After all, it makes sense for many of ED鈥檚 functions to be run out of other agencies. For instance, the federal student-loan portfolio is essentially a mega-bank. It鈥檇 make more sense to have it overseen by officials at Treasury who work closely with financial institutions and oversee federal revenue collection. And moving ED鈥檚 office for civil rights over to the Department of Justice could provide more in the way of appropriate supervision.
Meanwhile, from a governmental-efficiency perspective, the department鈥檚 4,000-person staff no working educators but more than 1,000 GS-15 managers, each of whom earns more than $160,000 if they work in Washington. Streamlining the nonprogram staff seems eminently sensible.
But, since I fully expect the department to still be with us in four years, the big story is that a lot of the frenzied speculation about its fate is occluding the bigger issues that await. To wit:
Many of the real changes in the federal role will be a product of executive actions to reduce red tape, reshape program requirements, reorient key offices, or move select units to other agencies. And the clues to how that will shake out will depend heavily on who鈥檚 chosen to fill key roles and what the transition team puts forward. All of this has gotten precious little attention, as have intra-Republican debates about who gets key roles and what gets prioritized.
We鈥檙e also likely to see something truly novel in 2025: a Republican Department of Education just as the Obama and Biden departments did. Years of battles over school closures, school choice, gender, social-emotional learning, critical race theory, and diversity, equity, and inclusion have birthed a web of right-leaning education groups that now offer a playbook of policies and a deep bench of potential Trump appointees eager to leverage civil rights law and federal oversight in pursuit of Republican ends.
Finally, we鈥檙e likely to see a historic expansion of federal support for school choice. There鈥檚 a procedure called budget reconciliation that can be used for tax and spending packages, and it requires only a bare majority in the Senate to pass such bills鈥攎eaning the GOP won鈥檛 need those Democratic votes. (This is how Biden the 鈥淚nflation Reduction Act.鈥�) There鈥檒l be a big reconciliation bill next year to extend the expiring 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and it鈥檚 probably going to include a tax credit based on the . It may not get much notice because it鈥檒l feel technical, but it will amount to a huge victory for school choice.
So, what do I tell my earnest, nervous correspondents? I tell them the department isn鈥檛 likely to go away and that, even if it did, it wouldn鈥檛 really affect them. That said, there are big changes afoot that haven鈥檛 yet garnered the attention they deserve鈥攁nd which, as a result, may wind up catching a lot of educators, advocates, and onlookers by surprise.
