The Supreme Court’s decision this week to allow roughly 1,400 Department of Education employees to be fired gives the Trump Administration an unfettered opportunity to render the Department of Education inoperable and to hobble its core mission to serve our nation’s students, schools, and early learning programs.
The Administration cut the Department of Education nearly in half earlier this year, trimming its 4,000 employees to fewer than 2,200. The Administration specifically targeted the department’s Office of Civil Rights, closing seven of its 12 offices, and aimed to erode the Department’s responsibilities by moving programs for students with special needs to the Department of Health and Human Services. The Court’s decision greenlights the Administration’s plan to cut yet more staff.
“This decision effectively ensures the end of an equitable U.S. education system designed to nurture the next generation of citizens,” said Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus on Children. “President Trump has said his goal is to ‘return education to the states.’ But the fact is, each and every state already controls its education system. The federal government simply ensures that they provide equal opportunities to all of America’s kids, not just the ones who can afford a private education. This is a monumentally sad day for education, for equality, and for the United States and its values. Disturbingly, it also demonstrates that the Administration is targeting children for cuts and harm, and that it is determined to render meaningless the one seat at the table that America’s children have in the President’s Cabinet.”
The Department of Education plays a critical role in supporting the nation’s students by overseeing academic achievement, managing the federal student loan program, ensuring equitable access to quality public education, and enforcing civil rights laws in U.S. schools. It is also the only federal department exclusively committed to children.
Thousands of students already may have been denied their civil rights. Between mid-March and the end of June, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) dismissed 3,424 complaints, according to reporting by Politico. OCR is responsible for investigating issues such as discrimination in special education, campus sexual misconduct and other inequities that take place in schools, colleges and universities.
In addition to seeking assistance from the Supreme Court, the Trump Administration has sought to undermine the Department of Education by choking off its funding.
Late last month, the Administration withheld nearly $7 billion from students, public schools, and early learning systems, including eliminating all funding for after-school programs. A coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia has sued the Administration to release the money.
The efforts to decimate the department help clear the way for a national private school voucher system, which was authorized in the budget reconciliation bill passed earlier this month by Congress.
“Unfortunately, these actions, in combination with the Administration’s attack on the Constitution’s Birthright Citizenship Clause, its support for book bans, the gutting of other programs and services to children — including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Product Safety Division — speak to a broader agenda: The Administration’s undeclared ‘war on children’,” Lesley said.