The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education building is pictured on November 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON – A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Wednesday advanced a major legislative package that would implement President Donald Trump’s push to significantly reduce the responsibilities of the U.S. Department of Education.
The U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee approved — almost along party lines — each of them the package contains 10 bills which would result in the eternal transfer of several Education functions to other departments.
This measure, largely reflecting many of the interagency agreements, or IAA, which education has signed with other agencies, represents a broad effort by Republicans in Congress to advance the Trump administration’s plan to eliminate the 46-year-old department as part of the president’s push to bring education “back to the states.”
This trend continues, although much of the oversight and funding of schools now takes place at the state and local levels.
But the legislation faces an uncertain fate. Even if it is approved in its entirety by the entire U.S. House of Representatives, it will have a long chance in the narrowly GOP-controlled Senate.
For the bill to pass the filibuster, the upper house needs at least 60 senators, and Republicans have just 53 seats.
Rep. Tim Walberg, chairman of the House panel, praised the package during his panel’s discussion as “a first step toward ending the Department of Education’s reign over our nation’s education system.”
The Michigan Republican added that the legislation supports Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s “vision for an education system that empowers families, students, workers and local communities.”
McMahon said “today marks an important step by congressional leaders toward cementing the Trump administration’s historic reforms to properly define the federal role in education” in a statement released after the committee introduced the package.
Other departments to take over
Under many bills, the Department of Labor would administer primary and secondary education programs; post-secondary education; and vocational, technical and adult education – modeled on the earlier IAAs.
In another piece of legislation, the Treasury Department would administer federal student education aid functions, a nod to this issue March agreement Education has signed an agreement with the Treasury to assume responsibility for collecting unpaid federal student loan debt.
The agreement was the first step in a multi-phase process for the Treasury Department to assume the entire approximately $1.7 trillion federal student loan portfolio.
Under other bills in the package, the Department of State would administer international education and foreign language programs, as well as reporting on foreign gifts and contracts – also mirroring previous agreements.
Given the additional IAA, the Department of Health and Human Services will administer Education accreditation for overseas medical schools; child care access features for low-income parents in postsecondary institutions; and family engagement programs in primary and secondary schools.
The Department of the Interior would also administer tribal education and job training programs as part of the package.
Notably, the 10-bill package does not include any effort to transfer Education’s responsibilities for special education programs and civil rights enforcement to other agencies.
In perhaps the Trump administration’s most far-reaching attempt to dismantle the Department of Education in June, the agency said that HHS would administer programs under the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, while civil rights enforcement under the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) would be transferred to the Department of Justice.
Rep. Bobby Scott, the top Democrat on the panel, said the committee’s decision not to consider either of the two actions in the package was likely because “even my colleagues realize how politically distasteful such transfers would be.”
“Pain and Suffering”
Meanwhile, the legislative package faced fierce opposition from congressional Democrats on the committee, who proposed a slew of bill amendments in an attempt to block the dismantling.
Scott, a Democrat from Virginia, said: “It is difficult to express how impractical these proposals are, let alone the pain and suffering they will cause students, teachers and their communities if they become law.”
He pointed to the GOP’s goal of eliminating the department as part of its intention to “return education to the states,” stating that the proposals “will actually contribute to miles of bureaucratic red tape, inconsistent education policy and law enforcement across the federal government, and a significant waste of taxpayer dollars.”
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici said the bills under consideration “show that Republicans in Congress know that the Department of Education does not have the authority to transfer offices and programs to other federal agencies without action from Congress, and now they are trying to cover up illegal actions they have already taken.”
The Oregon Democrat who introduced impeachment resolution v. McMahon in June, she added that the secretary “has said her mission is to shut down the Department of Education, which she has no authority to do, but that’s exactly what she’s doing, under the guise of a series of interagency agreements.”
