CNN
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The Department of Education began sending notices to employees that it plans to resume shrinking the department after the Supreme Court said on Monday that President Donald Trump could carry out mass layoffs.
A lower court ruling had indefinitely paused the president’s plans, though the Supreme Court’s decision puts that ruling on hold while the legal challenge plays out.
Trump has attempted to eliminate the agency since the start of his second term to make good on promises he made on the campaign trail. The agency’s dismantling could cause effects across the country for Americans and their schools.
The Education Department, created during the Carter administration, is tasked with distributing federal funds to schools, managing federal aid for college students and ensuring compliance with civil rights laws — including ensuring schools accommodate students with disabilities. Most public-school policies are a function of state government.
Federal federal funding programs for K-12 schools that help support the education of students from low-income families and children with disabilities predated the creation of the agency.
Trump has said some of these funding programs could be moved to other federal agencies if the department was abolished.
Already, the Department of Education announced on Tuesday that the Department of Labor will take on adult education and family literacy programs.
And the Department of Education previously announced it would like the Small Business Administration to take over student loans and have the Department of Health and Human Services handle special education services.
Low-income, rural and disabled students could be impacted as a result of Trump’s efforts to dismantle the agency as the Department of Education provides tens of billions of dollars in funding per year to support millions of these students.
Some of the department’s biggest jobs are to administer federal funding appropriated by Congress to K-12 schools and manage the federal student loan and financial aid programs.
Two of the biggest funding programs for K-12 schools are the Title I program, which is meant to help educate children from low-income families, and the IDEA program, which provides schools with money to help meet the needs of children with disabilities.
The agency funneled more than $18 billion in supplemental funding annually to local school districts to provide extra academic support to schools with high rates of poverty. Title I grants serve about 26 million low-income students.
The dismantling would not affect students’ curriculum, which falls on states and localities.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights has been hit hard by a combination of layoffs and voluntary “buyouts.” The office works to protect students by holding schools and colleges that receive federal funds accountable for combating antisemitism, islamophobia, racism and discrimination against students with disabilities.
What happens to the office is still uncertain. But employees within the office have told CNN they are extremely concerned about their ability to process the claims effectively with half of the staff.
Trump ordered mass layoffs earlier this year at the Department of Education. Lower courts had blocked his effort, noting that the Education Department was created by Congress.
While Trump was on the 2024 campaign trail, he repeatedly pointed to the agency as a symbol of federal overreach into the everyday lives of American families.
“I say it all the time, I’m dying to get back to do this. We will ultimately eliminate the federal Department of Education,” he said in September during a rally in Wisconsin.
“We will drain the government education swamp and stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing,” Trump said.
Despite Trump’s campaign trail promises to eliminate the department entirely, his lawyers told the Supreme Court that wasn’t what is happening in this case. Instead, they said, the department could continue to carry out its legally obligated functions — just with far fewer employees.
CNN’s Sunlen Serfaty, Tami Luhby and Katie Lobosco contributed to this report.
