On March 20, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order titled "Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities," directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely."
Trump described the order as "45 years in the making," referencing the agency's founding in October 1979 under the Department of Education Organization Act signed by President Carter. The Department of Education had approximately 4,133 employees and administered $1.6 trillion in student loans, $30 billion in Pell Grants, and $18 billion in Title I funding for low-income schools.
What the Order Directs
The executive order directed McMahon to:
Legal Constraints
A president cannot unilaterally close a congressionally established federal agency. The Department of Education Organization Act (P.L. 96-88) would need to be amended or repealed by Congress. Abolishing the department requires legislation, and any bill would need 60 Senate votes to overcome a filibuster -- meaning some Democratic support would be necessary, which was not expected.
The administration's workaround was to hollow out the department through workforce reductions and functional transfers without formal closure. By March 2025, the department had already announced a 50% workforce reduction. By February 2026, major programs were being transferred to HHS and Treasury without Congressional authorization.
Heritage Foundation Origins
The order fulfilled a decades-long Heritage Foundation priority. Heritage had called for abolishing the Department of Education since its founding in 1979, and Project 2025's "Mandate for Leadership" dedicated an entire chapter to the department's elimination. The order's language closely tracked Heritage recommendations, framing the department as a bureaucratic impediment to parental choice and state authority.
Reactions
National Education Association: "See you in court." The NEA and American Federation of Teachers immediately announced legal challenges.
Linda McMahon: Embraced the directive, having previously served as Trump's Small Business Administration head and as a major donor to Trump-aligned organizations.
Critics: Warned the closure would devastate:
Capture Significance
The executive order to dismantle the Department of Education represents the convergence of three capture streams: the Heritage Foundation's ideological project to eliminate federal education oversight, the religious right's campaign to redirect public education funding to private and religious schools, and the broader DOGE-driven agenda to destroy federal institutional capacity. While the president lacks unilateral authority to close the department, the order provided political cover and administrative direction for a strategy of death by a thousand cuts -- massive workforce reductions, program transfers, and functional dismantlement that achieves abolition in practice without requiring Congressional action. Combined with the federal voucher program signed into law four months later, the order signaled the administration's intent to replace public education infrastructure with a privatized, market-based system.