Trump Administration Chips Away at Education Department

What Happened

The Education Department announced it’s handing over more programs to other federal agencies, moving President Trump closer to his goal of shutting down the department, bypassing congressional approval.

The Department of Health and Human Services will now manage grant programs sending millions to schools for safety and community engagement, while the State Department takes over tracking foreign gifts to universities.

Notably absent from the transfers is special education. Education Secretary Linda McMahon stated her intention to move special education programs, which manage billions in grants and oversee compliance with disability law, to HHS, but the new agreements carefully avoid that third rail. The department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services remains untouched for now.

The future of transferred programs appears uncertain, as Trump’s 2026 budget request proposes zeroing out funding for five of the six programs moving to HHS. In December, some grant recipients were notified their funding would not continue, ending those initiatives as federal support expired.

Why It Matters

Trump’s approach circumvents the constitutional requirement that Congress approve the elimination of executive departments. Rather than seeking legislative authorization to close it down, the administration simply transfers its functions to other agencies.

Whether this administrative dismantling violates the separation of powers is now being litigated, although the Supreme Court already allowed Trump to fire 1,400 Department of Labor workers last July.

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The Education Department was established to oversee federal education programs and policy. Transferring school safety grants to the Department of Health and Human Services or shifting Title I oversight to the Labor Department would place those programs under agencies with different primary missions and operational structures.

Some policy analysts and education groups believe this could require schools to coordinate with multiple agencies for programs that were previously administered by a single department.

The budget question also indicates the strategy’s ultimate goal: moving programs to new agencies while simultaneously requesting their elimination suggests the transfers aren’t about improved administration but about dismantling programs entirely.

How It Affects You

If your child’s school receives Title I funding for low-income students or participates in federal safety and community engagement grant programs, those initiatives may now be administered by different federal agencies. While the funding streams themselves may not immediately disappear, the oversight, reporting requirements, and points of contact are likely to change.

Schools that were previously working through the Department of Education may need to coordinate with agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services or the Department of Labor. Adjusting to new administrative structures can require updated compliance procedures, revised applications, and additional communication with federal officials.

For students with disabilities, special education remains an ongoing question. Although current transfers do not include special education programs, Education Secretary Linda McMahon has stated that moving those responsibilities to HHS is being considered.

Federal special education funding supports services required under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the Department of Education currently oversees enforcement and compliance. A transfer of those oversight duties to another agency could raise concerns regarding how both monitoring and enforcement would be structured.

The department’s $268 billion budget accounts for roughly 4% of total federal spending and supports programs ranging from Pell Grants to civil rights enforcement. Redistributing those responsibilities across multiple agencies would not eliminate federal education spending but would almost certainly alter how it is managed and supervised.

While the plan is an administrative overhaul and reshuffling, dividing education responsibilities among multiple agencies is at risk of complicating oversight and accountability in the short-term.

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