Can Trump dismantle the Department of Education? It won't be easy, experts say

President-elect Donald Trump promised during his campaign he'd shut down the Department of Education, complaining that the agency's budget is too large and that its staff is filled with "people that in many cases hate our children." In a September 2023 campaign video he accused schools of "indoctrinating young people with inappropriate racial, sexual and political material."  

"One thing I'll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., and sending all education and education work it needs back to the states," Trump said in the video.

Dismantling the department has been an unfulfilled, decades-long goal for some Republicans, dating back to its founding in 1980. It's the first goal listed in the education section of Project 2025's "mandate for leadership," a book that lays out a plan for Trump's new administration. Trump has publicly disavowed the project, but its goals — and the people behind it — remain influential in his orbit.