
Here’s what could happen as Trump works to dismantle the Department of Education
CNN
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.
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.

More than two decades ago, on January 24, 2004, I landed in Baghdad as a legal adviser, assigned an office in what was then known as the Green Zone. It was raining and cold, and my duffle bag was thrown into a puddle off the C-130 aircraft that had just done a corkscrew dive to reach the runway without risk of ground fire. Young American soldiers greeted me as we piled into a vehicle, sped out of the airport complex and then along a road called the “Highway of Death” due to car bombs and snipers.












