Trump’s expected Education Department order looks to fulfill a campaign promise but raises questions for students and parents

President Donald Trump’s order to begin dismantling the US Department of Education, which he’s scheduled to sign Thursday, fulfills decades of conservative ambition to get rid of the agency, even as it raises new questions for the country’s millions of public schools, student-loan holders and parents.

President Donald Trump’s order to begin dismantling the US Department of Education, which he’s scheduled to sign Thursday, fulfills decades of conservative ambition to get rid of the agency, even as it raises new questions for the country’s millions of public schools, student-loan holders and parents. No president in modern history has tried to close down a Cabinet-level agency. Shutting down the department wholesale would require an act of Congress, which created the agency in 1979. Trump officials acknowledge they don’t have the necessary votes to dissolve the department that way. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said ahead of Thursday’s signing that the order would move to “greatly minimize the agency,” and that certain “critical functions” like student loans would remain under the agency’s umbrella. The order is expected to instruct Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take “all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the states,” an administration official said ahead of the signing ceremony, which was expected to include Republican governors, state education officials and school children. Since taking office, Trump typically signs his executive orders several-at-a-time from the Oval Office, with the actual documents often overshadowed by Trump’s remarks on other topics. Thursday’s major event in the East Room for the education directive underscores its significance for Trump and fellow conservatives, who have long attempted to shutter the agency and move more control over public schools to individual states.