The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to get rid of the U.S. Department of Education will be far easier said than done.

As Trump seeks to redefine U.S. education policy, the complex logistics, bipartisan congressional approval and redirection of federal programs required make dismantling the department a challenging — not impossible — feat.

It’s an effort that experts say is unlikely to gain traction in Congress and, if enacted, would create roadblocks for how Trump seeks to implement the rest of his wide-ranging education agenda.

“I struggle to wrap my mind around how you get such a bill through Congress that sort of defunds the agency or eliminates the agency,” Derek Black, an education law and policy expert and law professor at the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law, told States Newsroom.

“What you can see more easily is that maybe you give the agency less money, maybe you shrink its footprint, maybe we’ve got an (Office for Civil Rights) that still enforces all these laws, but instead of however many employees they have now, they have fewer employees,” Black, who directs the school’s Constitutional Law Center, added.

What does the department do?

Education is decentralized in the United States, and the federal Education Department has no say in the curriculum of public schools. Much of the funding and oversight of schools occurs at the state and local levels.

Still, the department has leverage through funding a variety of programs, such as for low-income school districts and special education, as well as administering federal student aid.

Axing the department would require those programs be unwound or assigned to other federal agencies to administer, according to Rachel Perera, a fellow in Governance Studies in the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Perera, who studies inequality in K-12 education, expressed concern over whether other departments would get additional resources and staffing to take on significantly more portfolios of work if current Education Department programs were transferred to them.

Sen. Mike Rounds introduced a bill last week that seeks to abolish the department and transfer existing programs to other federal agencies.

In a statement, the South Dakota Republican said “the federal Department of Education has never educated a single student, and it’s long past time to end this bureaucratic Department that causes more harm than good.”

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 proposed a detailed plan on how the department could be dismantled through the reorganization of existing programs to other agencies and the elimination of the programs the project deems “ineffective or duplicative.”

Though Trump has repeatedly disavowed the conservative blueprint, some former members of his administration helped write it.

The agenda also calls for restoring state and local control over education funding, and notes that “as Washington begins to downsize its intervention in education, existing funding should be sent to states as grants over which they have full control, enabling states to put federal funding toward any lawful education purpose under state law.”

Title I, one of the major funding programs the department administers, provides billions of dollars to school districts with high percentages of students who come from low-income families.

Black pointed to an entire “regulatory regime” that’s built around these funds.

“That regime can’t just disappear unless Title I money also disappears, which could happen, but if you think about Title I money — our rural states, our red states — depend on that money just as much, if not more, than the other states,” he said. “The idea that we would take that money away from those schools — I don’t think there’s any actual political appetite for that.”

‘Inherent logical inconsistencies’

Trump recently tapped Linda McMahon — a co-chair of his transition team, Small Business Administration head during his first term and former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO — as his nominee for Education secretary.

If confirmed, she will play a crucial role in carrying out his education plans, which include promoting universal school choice and parental rights, moving education “back to the states” and ending “wokeness” in education.

Trump is threatening to cut federal funding for schools that teach “critical race theory,” “gender ideology” or “other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children,” according to his plan.

On the flip side, he wants to boost funding for states and school districts that adhere to certain policy directives.

That list includes districts that: adopt a “Parental Bill of Rights that includes complete curriculum transparency, and a form of universal school choice;” get rid of “teacher tenure” for grades K-12 and adopt “merit pay;” have parents hold the direct elections of school principals; and drastically reduce the number of school administrators.

But basing funding decisions on district-level policy choices would require the kind of federal involvement in education that Trump is pushing against.

Perera described seeing “inherent logical inconsistencies” in Trump’s education plan.

While he is talking about dismantling the department and sending education “back to the states,” he’s “also talking about leveraging the powers of the department to punish school districts for ‘political indoctrination,’” she said.

“He can’t do that if you are unwinding the federal role in K-12 schools,” she said.

Then-U.S. Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon speaks at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he will nominate McMahon to be his Education secretary. (Photo by Gage Skidmore | CC BY-SA 2.0)

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats largely reserved judgment Wednesday on President-elect Donald Trump’s pick of Linda McMahon as his nominee for Education secretary, even as they raised concerns about Trump’s plans to eliminate the department.

In interviews Wednesday, Democrats in the U.S. Senate mostly did not raise the sorts of objections to McMahon — the co-chair of Trump’s transition team, Small Business Administration head during Trump’s first term and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment — that they did for other Cabinet selections.

Sen. Tim Kaine, who sits on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, dubbed Trump’s pick “troubling in some sense.”

But the Virginia Democrat complimented an op-ed McMahon wrote for The Hill that expressed support for expanding Pell Grant eligibility to include short-term workforce education programs.

“That’s something that I’ve been long pushing, and so that’s something at a nomination hearing that I’m definitely going to talk to her about,” Kaine told States Newsroom.

Fellow HELP Committee Democrats Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Tina Smith of Minnesota were noncommittal about their votes on McMahon’s confirmation.

“I don’t know that much about her, but I’ll be interested to hear what she says,” Hickenlooper said.

Baldwin said she would provide the Senate’s advice and consent role on the nominee “when that time comes.”

Luján compared McMahon to Trump’s other Cabinet picks.

“It’s similar to his other picks as well, which are concerning many of my Republican colleagues, who are going to be in the majority.”

Smith said she “can’t really speak to that … other than to say that his job is to put forth the nominees that he wants to do this job.”

“And my job is to thoroughly vet them to make sure that they have the qualifications and that they’re fully prepared and ready to enforce the laws of the country,” she added.

Agenda sparks concern

If confirmed, McMahon would play a key role in the education agenda Trump has promoted, including eliminating the department entirely.

Trump’s pledge to get rid of the department is unlikely to find enough support in Congress.

Kaine said Trump “will not get the votes to do that — even among Republicans.”

And the process of abolishing the 45-year-old agency could create a series of logistical and legal complexities for the billions of dollars in funding the department provides, particularly for low-income K-12 schools, special education and federal student aid.

But the policy agenda has raised more concerns with Democrats than McMahon’s nomination.

Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said that with her not having a long history working in education, he will wait to pass judgment on McMahon’s nomination until she’s been fully vetted by the Senate. 

“However, I am staunchly opposed to President-elect Trump’s education agenda which seeks to abolish the Department of Education, eliminate funding for low-income and rural K-12 schools, scrap the expansion of school meals, and make it more difficult for student borrowers to repay their loans,” the Virginia Democrat said.

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education, said in a statement to States Newsroom that she wrestles “with how (McMahon) will lead the Department of Education when Donald Trump plans to eliminate it.”

“Schools across the country, including those in rural communities, rely on federal funding to help them meet the needs of their students, especially low-income students and students with disabilities,” the Oregon Democrat said.

Alex Floyd, the Democratic National Committee’s rapid response director, said Trump “wants to defund the Department of Education and send our tax dollars to his ultra-rich billionaire backers — like Linda McMahon,” in a Wednesday statement.

“McMahon was already a disaster at the Small Business Administration, so it’s no wonder Trump picked her to lead a department he is hellbent on destroying,” Floyd said.

Report: McMahon lied about education background

Lawmakers raised few objections about McMahon’s relatively slim experience in education policy, even after a Washington Post report Wednesday that McMahon claimed on a questionnaire for a seat on the state’s education board she had a bachelor’s in education that she did not have.

McMahon was on the Connecticut Board of Education for just over a year and a member of the Board of Trustees at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut.

She is also chair of the board of the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank. In his announcement, Trump said that while serving as chair of the board, McMahon has been a “fierce advocate for Parents’ Rights, working hard at both AFPI and America First Works (AFW) to achieve Universal School Choice in 12 States, giving children the opportunity to receive an excellent Education, regardless of zip code or income.”

GOP response

Meanwhile, congressional Republicans including the House education panel’s chairwoman, Virginia Foxx, praised Trump’s decision.

The North Carolina Republican said in a Wednesday press release McMahon is “a fighter who will work tirelessly in service of the students — not the so-called elite institutions, or the teachers unions or the federal bureaucracy.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy, ranking Republican of the Senate HELP committee, said in a statement that McMahon’s experience running the SBA “can obviously help in running another agency.” The Louisiana Republican said he looks forward to meeting with her.

North Carolina GOP Sen. Ted Budd, who also sits on the HELP panel, told States Newsroom that McMahon is “highly qualified, and I look forward to the process.” 

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he would tap Linda McMahon as Education secretary in his second administration. In this photo, McMahon, at the time the head of the Small Business Administration, speaks during a rally with GOP lawmakers at the U.S. Capitol Nov. 28, 2017 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday night he plans to nominate Linda McMahon, the co-chair of his transition team, to lead the Education Department in his second administration.

“We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort,” Trump said in a statement, referring to his pledge during this campaign to abolish the Department of Education.

McMahon, a decades-long executive with World Wrestling Entertainment and the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first presidency, has served on the Connecticut Board of Education. The statement said she has also served as a member of the Board of Trustees at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, for two stints totaling over 16 years.

She twice ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut and has been a major fundraiser for Republicans, including Trump.

McMahon led the SBA from 2017 to 2019 and took a position with a Trump political action committee ahead of his 2020 reelection bid. She later became chair of the board of the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank.

McMahon and her husband, Vince McMahon, the founder and longtime leader of WWE, grew the professional wrestling company into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. A recent lawsuit also alleges that WWE and Vince McMahon failed to stop the sexual abuse of underage “Ring Boys,” Axios recently reported. Linda McMahon is a co-defendant in the suit.

Trump’s Education secretary in his first term was Betsy DeVos, another wealthy donor. DeVos resigned from the administration on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol.

In a statement, National Education Association President Becky Pringle said McMahon is unqualified for the post.

“During his first term, Donald Trump appointed Betsy DeVos to undermine and ultimately privatize public schools through vouchers,” Pringle said. “Now, he and Linda McMahon are back at it with their extreme Project 2025 proposal to eliminate the Department of Education, steal resources for our most vulnerable students, increase class sizes, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, take away special education services for disabled students, and put student civil rights protections at risk. ”