WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration took more steps Monday to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, announcing two additional interagency agreements with other departments that will transfer more of its responsibilities to those agencies.

Under the agreements, the agency will partner with the State Department on foreign gift and contract reporting and with the Department of Health and Human Services on family engagement and school support programs.

The 46-year-old department signed seven other interagency agreements in 2025 as part of an ongoing effort to dismantle itself, including with State and HHS, as well as Labor and Interior. 

“As we continue to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states, our new partnerships with the State Department and HHS represent a practical step toward greater efficiency, stronger coordination, and meaningful improvement,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. 

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, blasted the additional interagency agreements in a Monday statement. 

McMahon “is unlawfully dismantling the Education Department by moving programs and offices to other federal agencies despite a clear warning from Congress that she lacks the authority to do so,” Gittleman said. 

She added that “these moves come as the Trump Administration has attempted to fire large numbers of career public servants in these very offices — and is now trying to shift their critical work across multiple federal agencies with no educational expertise.”

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, also lambasted the announcement.

“These illegal agreements aren’t just creating pointless new bureaucracy that burdens our already-overworked teachers and schools,” she said in a statement Monday. “They are actively jeopardizing resources and support that students and families count on and are entitled to under the law.”

Foreign gifts and contracts

The Education Department clarified in fact sheets that in both agreements, it would “maintain all statutory responsibilities” and oversight of the programs involved. 

Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, colleges and universities receiving federal financial assistance are required to disclose any foreign gifts or contracts valued above $250,000 annually. 

Under the agreement, State will help the Education Department in managing its foreign funding reporting portal, where colleges and universities are responsible for disclosing such transactions. 

State will also “use its national security and foreign national academic admissions expertise to review and assess the industry’s compliance with the law, share data with the public and federal stakeholders, and identify potential threats,” the Education Department said. 

HHS portfolio grows

Under the agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS will take on a “growing role” in administering several programs that are currently housed under the Education Department’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. 

The programs include the School Emergency Response to Violence (Project SERV), School Safety National Activities, Ready to Learn Programming, Full-Service Community Schools, Promise Neighborhoods and Statewide Family Engagement Centers, the Education Department said. 

The School Emergency Response to Violence program helps schools recover from a violent event, according to the department. 

Ready to Learn Programming “supports the development of educational television and digital media targeted at preschool and early elementary school children and their families,” according to the department.  

The Full-Service Community Schools program offers academic, social and health services for students in high-poverty areas and their families. 

According to the department, a Promise Neighborhood is a “place-based, collective impact approach to improving results for children and families.” The program aims to make it so that participating children “have access to great schools and strong systems of family and community support.”

The Statewide Family Engagement Centers program seeks to provide financial assistance to organizations helping state and local educational agencies to improve family engagement.

Abolishing the department

Since taking office, Trump has sought to take an axe to the agency in his quest to move education “back to the states.” The U.S. Supreme Court in July 2025 temporarily greenlit mass layoffs and a plan to dramatically downsize the Education Department ordered earlier that year.

That plan, outlined in a March 2025 executive order signed by Trump, called on McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of her own department.

Meanwhile, Congress earlier this year rebuked Trump’s request to dramatically slash funding for the department as he and his administration seek to do away with it.

Trump signed a measure earlier in February that funds the department at $79 billion this fiscal year — roughly $217 million more than the agency’s fiscal 2025 funding level and a whopping $12 billion above what Trump sought.

Though the spending package does not offer ironclad language to prevent the outsourcing of the Education Department’s responsibilities to other agencies, the measure does direct the Education Department and the agencies that are part of the transfers to provide biweekly briefings to lawmakers on the implementation of any interagency agreements.

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

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education exhausted millions in taxpayer dollars trying to eliminate a chunk of its Office for Civil Rights, a government watchdog found in a report released Monday.  

The department spent between roughly $28.5 million and $38 million on the salaries and benefits of the hundreds of Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, employees who were not working between March and December 2025, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

OCR employees — tasked with investigating civil rights complaints from students and families — were targeted in March as part of a larger Reduction in Force, or RIF, effort at the department and placed on paid administrative leave while legal challenges against President Donald Trump’s administration unfolded.

Amid a mounting backlog of discrimination complaints, the department said in December it would be bringing back the affected employees. The agency moved to rescind the RIFs against the OCR employees in early January while legal challenges proceeded.   

Complaints resolved

The department resolved more than 7,000 of the over 9,000 discrimination complaints it received between March and September, GAO, an independent, nonpartisan body that reports to Congress, said.

However, roughly 90% of the resolved complaints were due to the department dismissing the complaint, the watchdog found. The dismissal rate ranged from 49% to 81% during academic years in the 2010s, GAO found in a 2021 report.

The department “has not made complete information publicly available about potential costs and has not made any information available about potential savings associated with its OCR RIF actions,” GAO said, calling on the agency to provide those estimates and document its analysis. 

Trump has taken significant steps to try to dismantle the 46-year-old department as part of his quest to move education “back to the states.”

In response to a draft of the report, Kimberly Richey, the assistant secretary for OCR, said the matter is rendered “moot” because the agency brought OCR employees back to work in December and rescinded the RIFs. 

“We do not concur with the recommendation,” Richey wrote. 

‘Unacceptable’

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who requested the GAO report, blasted the millions of dollars the department spent as “unacceptable” in a Monday statement. 

“Every child in America should be able to get a good education no matter where they live, what their religious beliefs are or whether or not they have a disability,” said the Vermont independent, who serves as ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. 

“Instead, the Trump administration fired half of the Education Department employees working to protect the civil rights of students and wasted as much as $38 million in taxpayer dollars by preventing investigators from doing their jobs,” he added. 

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, said that “instead of following court orders and federal law, the Trump Administration chose to keep these civil rights professionals on paid administrative leave rather than letting them do their jobs, while students, families, and schools paid the price.” 

Gittleman added that Education Secretary Linda McMahon “has made clear that she would rather play politics than uphold her responsibility to protect students’ rights,” and “her actions have undermined the Department’s mission, harmed families, and subjected dedicated federal employees to needless uncertainty, abuse, and harassment.” 

The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.