President Trump signs order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education

President Donald Trumpordered his administration on Thursday to dismantle the Department of Education, looking to achieve a top campaign promise, although the White House acknowledged the agency can't ‒ and won't – entirely be dissolved.

Flanked by more than a dozen students seated at school desks, Trump signed the long-anticipated executive order at a ceremony in the White House's East Room attended by several Republican governors and state education commissioners.

Trump said he'd get rid of the department "once and for all."

"We're going to eliminate it, and everybody knows it's right," the president said.

Trump directed his 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," according to a White House summary of the order, which has been in the works for weeks.

However, the order's immediate impact is unclear since only Congress can eliminate a federal agency. Also, the federal government does not set school curriculum. That's long been the purview of states and local school districts.

"The Democrats know it's right, and I hope they're going to be voting for it because ultimately it may come before them," Trump told the crowd assembled for the signing.

Before the ceremony, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the Education Department, created by Congress in 1979 during the Carter administration, would not be abolished under Trump’s order but would ultimately become “much smaller than it is today."

The order simultaneously calls for the department to close and maintain an "uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely." Leavitt said federal Title I and funding for students with disabilities ‒ as well as Pell Grants and loans that help students pay for college ‒ would still be administered by the department.

Programs and activities receiving "any remaining Department of Education funds" also won't be permitted to promote diversity, equity and inclusion or "gender ideology," the White House said.

Trump's directive comes after the Education Department sent more than 1,300 employeestermination notices last week as part of large-scale "reductions in force" across the federal government led by the administration's Department of Government Efficiency, under the guidance of billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Between cuts and voluntary buyouts, the Trump administration has trimmed the department's workforce in half from more than 4,000 employees to roughly 2,000 workers since the start of the president's second term.

Republicans have long accused the federal government of having too much influence over local and state education policy. Trump told reporters last month that he hoped McMahon would put herself "out of a job."

Trump and other Republicans have often relied on data from the Education Department's research arm, a branch the administration has reduced to a skeleton staff. This has raised questions about how officials will track school progress after Trump's updates to the department.

Expanding presidential authority

Trump's order sets up a new test for the bounds of presidential authority after a federal district judge in Maryland this week blocked his administration's efforts to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Congressional Democrats blasted what they characterized as a blatantly illegal move by Trump, and teachers unions vowed to sue to block the administration from winding down the department.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, responded succinctly to Trump's plan to sign the order.

"See you in court," she said in a statement Wednesday

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a top funding appropriator, said in a statement that Trump was taking a "wrecking ball" to the agency despite knowing "perfectly well he can't abolish the Department of Education without Congress."

"But he understands that if you fire all the staff and smash it to pieces, you might get a similar, devastating result," she said. 

Advocates for student loan borrowers issued similar critiques. 

“Let’s be clear: there’s no Executive Order the President can sign to legally eliminate the Department of Education," said Aaron Ament, president of the National Student Legal Defense Network. "Linda McMahon acknowledged that herself. The real effect of this decree will just be even more hardship and confusion for students and families."