How much of the Education Department shrinking plan happened, and what got blocked?

"granted a request by the Trump administration to allow the U.S. Department of Education to proceed with layoffs of roughly 1,400 employees."

"The court’s order in McMahon v. New York is not a final ruling on the merits, but it removes a barrier that had blocked the administration from taking its first steps toward dismantling the department."

"That effort seemingly culminated with a March 2025 executive order signed by Trump that ordered Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take steps to close the department and return its functions to the states."

"The purpose of this system of records is to allow the Office of the Fiscal Assistant Secretary and the Office of Economic Policy to receive and maintain records necessary to administer, oversee, monitor, report on, and ensure compliance with Treasury responsibilities associated with Treasury's oversight and management of federal student aid portfolio activities performed in coordination with the U"

"the affected employees, who constitute about one-third of the department’s workforce, excluding 578 workers who accepted voluntary departure offers from the Trump administration."

"The omnibus appropriations bill that Trump signed on Tuesday to fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year directs $79 billion in taxpayer money to the Department of Education. That's a larger budget (by about $200 million) than the department had in fiscal year 2025, and it is $12 billion more than the Trump administration requested in its budget proposal for the year."

"ruled on May 22 that the challengers would likely succeed in court in showing that the Trump administration is “effectively disabling the department from carrying out its statutory duties by firing half of its staff, transferring key programs out of the department, and eliminating entire offices and programs.”"

"In November, McMahon announced that the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education would be shifted to the Labor Department and the Indian Education Program would be moved to the Department of the Interior, among other things ."

"citing the dismantling of the entire Office of English Language Acquisition, the layoffs of Office of General Counsel workers who dealt with K-12 and special education matters, and the closure of seven of the 12 regional offices of the Office for Civil Rights."

"none of the funds made available in this Act may be transferred to any department, agency, or instrumentality"

"The bill Trump signed also includes language that prohibits parts of the department from being downsized or decentralized."

"President Donald Trump issued an executive order on March 20, 2025, that calls for closing the U.S. Department of Education . The order, however, directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted deliver"

"Nevertheless, President Ronald Reagan tried unsuccessfully to abolish the Department of Education in 1983 ."

"An Inside Higher Ed analysis conducted just three months into Trump 2.0 showed that nearly one-third of the 50 or so higher ed policy recommendations laid out in Project 2025 had been fully or partially executed."

"Congress and the department reformed federal student aid through the One Big Beautiful Bill and rulemaking sessions, and Trump downsized the Education Department through reductions in force."

"The president also sought to cut research funding through grant freezes and budget proposals, though some of those attempts have faced pushback in court and on Capitol Hill ."

"Plan A is to return education to the states, dismantle the department, privatize everything, or at least have block grants. But that’s politically infeasible today, so while we’re waiting for plan A to happen, we’re not against Plan B, which is to use the tools available to us."

"the far more detailed governing blueprint that the Trump administration adopted when it cracked down on DEI practices , deported international students and gutted the department’s staff ."

"In March, the administration terminated nearly 1,300 Department of Education employees—almost half the agency’s workforce."

"In June, $6 billion in federal education funding was frozen, affecting after-school programs, English language instruction, and teacher training."

"That means, of course, seeking to “expand education choice while working to limit federal intervention in education, with the goal of ultimately eliminating the U.S. Department of Education.”"

"Heritage is focused on loosening Washington’s grip on K-12 and higher education. Heritage will work to safeguard parental authority over their children’s education, expand universal education choice, protect American taxpayers from bailouts of an academia wholly adrift, and reclaim institutions of higher education from the radical Left."

"“The education system is failing our children — from the scourge of woke ideas like Critical Race Theory and radical gender ideology to the lack of academic excellence and transparency,” it declares."

"Since Trump’s reelection win in November 2024, at least three states have proposed action to limit undocumented students’ access to a free, public education, while similar efforts in four other states have failed, according to an Education Week analysis."

"Ohio, New Jersey, and Tennessee have recently proposed actions that would require schools to collect immigration-related information or charge tuition to undocumented families. None has taken effec...t, and no state has successfully challenged Plyler ’s legal precedent in its more than 40-year history."

"State laws challenging Plyler in California and Alabama in 1994 and 2011, respectively, were struck down before implementation, said Thomas A. Saenz, the president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, which litigated the original Plyler v. Doe case."

"That ruling remains binding federal law , even as the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind the Project 2025 policy playbook shaping much of President Donald Trump’s agenda, published a policy document on Feb. 17 calling on states to intentionally enact laws or rules restricting free public education for undocumented students and calling on the highest court to overturn the landm"

"Additionally, an EdWeek analysis has found that since Trump’s reelection, at least two states have enacted protections of undocumented students’ access to a free, public education, and at least one state is currently proposing to protect that right."

"More recently, the Biden administration issued Title IX rules that provide greater and more explicit protections for LGBTQ students — rules that Republican-led states have sued to block ."

"the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, which moved to lay off nearly half its staff in one day and closed 7 of its 12 regional offices"

"Yet through multiple Republican administrations, including Trump’s first term, the U.S. Department of Education has persisted."

"As recently as June 16, 2026, the Education Department announced it would transfer civil rights investigation and enforcement functions to the Justice Department, continuing the agency’s evisceration."

"On a podcast earlier this year, Lindsey Burke, the Heritage Foundation’s director of the Center for Education Policy and author of Project 2025’s education chapter, acknowledged the political difficulty of simply abolishing the department."

"The department also reportedly ceased monitoring complaints of discrimination against or enforcing protections for transgender students ."

"But she said the executive branch could take certain actions on its own, such as ending student loan forgiveness programs and not enforcing the new Title IX rules."

"Betsy DeVos, Trump’s education secretary, rescinded those rules . (The Biden administration has not reinstated them.)"