The Reality of Trump’s Executive Order to Abolish the Education Department

On the menu today: The big news of today is likely to be President Trump’s executive order declaring his intent to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. But this may add up to the biggest window-dressing change since NAFTA became the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. As dramatic as “abolish the Department of Education!” sounds, it really means reassign the duties of the department to other parts of the government like the Departments of the Treasury and Justice. And as much as Republicans may (justifiably) fume about the woke nonsense programs that the Department of Education funds and grabs headlines over, the overwhelming majority of Department of Education spending goes to programs that are popular — Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, K–12 funding for students in poverty or with learning disabilities.