Headline Roundup • March 12th, 2025
In First Step Towards Shutdown, Education Department Lays Off Half Its Staff
Summary from the AllSides News Team
The Trump administration laid off nearly 50% of the Education Department’s (ED) workforce this week as the department moves closer to a potential shutdown.
The Details: The ED laid off more than 1,300 workers from its original staff of around 3,500. Divisions affected by the layoffs included the Office of Civil Rights, which enforces civil rights laws and investigates discrimination; the Federal Student Aid division, which manages student loans; and the Institute of Education Sciences, which researches teaching practices and education efficacy.
For Context: Trump was expected to sign an Executive Order shutting down the ED last week, which National Review News (Lean Right bias) says was delayed “seemingly because of concerns of blowback against the administration.”
How the Media Covered It: National Review emphasized how these layoffs reduce government spending, highlighting that DOGE also “cancelled several Education Department contracts amounting to millions of dollars.” AP (Left) quoted several anonymous staffers from the department speaking about the already overwhelming workload and wrote that the Trump administration “has not said how it will proceed with thousands of cases being handled by staff it’s eliminating.” These cases involve racial and religious discrimination, disability services, and complaints of sexual violence on campuses. The Hill (Center) focused on Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s statements in a variety of interviews, including her statement that Trump is “taking the bureaucracy out of education so that more money flows to the states. Better education is closest to the kids, with parents, with local superintendents, with local school boards.”
Revised by the AllSides staff (of humans) after a first draft from our custom AI. Learn more. Support our mission.
Featured Coverage of this Story
Annabelle Gordon/Reuters
The Department of Education is laying off about 50 percent of its workforce starting this week as President Donald Trump prepares to formally abolish the agency through a planned executive order.
The job cuts affect roughly 1,300 career employees, who were told to turn in government property and clean out their desks before leaving. Nearly 600 employees who voluntarily resigned or retired are included in the reduction-in-force action. The mass layoffs were announced on Tuesday evening.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon affirmed late Tuesday that mass layoffs are the first step toward shuttering the Education Department — a longtime goal of President Trump’s since his time on the campaign trail.
“Actually, it is, because that was the president’s mandate,” McMahon told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham on Tuesday. “His directive to me, clearly, is to shut down the Department of Education, which we know we’ll have to work with Congress, you know, to get that accomplished.”
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
The Education Department’s civil rights branch is losing nearly half its staff in the Trump administration’s layoffs, effectively gutting an office that already faced a backlog of thousands of complaints from students and families across the nation.
Among a total of more than 1,300 layoffs announced Tuesday were roughly 240 in the department’s Office for Civil Rights, according to a list obtained and verified by The Associated Press. Seven of the civil rights agency’s 12 regional offices were entirely laid off, including busy hubs in New York, Chicago and Dallas. Despite assurances that the...
AllSides Picks
Red Blue Translator
Charter Schools
Red Blue Translator
Public Education
Headline Roundup
Second New World Screwworm Case Found in Texas Raises Concerns for Livestock
June 7th, 2026
