Trump EO to end DoE latest effort by GOP to end the department

The Republican Party has been trying to get rid of the Department of Education for decades (since the Reagan administration).

Trump is now going after it again with an executive order to dismantle the department, but his efforts will ultimately be challenged and fail.

Attacking the DoE

There was a DoE long before Jimmy Carter’s DoE, but it did not last long, having been signed into law in 1867 by President Andrew Johnson, then ended by Congress the very next year.

Then came the Carter presidency, signing the DoE into law in 1979, with it coming to life in 1980, and it has been under attack ever since, including attempts by Ronald Reagan to end it, but he never had the votes.

Reagan lumped the Department of Education into the “crazy quilt of wasteful [federal] programs,” suggesting block grants be issued to states in place of the department.

During his 1980 State of the Union (SOTU) address, Reagan continued to target the Department of Education (DoE), stating, “The budget plan I submit to you on February 8 will realize major savings by dismantling the Department of Education.” Reagan had to deal with a split Congress, so he again failed to achieve his goal.

Trump Signing Order

When Donald Trump nominated Linda McMahon as his Secretary of Education, she had a mandate to shrink and dismantle the department, a mandate she gladly accepted.

The White House, in turn, started its attack on the department, telling Fox News, "NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores reveal a national crisis — our children are falling behind.

"Over the past four years, Democrats have allowed millions of illegal minors into the country, straining school resources and diverting focus from American students."

Trump was expected to announce the order on Thursday, and as we have seen before, that order will immediately be litigated by the left and will likely have an injunction placed against it.

Educators Back Trump

There are high-profile educators who back Trump’s plan, including the head of the Oklahoma public school system. Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters stated, "This is a historic moment. I think President Trump is going to go down in history as the president who saved education and the future of the country."

No, he won’t because the order is unconstitutional. Donald Trump does not have the authority to disband the DoE with an executive order because it was created by Congress, therefore, it can only be ended by Congress.

This is nothing more than a political stunt by Trump to make the claim he tried to deliver on his promise but Democrats blocked him, but that will be a lie because it is the Constitution that is blocking Trump this time. He knows this order is unconstitutional, yet he is wasting taxpayer money by dragging this through the courts when he should be making his case to Democrats to end the department and send the funding for key programs directly to the states.

It would not be easy, but I would rather see him come up with a real plan that can be presented to the American people than knowingly sign an EO that is destined to fail. At the very least, making a case to the American people would allow them to put pressure on their elected officials to at least consider the plan. This is just a waste of all of our time.