WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for the dismantling of the U.S. Education Department, advancing a campaign promise to take apart an agency that’s been a longtime target of conservatives.

Trump has derided the Education Department as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, completing its dismantling is most likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979. Republicans said they will introduce legislation to achieve that, while Democrats have quickly lined up to oppose the idea.

The order says the education secretary will, “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities.”

It offers no detail on how that work will be carried out or where it will be targeted, though the White House said the agency will retain certain critical functions.

Trump said his administration will close the department beyond its “core necessities,” preserving its responsibilities for Title I funding for low-income schools, Pell grants and money for children with disabilities.

The White House said earlier Thursday the department will continue to manage federal student loans, but the order appears to say the opposite. It says the Education Department doesn’t have the staff to oversee its $1.6 trillion loan portfolio and “must return bank functions to an entity equipped to serve America’s students.”

At a signing ceremony, Trump blamed the department for America’s lagging academic performance and said states will do a better job.

“It’s doing us no good,” he said.

Already, Trump’s Republican administration has been gutting the agency. Its workforce is being slashed in half, and there have been deep cuts to the Office for Civil Rights and the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nation’s academic progress.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said she will remove red tape and empower states to decide what’s best for their schools. But she promised to continue essential services and work with states and Congress “to ensure a lawful and orderly transition.”

Part of her job will be exploring which agencies can take on the Education Department’s various roles, she said.

“The Department of Justice already has a civil rights office, and I think that there is an opportunity to discuss with Attorney General Bondi about locating some of our civil rights work there,” McMahon told reporters after the signing.

The measure was celebrated by groups that have long called for an end to the department.

“For decades, it has funneled billions of taxpayer dollars into a failing system — one that prioritizes leftist indoctrination over academic excellence, all while student achievement stagnates and America falls further behind,” said Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation.

Advocates for public schools said eliminating the department would leave children behind in a fundamentally unequal education system.

“This is a dark day for the millions of American children who depend on federal funding for a quality education, including those in poor and rural communities with parents who voted for Trump,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said.

Opponents are already gearing up for legal challenges, including Democracy Forward, a public interest litigation group. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the order a “tyrannical power grab” and “one of the most destructive and devastating steps Donald Trump has ever taken.”

Margaret Spellings, who served as education secretary under Republican President George W. Bush, questioned whether whether the department will be able to accomplish its remaining missions, and whether it will ultimately improve schools.

“Will it distract us from the ability to focus urgently on student achievement, or will people be figuring out how to run the train?” she asked.

Spellings said schools have always been run by local and state officials, and rejected the idea that the Education Department and federal government have been holding them back.

Currently, much of the agency’s work revolves around managing money — both its extensive student loan portfolio and a range of aid programs for colleges and school districts, like school meals and support for homeless students. The agency also is key in overseeing civil rights enforcement.

The Trump administration has not addressed the fate of other department operations, like its support for for technical education and adult learning, grants for rural schools and after-school programs, and a federal work-study program that provides employment to students with financial need.

States and districts already control local schools, including curriculum, but some conservatives have pushed to cut strings attached to federal money and provide it to states as “block grants” to be used at their discretion.

Block granting has raised questions about vital funding sources including Title I, the largest source of federal money to America’s K-12 schools. Families of children with disabilities have despaired over what could come of the federal department’s work protecting their rights.

Federal funding makes up a relatively small portion of public school budgets — roughly 14%. The money often supports supplemental programs for vulnerable students, such as the McKinney-Vento program for homeless students or Title I for low-income schools.

Republicans have talked about closing the Education Department for decades, saying it wastes money and inserts the federal government into decisions that should fall to states and schools. The idea has gained popularity recently as conservative parents’ groups demand more authority over their children’s schooling.

In his platform, Trump promised to close the department “and send it back to the states, where it belongs.” Trump has cast the department as a hotbed of “radicals, zealots and Marxists” who overextend their reach through guidance and regulation.

Even as Trump moves to dismantle the department, he has leaned on it to promote elements of his agenda. He has used investigative powers of the Office for Civil Rights and the threat of withdrawing federal education money to target schools and colleges that run afoul of his orders on transgender athletes participating in women’s sports, pro-Palestinian activism and diversity programs.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a Democrat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, dismissed Trump’s claim that he’s returning education to the states. She said he is actually “trying to exert ever more control over local schools and dictate what they can and cannot teach.”

Even some of Trump’s allies have questioned his power to close the agency without action from Congress, and there are doubts about its political popularity. The House considered an amendment to close the agency in 2023, but 60 Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it.

Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report. The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Executive order: Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities

“By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to enable parents, teachers, and communities to best ensure student success, it is hereby ordered:

“Section 1.  Purpose and Policy.  Our Nation’s bright future relies on empowered families, engaged communities, and excellent educational opportunities for every child.  Unfortunately, the experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars — and the unaccountable bureaucracy those programs and dollars support — has plainly failed our children, our teachers, and our families.

“Taxpayers spent around $200 billion at the Federal level on schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, on top of the more than $60 billion they spend annually on Federal school funding.  This money is largely distributed by one of the newest Cabinet agencies, the Department of Education, which has existed for less than one fifth of our Nation’s history.  The Congress created the Department of Education in 1979 at the urging of President Jimmy Carter, who received a first-ever Presidential endorsement from the country’s largest teachers’ union shortly after pledging to the union his support for a separate Department of Education.  Since then, the Department of Education has entrenched the education bureaucracy and sought to convince America that Federal control over education is beneficial.  While the Department of Education does not educate anyone, it maintains a public relations office that includes over 80 staffers at a cost of more than $10 million per year.

“Closing the Department of Education would provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them.  Today, American reading and math scores are near historical lows.  This year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that 70 percent of 8th graders were below proficient in reading, and 72 percent were below proficient in math.  The Federal education bureaucracy is not working.  

“Closure of the Department of Education would drastically improve program implementation in higher education.  The Department of Education currently manages a student loan debt portfolio of more than $1.6 trillion.  This means the Federal student aid program is roughly the size of one of the Nation’s largest banks, Wells Fargo.  But although Wells Fargo has more than 200,000 employees, the Department of Education has fewer than 1,500 in its Office of Federal Student Aid.  The Department of Education is not a bank, and it must return bank functions to an entity equipped to serve America’s students.

“Ultimately, the Department of Education’s main functions can, and should, be returned to the States. 

“Sec. 2.  Closing the Department of Education and Returning Authority to the States.  (a)  The Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, 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 delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.

“(b)  Consistent with the Department of Education’s authorities, the Secretary of Education shall ensure that the allocation of any Federal Department of Education funds is subject to rigorous compliance with Federal law and Administration policy, including the requirement that any program or activity receiving Federal assistance terminate illegal discrimination obscured under the label “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or similar terms and programs promoting gender ideology.

“Sec. 3.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

“(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

“(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

“(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

“(c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person. 

“DONALD J. TRUMP

“THE WHITE HOUSE, March 20, 2025.”