Dismantling the Department of Education.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

Are you new here? Get free emails to your inbox daily. Would you rather listen? You can find our podcast here.

Today's read: 13 minutes.

SPONSORED

Is That a Real Person Calling — or AI? It’s getting harder than ever to tell if you’re talking to a human or an AI-driven scam. Chances are, you’ve received a suspicious call, text, or email asking for money in a sneaky way. Even if you can spot the scam, your personal data — phone number, DOB, SSN — is still being bought and sold by data brokers every day. Incogni is an easy-to-use service that scrubs your personal data from the web, tackling data brokers on your behalf. Your data shouldn’t be for sale — Incogni removes it from 230+ sites. Get fewer spam calls, phishing emails and reduce your online visibility for just $7.49/month. Use code TANGLE to get a 55% discount today. Get 55% off

Correction.

In last week’s edition on Trump’s address to Congress, we wrote that, “We do spend close to $20 million on what looks like an Arabic version of Sesame Street.” However, our own source wrote that — despite the funds going to the Sesame Workshop, which produces Sesame Street — only an Iraqi early childhood development program received funding from USAID, not the Arabic version of Sesame Street. We missed the suggestion from the editor who fact-checked this claim during final edits, and thank the many readers who wrote in with this correction.

This is our 132nd correction in Tangle's 292-week history and our first correction since February 25. We track corrections and place them at the top of the newsletter in an effort to maximize transparency with readers.

Quick hits.

1. House Republicans released a 100-page stopgap spending bill that would fund the federal government through September. The House and Senate must pass a spending bill by Friday to avoid a government shutdown. (The bill) 
2. Canada’s Liberal Party elected Mark Carney, an economist and former Governor of the Bank of Canada, as its party leader and the country’s prime minister. Carney will replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (who announced his resignation in January) this week, and Canada will hold national elections by October. (The vote)
3. U.S. employers added 151,000 payroll jobs in February, an increase from January but below economists’ expectations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Additionally, the unemployment rate increased from 4.0% to 4.1%. (The numbers)
4. The Trump administration will cut off $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University over its purported failure to address antisemitism on campus. The administration’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is reviewing over $5 billion in Columbia’s active federal grants. (The cancelation) Separately, federal immigration agents arrested a Columbia student who organized pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. The agents were reportedly under State Department orders to revoke his green card. (The arrest)
5. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it is preparing to conduct a large-scale study into the potential connection between vaccines and autism, citing the increase in autism diagnoses since 2000. (The announcement)

Today's topic.

The future of the Department of Education. President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to sign an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate closing the Education Department. McMahon, who was confirmed by the Senate last Monday, said she does not know when President Trump will sign the order, but affirmed that he is "crystal clear" on the move.

Back up: The Education Department (ED) is responsible for disbursing billions of dollars in federal funding to colleges and schools in the United States, as well as managing federal student loan programs. The agency also operates the Office for Civil Rights, which issues guidance on how civil rights laws should be applied in schools, and regulates services that schools provide for students, such as disability accommodations. Although federal law prohibits the government from dictating what schools teach, ED sets policies for enforcing existing federal laws and oversees the accreditation program for colleges and universities.

President Trump has criticized ED for its efforts to forgive student loans and broaden sex-discrimination education protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity. On the campaign trail, then-candidate Trump called for a “virtual closure” of the department, saying that he wanted individual states to have full control of their education systems. Trump also claimed that ED is indoctrinating students on social and cultural issues. 

Shortly after her confirmation, McMahon sent a message to agency workers telling them to prepare for their “final mission” and outlining her core priorities as agency head. “This restoration will profoundly impact staff, budgets, and agency operations here at the Department,” she wrote. “In coming months, we will partner with Congress and other federal agencies to determine the best path forward to fulfill the expectations of the President and the American people.” McMahon also commented that President Trump “couldn't be any more clear when he said he wants me to put myself out of a job.”

However, any attempt to close ED or offload its core functions would likely require an act of Congress, which established the department as a cabinet-level agency in 1979 and allocates its funding every year. In 2023, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced a bill to eliminate ED, but the bill failed with 60 House Republicans voting against the proposal. McMahon has acknowledged that dissolving the agency requires an act of Congress, which would take 60 votes in the Senate.

Democrats have criticized Trump’s plan, holding a press conference on Thursday to address the president’s calls to shutter the agency. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) claimed that Trump wants to dismantle the department to allow for new tax breaks, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said closing the agency would disproportionately impact low-income and working-class families. 

Today, we’ll share perspectives from the right and left on the plan to shut down ED. Then, my take.

What the right is saying.

• The right mostly supports abolishing the Department of Education, with many saying the department stands in the way of academic progress.
• Some argue that McMahon should partner with DOGE to identify and eliminate ED’s wasteful practices. 
• Others say Republicans are wasting their time with this effort. 

In The Wall Street Journal, Kimberley A. Strassel argued “the Department of Education needs to be abolished to get kids learning again.”

“Never has a department been more deceptively titled. To listen to this week’s wailing, the federal Education Department is the beating heart of our nation’s schools, its demise a straight line to an illiterate nation. The reality: Our federal education bureaucracy takes no part in the daily, hard-fought grind of teaching. It doesn’t step in classrooms, interview teachers, or debate pedagogy. It doesn’t meet with parents, coach sports or set bus schedules,” Strassel wrote. “The department’s only job is to act as the keeper of the education treats. Every year these federal masters get some $80 billion to dispense on ‘good’ behavior.”

“Thus today’s inane system, in which kids from Taos to Tallahassee are held hostage to a counterproductive maze of federal rules that dictate dollars yet waste resources and stymie local innovation,” Strassel said. “And while congressional action is needed to abolish the department, lawmakers need presidential leadership to turn it into a movement-wide objective. Short of that goal, Mr. Trump has a unique opportunity to work in lockstep with reform-minded governors to devolve as much education power as possible back to where it belongs—local, local, local.”

In City Journal, Christopher F. Rufo explored “how to dismantle the Department of Education.”

“The next stage of the conflict between Trump and the bureaucracy looks to be the Department of Education, which the president has correctly identified as a hotbed of left-wing ideologies,” Rufo wrote. “The administration must first understand that the Department of Education administers three primary activities: college student loans and grants; K-12 funding; and ideological production, which includes an array of programs, grants, civil rights initiatives, and third-party NGOs that create left-wing content to push on local schools.

“It is not possible or desirable to shut down all three functions at the same time. Rather, Secretary of Education nominee Linda McMahon, in partnership with Musk and DOGE, should handle each separately,” Rufo said. “To maintain Americans’ approval, the Trump administration must explain that college students will still be able to receive loans, K-12 schools will still receive funding for special education programs, and civil rights will still be protected by the Department of Justice. This ensures that the argument can be focused on eliminating deeply unpopular and divisive left-wing ideologies.”

In The Washington Post, Ramesh Ponnuru wrote “it’s a waste of time” to abolish the Education Department.

“Conservatives have opposed the department since its birth during the Carter administration, seeing it as federal overreach. President Ronald Reagan and House speaker Newt Gingrich both tried to end it and failed… Now, Trump has revived the campaign. But the prospect is a lot less momentous than anyone involved in the debate wants to admit,” Ponnuru said. “The main reason: Most proposals to eliminate the department don’t end the programs it houses; they just send them to other parts of the government.”

“Even some of the most vocal opponents of the department do not wish to discard its substance. Betsy DeVos, the education secretary during Trump’s first term, recently outlined an abolition plan that would reassign many of the department’s responsibilities to other agencies,” Ponnuru wrote. “A more productive strategy would look to achievable reforms to student loans, better enforcement of civil rights on college campuses, and an expansion of school choice — some of which Trump is already undertaking. Continuing these efforts would not be quite as exciting as demolishing a federal building. But it might leave Republicans with more to show for their work.”

What the left is saying.

• The left mostly supports the Department of Education in its current form, arguing that it plays a vital oversight role in America’s state-driven education system. 
• Some say Republican and Democratic states alike would feel the pain of eliminating the department. 
• Others argue ED’s core functions would be better managed by other agencies.

The Washington Post editorial board wrote “it’s simple” why the U.S. needs the Education Department. 

“President Donald Trump has neither the authority nor sufficient congressional majorities to eliminate the Education Department, as he has long promised. So instead, he is exploring ways to dismantle it from the inside by slashing its workforce and doing away with some of its functions,” the board said. “This surely pleases those members of Trump’s base who consider the department to be a wasteful bureaucracy in need of axing. But the truth is, the agency — though by no means perfect — plays a vital role in ensuring that all states provide a decent education to American children.”

“States already drive education policy. The federal government provides only about 14 percent of K-12 funding, and decisions about what schools teach are made by states and local school districts. The Education Department’s purpose, in contrast, is to help level the playing field for disadvantaged students. It delivers aid to schools that serve such children, and it enforces federal civil rights laws that forbid discrimination based on race, gender and disability in public classrooms,” the board wrote. “Yes, these responsibilities require a fair amount of bureaucracy, and it’s important that the agency not waste taxpayers’ money on administration. But any cuts made in the name of efficiency should not short-circuit the department’s important work.”

In The Nation, Jack Schneider said eliminating ED “would blow a big hole in the budgets of red states.”

“The stand-alone Department of Education was established by a congressional act with more than 100 cosponsors in the House and Senate, 26 of whom were Republicans,” Schneider wrote. “Look past the rhetoric and the surface-level activity of the Department of Education and focus, instead, on its budget. Roughly $15 billion each year goes to schools serving low-income students, mostly urban and rural communities. Another $15 billion or so goes to support students with disabilities. And more than $50 billion each year goes to Pell grants and subsidized loans to defray the cost of college… It’s what allows tens of millions of kids to live and learn in dignity.”

“Saving the Department of Education, if it can be done at all, will require convincing ordinary Republicans that they have something to lose. And they most certainly do. Look, for instance, at Florida’s Sarasota County, where nearly 60 percent of ballots were cast for Trump last November. In that same election, 84 percent of voters opted to raise their own property taxes to support local schools. And according to the grassroots group Support Our Schools, Sarasota stands to lose big if the Department of Education gets the axe: $12.3 million for special education, $11.4 million for schools serving low-income students, and more than $4 million in other federal funds.”

In The Chicago Tribune, Paul Vallas asked “what would it mean if the US Department of Education is abolished?”

“Restoring control of education to the states is not necessarily wrong or misguided. Federal oversight has often created bureaucratic obstacles rather than actually improving student outcomes. A more effective approach would be to hand over federal education funds to states in block grants with clear guidelines on how the money must be used. Meanwhile, the DOJ is far better equipped than the DOE to enforce civil rights protections,” Vallas said. “Similarly, the Treasury is better suited to manage and oversee the federal student loan program. The DOE’s Office of Postsecondary Education primarily functions as a check-writing entity, facilitating the unchecked expansion of student loans while rubber-stamping accreditation bodies with minimal rigor.”

“Any postsecondary programs deemed valuable by the new administration or mandated by Congress should be transferred to the Treasury, which can more effectively oversee taxpayer dollars. Taxpayer subsidies to higher education institutions that fail to serve students effectively should be reconsidered,” Vallas added. “If the DOE’s primary objective was to improve education outcomes, it has failed spectacularly. Today, reading and math scores are near historic lows despite dramatic increases in funding… Real accountability is long overdue.”

My take.

Reminder: "My take" is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• I’m not sure exactly how the push to end the Department of Education will play out.
• There’s a reasonable argument for eliminating the department and reallocating its responsibilities.
• Still, I think Trump would be wise to reform the agency rather than deleting it.

Before exploring this idea in earnest, I want to take some time to flesh out the meaning of calls to “eliminate,” “dismantle,” or “defund” the Education Department from the president’s conservative allies. Right off the bat, I was surprised to see that the actual people with the plans weren’t calling for the outright removal of the programs and funding that comprise the bulk of the department’s activity. 

For instance, Project 2025’s playbook for ending ED calls on the president “to redistribute the various congressionally approved federal education programs across the government” — that is, to preserve ED programs but simply move them to other governmental departments. Betsy DeVos, the former education secretary who has also called for abolishing the agency, similarly just explained how her plan would reassign the department’s responsibilities to other departments. Linda McMahon, the current education secretary, says federal money will keep flowing directly to the states and that it is “not the president’s goal to defund the programs,” but only “to have [the department] operate more efficiently.” 

So, we’ll “defund” the department, but the money will “keep flowing.” We’ll “dismantle” it, but really redistribute its programs across the government. We’ll “eliminate” it, but actually reassign its various responsibilities to other agencies. When you add that actually eliminating ED will require an act of Congress and 60 Senate votes (as Ramesh Ponnuru wrote under “What the right is saying”), what actually ends up happening is not at all clear to me.

My opinion on this idea has changed a lot over the last decade or so. The Department of Education has existed for my entire life, so when Trump first began pushing this idea in his 2016 campaign, it sounded totally crazy to me. Defund ED? Who would teach? Who would create curriculums? How would our public schools stay funded? 

I was subsequently surprised to learn then that ED has very little to do with curriculum or employing teachers, and that its role in funding public schools is fractional. It was elevated to a cabinet-level agency recently — in 1979 — and as recently as President Obama’s term it faced organized opposition from teachers. When you read what ED actually does, and listen to what the Trump administration is really calling for, it all begins to sound much less absurd. 

The Department of Education is responsible for about 14% of all funding that goes to our K–12 schools, and at the same time the department’s reach into state and local education has gone incredibly far. Through the power of the purse, the Education Department now wields a great deal of influence over how parents, teachers, and schools behave. At the same time, a lot of what ED does could be easily moved to other departments (for instance, I think it’s pretty easy to argue that ED’s Office for Civil Rights could move to the Department of Justice).

Some writers, like Cato’s Neal McCluskey, have made straightforward arguments that we don’t need a federal education agency when the federal government isn’t allowed to regulate education, and that the department itself is neither competent nor effective. At the very least, I think one of ED’s biggest responsibilities — its federal student loan programs — has gotten completely out of control. When higher-education costs have exploded and the president responds to those costs by forgiving hundreds of billions in student debt, moving that responsibility somewhere else makes sense. Writers on the left and right have made the case that the Treasury would be better suited to manage and oversee student loans, and I’m inclined to agree with them.

All things considered, my general view is that ED is not really emblematic of a thriving, successful expansion of federal government — and while trying to “delete” it with Musk-level tact or care would be a disaster, I also think Congress (if it wanted) could significantly reduce ED’s role in American life, turn over its responsibilities to other federal agencies, and streamline a lot of the work it does as a department. 

The problem with the current debate is that doing so wouldn’t really reduce the size of the federal government — and it wouldn’t save us all that much money, either. Instead, the administration would just create a whole lot of disruption, risk interrupting popular services, and probably lose the political debate in the public square — all to simply pass on one department’s responsibilities to others.

On top of all that, this administration rightly views the Education Department as ideologically captured by the left, and trying to break up all of its functions across government could miss a simpler, more straightforward opportunity to try to push the ideological tilt of the agency back toward the center. In other words, they could simply use the existing department to push for more school choice and student loan reform, rather than rolling a grenade into the building. That might be less work and offer more results. 

Whatever course they take, I think it’s safe to say that even the administration isn’t sure where this is going. The White House recently pulled the signing of an order to “end” ED over fears of public blowback, and they’ve yet to explain how they’ll do much of anything when 60 or so Republicans in the House voted against similar proposals as recently as 2023. As Ponnuru noted, even splashy, one-sentence legislation to “terminate” the ED wouldn’t end federal funding for public schools or other programs Congress has authorized. 

For now, I think it’s safe to say Trump is muddling a lot of promises and providing very little clarity on what the Education Department’s future really is.

Take the survey: What do you think should happen to the Department of Education? Let us know!

Disagree? That's okay. My opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we'll consider publishing your feedback.

Help share Tangle.

I'm a firm believer that our politics would be a little bit better if everyone were reading balanced news that allows room for debate, disagreement, and multiple perspectives. If you can take 15 seconds to share Tangle with a few friends I'd really appreciate it — just click the button below and pick some people to email it to!

• Email Tangle to a friend by clicking here.
• Share Tangle on X/Twitter by clicking here.
• Share Tangle on Facebook by clicking here.

Your questions, answered.

Q: Is it true that anyone who received a pardon from either President Biden or Trump is prohibited from taking the Fifth if called to testify by Congress or the Justice Department? If so could the pardons backfire on either side by testimony coming out, and what are Tangle’s thoughts on the likelihood of this?

—Brett from Memphis, TN

Tangle: Three questions there. First, can someone who was pardoned of federal crimes still plead Fifth Amendment protections against self incrimination if that person is subpoenaed to Congress? Mostly yes, they can. The Fifth Amendment can be invoked by any individual or organization in response to any individual question in any legal testimony — be that during a felony, civil, misdemeanor, or congressional hearing. The only constraints placed on the right against self incrimination is that it only applies to testimony (not, say, giving a blood sample), it must be supplied promptly to an individual question (as opposed to a blanket declaration), and must protect against a potential criminal investigation.

Second, can someone pardoned by the president plead the Fifth? According to Supreme Court precedent from the 1896 case Brown v. Walker, since the threat of legal jeopardy no longer exists, the Fifth Amendment does not preclude a witness from answering questions related to crimes for which they were pardoned. Therefore, someone like Anthony Fauci could be called to testify before Congress, and if he ignores the subpoena or dodges questions on anything that happened from 2014–2024, he can be found in contempt of Congress. The caveat to that caveat is that it only applies to federal crimes, so he could still plead the Fifth to questions that could open him up to state-level prosecution.

Third, is it likely that President Biden or Trump accidentally opened the door to congressional subpoenas? It’s tough to say given how difficult it is to predict the political future; but the Republican House calling Fauci or Gen. Mark A. Milley to testify is easy to imagine. However, it’s harder to imagine any pardoned witness, get-out-of-jail-free card in hand, dodging testimony so egregiously that they’d risk contempt of Congress.

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.

Under the radar.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) said he will sign a bill that bans the use of fluoride in public water systems, making Utah the first U.S. state to enact such a ban. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 72% of the U.S. population on community-water systems received fluoridated water in 2022, though Cox said half of his state already does not have fluoride in its water. Most public health agencies and doctors support small amounts of fluoride in public water to prevent cavities and tooth decay. However, some prominent critics — including Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — have pushed to end the practice, arguing that high fluoride exposure is linked to neurodevelopmental problems. “It’s got to be a really high bar for me if we’re going to require people to be medicated by their government,” Cox said. The Wall Street Journal has the story.

Numbers.

• 1867. The year Congress created the first Department of Education as an agency to collect information and statistics about the nation's schools. 
• 1868. The year the Department of Education was demoted to an Office of Education following concerns that it would exercise too much control over local schools. 
• $15,000 and 4. The budget and number of employees, respectively, of the Department of Education/Office of Education in the 1860s. 
• 13.6%. The percent of funding for public K-12 education provided by the federal government. 
• $1.6 trillion. The approximate amount of student loan debt (for roughly 43.2 million recipients) managed by the Department of Education as of September 2023.
• 4,178. The current number of ED employees, making it the smallest cabinet-level agency.
• $268.0 billion. The amount spent by the ED in fiscal year 2024, the sixth-most of any federal agency.  
• $160.7 billion. The amount of ED spending in FY 2024 that went toward federal student aid.

The extras.

• One year ago today we had just published a Friday edition of reader responses to our Zionist case for a ceasefire.
• The most clicked link in Thursday’s newsletter was Trump’s announcement exempting Mexican imports under the USMCA from tariffs.
• Nothing to do with politics: Presented without comment: shrekdotorg.neocities.org
• Thursday’s survey: 2,898 readers answered our survey on tariffs with 45% calling them mostly bad. “Tariffs as a means of protection for American manufacturers and workers is in theory a good thing. However, across the board tariffs on products that don't have the manufacturing capabilities in place in the United States makes zero sense,” one respondent said.

Have a nice day.

After Joshua Clark lost his home in Hurricane Ida and experienced the fallout from wildfires in California, he set out to help address the devastation caused by natural disasters. Clark created Ark Container Homes, which builds natural and durable container homes meant to survive extreme weather. These homes are fire-proof, fully insulated and retail from $39,997 to $69,997, with portions of sales in California going to community fire brigades. “Our mission is simple: provide homes that stand the test of time, delivering unmatched durability, comfort, and peace of mind,” Ark’s website states. Good Good Good has the story.

Don't forget...

📣 Share Tangle on Twitter here, Facebook here, or LinkedIn here.

🎧 We have a podcast you can listen to here.

🎥 Follow us on Instagram here or subscribe to our YouTube channel here

💵 If you like our newsletter, drop some love in our tip jar.

🎉 Want to reach 340,000+ people? Fill out this form to advertise with us.

📫 Forward this to a friend and tell them to subscribe (hint: it's here).

🛍 Love clothes, stickers and mugs? Go to our merch store!