Continued
"... Some administration officials, including the team working with
Education Secretary nominee Linda McMahon, say the White House should wait to release any executive order until after McMahon’s Senate confirmation hearing, people familiar with the matter said. McMahon’s hearing hasn’t been scheduled, as the Senate is awaiting her ethics paperwork. Some Trump advisers worried that the White House’s recent
freeze on federal assistance complicated Russell Vought’s confirmation as director of the Office of Management and Budget, and they are eager to avoid a similar scenario that could endanger McMahon.
... The Education Department is among the agencies that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is looking at as part of its efforts to overhaul federal bureaucracy, the people said.
Some of Musk’s representatives were working out of the main Education Department building in Washington.
Fully abolishing the department would require an act of Congress, and lawmakers have for years shown little interest in doing so. Trump unsuccessfully
tried to merge the education and labor departments in his first term.
...
Trump’s aides could replicate the approach they used to disassemble the core functions of the U.S. Agency for International Development. [MY NOTE - Note the past tense/fait accompli treatment on USAID disassembly]
In recent days, Musk’s representatives have gained access to sensitive documents at the agency, shut down its website, deactivated email addresses and told employees not to come to the office.
Eliminating the Education Department—or even cutting funding to it—could be politically risky. A
recent Wall Street Journal poll found that 61% of registered voters opposed getting rid of it. Most Americans preferred to protect funding for education and other domestic priorities over cutting taxes, the same poll found.
The Education Department was created in 1979 under former President Jimmy Carter, urged on by the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union. In terms of head count, the Education Department is the
smallest of all the cabinet-level agencies.
The existence of the education department is codified in law, and so is much of what it does.
Key activities include providing grants for low-income students, regulating how schools serve students with disabilities, enforcing civil-rights laws, and administering the federal student-loan program. ..."