WASHINGTON – For nearly three decades, EdTrust has stood on the frontlines to ensure that every student, especially our most underserved, receives the high-quality education they deserve. We have not wavered in that mission and will not turn our backs on the students and families now under attack by this administration. Make no mistake, the sole purpose of dismantling the Department of Education is to erode the public’s trust in an institution that currently serves more than 50 million K-12 students and 15 million students in post-secondary education and destroy the guardrails that have long served to open up educational opportunities for all students — particularly students of color, students from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, and multilingual learners.

Today’s call to dismantle ED and return education to the states is not new — but it’s also neither effective nor prudent. When given increased flexibility to address pandemic recovery, few states took on the challenge. Also, when allowed to innovate under the Every Student Succeeds Act, which states originally asked for, very few states stepped up to the challenge. And we have more than enough evidence of what happens when states are provided federal funding without guardrails: they are more inclined to use these dollars to fill budget holes than allocate dollars to the students who need the most attention and support to succeed. Expansions of voucher programs, enthusiastically endorsed by the administration in this order, only rip already-limited funding from public schools, sending it to unaccountable private schools that don’t have to serve all students, and don’t improve outcomes for the students they do accept.

Our mission is clear: EdTrust will not stand by while this administration systematically dismantles public education and strips away critical services and protections from our nation’s underserved students. Terminating the Department of Education has been a clear goal of Project 2025, which is rife with terrible ideas that would inflict harm on students and schools nationwide.
The confirmation of Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education only ensures that this perilous plan will be carried out.

The Department of Education is not just another federal bureaucracy; it’s the watchdog ensuring all students, including students of color, students with disabilities, multilingual learners, and students from low-income backgrounds, have equal access to quality education. This is not the time to abandon our nation’s students — the future of America depends on them.

To read more on why dismantling the Department of Education is a dangerous plan, read our blog post: Why Returning Education Entirely to the States is a Dangerous Proposition.

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