With the Education Department closed Wednesday, Democrats are lashing out while Republicans celebrate the decision to lay off nearly half of its workforce.
“Donald Trump holds the future of 50 million public school students across America in his hands, and today he told those kids and their parents he doesn’t give a damn about them,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement.
“Trump and the billionaire megadonor he installed as Education Secretary are pickpocketing our public schools, which will lead to ballooning class sizes, fewer teachers and aides, and a lower quality of education for our kids,” he added.
The scathing statement came after Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced the department would cut more than 1,300 employees. It is closed Wednesday to facilitate the transition and will reopen Thursday.
The Education Department has been the target of conservative ire ever since it opened during former President Jimmy Carter’s administration, with Republicans describing it as a slush fund for unaccountable teachers unions and pledging to shut it down.
McMahon said the cuts at the department’s Washington headquarters will not affect young students and will lead to more funding going to the nation’s schools rather than to federal bureaucrats.
“Better education is closest to the kids, with parents, with local superintendents, with local school boards,” McMahon said on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle. “I think we’ll see our scores go up with our students when we can educate them with parental input as well.”
She further argued that the deep cuts will fight “bloat” at the Education Department, allowing the Trump administration to send “more money” to the states.
President Donald Trump backed the employee cuts on Wednesday, saying “many of them don’t work at all” and that “we’re keeping the best ones.”
“They’re not showing up to work,” Trump said. “They’re not doing a good job.”
Of the 4,133 Education Department staff members Trump inherited, 259 accepted the deferred “fork in the road” resignations, 313 accepted separation payments of $25,000, 63 probationary employees were let go last month, and another 1,315 will now be laid off.
Anyone let go will get 90 days of full pay and benefits, plus one week of pay for every year of service up to 10 years and two weeks of pay for every year of service beyond 10 years. Department officials described the severance package as “extremely generous.”
While that is a victory in the eyes of Republicans, Democrats and teachers union leadership were apoplectic.
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said she was “really angry” at the layoffs, which she said were “taking opportunity” away from children.
“Many of America’s global competitors — and adversaries — are no doubt cheering President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education,” Weingarten posted on X. “They know that countries who out-educate the rest of the world will out-compete it.”
The cuts are the latest controversy in Trump’s plans to slash the federal workforce with the help of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Even bigger changes could be coming soon.
Trump is reportedly preparing an executive order to dismantle the department, similar to the way he targeted the U.S. Agency for International Development after taking office.
And while lasting cuts could require cooperation from Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he is “fully in support” of efforts to eliminate the department. He blamed teachers unions themselves for problems in U.S. schools.
McMahon “is talking about efficiency and accountability,” Johnson said. “She is talking about directing resources to the places they matter the most, and that’s to the hands of the local school boards, to parents who can direct their children’s education. So this is a time for change.”
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
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