President Trump took dramatic action Thursday to inch closer to fulfilling a four-and-a-half-decade-old conservative dream of abolishing the Department of Education, which was created in 1979 under the late former President Jimmy Carter.

“The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday. “This president is finally taking much-needed action to return education to where it belongs — and that’s to educators closest to students in their classrooms.”

Last year, the Department of Education had a $268 billion budget, which amounted to about 4% of federal outlays. There are 17 offices in the department. When Trump took office, it had about 4,133 workers, now the administration claims there are about 2,183 on staff.

https://nypost.com/2025/03/20/us-news/trump-is-moving-to-gut-the-department-of-education-heres-what-it-does/