Education experts applauded President Donald Trump for sending educational issues back to the states with the signing of a long-awaited executive order dismantling the Education Department on Thursday.
“It’s past time for a radical rethink of how education is administered in this country, because we cannot keep propping up a failing system,” Nicole Neily, President and Founder of Parents Defending Education (PDE), told Fox News Digital in a statement.
Trump signed an executive order on Thursday “returning education, very simply, back to the states where it belongs.”
“Today we take an historic action that was 45 years in the making,” Trump said of the decades-long conservative push to disassemble the department that dates back to former President Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
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“The numbers don’t lie – over the past 45 years, per pupil spending has skyrocketed while achievement has plummeted,” Neily said. “The status quo has very clearly failed American children and done little more than line the pockets of bureaucrats and activists.”
US President Donald Trump holds an executive order after signing it in the East Room of the White house in Washington, DC, March 20, 2025. (Mandel Ngan)
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Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation for Children, said that “with this executive order, President Trump continues taking steps to fulfill his campaign promises on education, and now it is time for Congress to send school choice legislation to his desk so that he can fulfill his other mandate to the voters.”
Schultz told Fox News Digital that in signing the order, Trump “brought down a failed bureaucratic machine in DC, and brought school choice to every state.”
Moms for Liberty, a pro-parent political advocacy group, called the move an opportunity to “seize this moment to shape the future of learning!”
Morning sun lights the front of the Department of Education building, amid reports that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration will take steps to defund the federal Education Department, in Washington, U.S., February 4, 2025. (Kevin Lamarque)
“This is an incredible chance to empower parents and local communities to take charge of education, instead of letting Washington bureaucrats make the decisions!” the group wrote in a post on X.
The White House, ahead of the signing ceremony, pointed to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores showing low testing averages among students as an example of the department not working effectively to improve education.
“NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores reveal a national crisis — our children are falling behind,” Harrison Fields, the White House principal deputy press secretary, told Fox News. “Over the past four years, Democrats have allowed millions of illegal minors into the country, straining school resources and diverting focus from American students.”
Margaret Spellings, Bipartisan Policy Center President and CEO, said in a statement that “parents and students are deeply frustrated by the state of our education system” and that “the president’s use of NAEP data in the executive order to highlight the recent trend of declining math and reading scores demonstrates the need to act immediately.”
US President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Kent Nishimura)
“The executive order is largely what was expected but it also included an important directive to continue funding beneficial programs like Pell grants, Title I, and IDEA ‘uninterrupted.’ That’s a welcomed commitment but taxpayers must also know what they are getting for their money,” Spellings added. “Recent layoffs at the department will make following through on that commitment a challenge.”
“The hard work begins now among Congress, the Trump Administration, and families to determine how best to serve students,” she said.
While many facets of the department will be gutted, Title I funding, resources for students with disabilities, and Pell Grants will be preserved, according to Trump.
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Trump’s order kick-started the effort to begin disassembling the department. However, the entire agency cannot be outright abolished unless Congress passes legislation that addresses the laws establishing the department.
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