The Trump Administration is taking significant steps to shutter the Department of Education.
On Tuesday, nearly half of the Dept. of education workforce was let go. A senior department official confirmed to The Hill that 1,315 staffers will be let go and received the notification Tuesday.
The Education Department started President Trump’s second term with more than 4,000 employees, but even before Tuesday, hundreds had already been put on leave or had taken a buyout offer.
After this reduction, there will be 2,183 employees left with the department, which Trump has repeatedly called to shutter completely.
The senior official said the reduction in employees will not impact student aid, Free Application for Federal Student Aid forms, formula funding to states, operations for students with disabilities, civil rights investigations or any statute-mandated obligations from Congress.
The department focused this layoff on teams that were reductive or unnecessary, they said.
“Every part of the department will be impacted in some way but this is primarily a streamlining effort for internal facing rules, not external facing roles,” the official said, giving examples such as finding six separate strategic communication functions for different offices that will be consolidated.
The announcement comes after the federal agency told staffers to leave the offices by 6 p.m. EDT Tuesday and that offices would be closed Wednesday due to “security reasons.”
The official said the decision was made to keep the remaining employees safe and that those laid off will be scheduled to come in before March 21 to collect their things.
While the complete abolishment of the department can’t happen without an act of Congress, which is unlikely due to the 60-vote threshold needed in the Senate to overcome a filibuster, the administration and Education Secretary Linda McMahon can make changes to significantly weaken it.
