A maze, not a system: How students lose when the U.S. Department of Education is dismantled

By Lina Lenis, policy analyst, K-12 education

With contributions from Magin Sanchez, senior policy analyst, higher education and Hannah Valdiviejas Cohn, policy analyst, early childhood education

Summary: Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced and attempted to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. Only Congress has the authority to disband federal agencies, but that hasn’t stopped executive overreach as the Trump administration laid off thousands of the department’s staff. The latest attempt to exceed its authority is the Trump administration’s efforts to scatter core and critical functions of the Department of Education across four other federal agencies that are ill-equipped to take on these new responsibilities, lacking the expertise or capacity to support student learning.  The results will harm students, parents and educators and will continue to have long-term consequences for education nationwide.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration escalated its efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, dispersing its core functions across agencies that lack the expertise or capacity to support student learning. The Education Department was created to ensure every student gets a fair shot at a quality education and serves as a one-stop shop for families and school leaders, helping them spend funds effectively, guarding against discrimination and stepping in when schools don’t meet their responsibilities.

Rather than promoting efficiency or empowering states, as the Trump administration purports, this plan is expected to create new hurdles for families, educators, schools and states. They will now have to navigate a tangled web of federal agencies and offices for basic guidance on supporting students. This decentralization invites bureaucratic ping-pong, leaving no single agency accountable for safeguarding taxpayer dollars or student outcomes. The earliest warning sign: The department isn’t even answering  its current help lines.

The dismantling is being driven  by six interagency agreements, a tool traditionally used to help agencies collaborate and share data. Instead, this move offloads the full responsibilities of entire offices onto agencies never designed to carry them. For instance, the U.S. Department of Labor is set to take over the responsibilities of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), which oversees school quality and key funding programs for low-income students and English learners, among others.  These offices have already been gutted by recent rounds of layoffs, with many jobs still at risk after January 30, 2026, when Congress’s agreement to fund the government ends.

Experts and advocates argue that this circumvents the law, as only Congress has the authority to dissolve a federal agency.

Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, calls this an “outright illegal effort to continue dismantling the Department of Education, and it is students and families who will suffer the consequences.”

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) also said she “strongly [opposes] the administration’s effort to circumvent the law by dumping critical programs onto other agencies simply because there are not sufficient votes in Congress to eliminate the Department.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon has repeatedly dismissed the agency she leads as
“unnecessary.” With the transfer of critical functions to other agencies, it’s worth examining what’s actually on the line.

• Which offices in the agency are most impacted?

• More importantly, what do these offices actually do and are they as “unnecessary” as the Secretary claims?

K-12 Education: What could go wrong?  

Which office has been impacted? The Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) has now shifted to the Labor Department.

Why is this office important?  OESE manages the largest share of federal K–12 programs and funding, including the $18.4 billion Title I program for schools serving high concentrations of low-income students.

How will this affect students? Latino students are the most likely to attend such high-poverty schools. If funding is delayed or miscalculated, students attending high poverty schools may not get academic support, like tutoring.

OESE oversees school quality and provides annual data on how schools and all students, including subgroups, are performing. As a result of the move, academic rigor in math and reading could decline, as accountability standards and school improvement goals go unmonitored. Parents may lose access to annual data on how well schools serve student groups, and students could end up with less-prepared teachers as professional development programs fall by the wayside.

English learners would also be uniquely harmed, as they could fail to receive tailored supports that help them develop English proficiency while keeping up with subjects like math and science. The Office of English Language Acquisition (OLEA), which manages the Title III English Language Acquisition program, is also being transferred to the Department of Labor — at least, what’s left of it. In March, the Trump Administration slashed OELA from 13 staff to just one and demoted OELA from a standalone office, folding it into the OESE. OESE also oversees dozens of grants supporting teacher training, students experiencing homelessness, charter schools and literacy efforts.

Higher education: Confusing and duplicative responsibilities 

Which office has been impacted? The Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE).

Why is this office important? Numerous college access and success grant programs will now be overseen by the Labor Department. This includes Federal TRIO, GEAR UP, the Fund for Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) and institutional support grants, such as for historically Black colleges and universities.

Confusingly, certain policy functions, such as the Office of the Undersecretary of Education and the Federal Student Aid Office, which oversees student loans and the FAFSA, will remain managed by the Education Department.

How will this affect students? The additional bureaucratic red-tape service providers and institutions must navigate between two agencies will only further hamstring the ability to support low-income, first-generation college students.  A preview of such problems can be seen through the department’s decision to move the management of its career and technical education offices to Labor over the summer. “Technical problems, communication lapses, and scant preparation” hampered the distribution of funding for such programs.

Undermining student success in the name of child care 

Which office will be impacted? The Trump administration is proposing to shift the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program from the Office of Postsecondary Education to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), effectively pulling a key student-parent support out of the higher education ecosystem altogether.

Why is this office important? The core purpose of CCAMPIS is to help low-income parenting students stay enrolled and complete their degrees, and while HHS plays an important role in supporting child care, relocating the program risks shifting its focus away from student success. That shift could dilute the very outcomes CCAMPIS was designed to strengthen. CCAMPIS is already facing delayed grants and a proposed elimination in the federal budget and transferring it to a new agency introduces even more uncertainty.

How will this affect students? HHS would be forced to learn, adopt and manage an entirely new set of higher-education metrics it has never been responsible for, creating inefficiencies and raising questions about whether CCAMPIS would eventually be evaluated under shifting or inconsistent standards. Many CCAMPIS-funded centers also serve as practicum sites for early childhood education students. Cuts or closures would deepen educator shortages in an already strained field. At a time when student parents already face higher dropout rates, shifting CCAMPIS away from the Education Department mirrors broader fragmentation that make it harder, not easier, for vulnerable students to stay in college.

More disruptions ahead  

The Trump administration has confirmed it may target at least two more essential offices:

• The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS).

• The Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

While not included in the interagency agreements, both have been hollowed by recent staff layoffs. OSERS lost 16 staff in March and was slated to lose nearly its entire workforce, 121 staff, until the October reduction in force was paused.

Why are these offices important? OSERS implements the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the landmark law guaranteeing students with disabilities an education tailored to meet their needs. OSERS oversees the $14.2 billion IDEA Part B program, which funds special education services for 7.6 million school-aged children.

How will this affect students? Schools may delay or fail to conduct timely evaluations, leaving students unidentified and without special education services. Students may lose access to accessible learning materials — like braille or audio formats — cutting them off from tools they need to fully participate in their education. For English learners with disabilities, the law requires they receive both language and special education services, but they may increasingly be denied both services.

Meanwhile, OCR enforces federal civil rights laws in education, primarily by investigating discrimination complaints from parents, educators and community members. For example, a parent of an English learner with a disability can file a complaint if their child receives only special education or only language services — rather than both, as the law requires. Parents can also file complaints if English learners get excluded from advanced courses or gifted and talented programs or if they do not receive information about their child’s education in a language they understand. In FY 2024 alone, OCR received 22,687 complaints, an 18% increase from the previous year.

Making matters worse, the Departments of Education and Justice recently rescinded guidance for schools on the civil rights protections of English learners and haven’t reinstated it despite significant backlash.

The fading promise of education as the Great Equalizer  

Education Secretary Linda McMahon argues that “the U.S. Department of Education is mostly a pass-through for funds that are best managed by the states.” But that misses the point. Dollars alone can’t examine why a district is failing Latino students, strengthen English language instruction or ensure students with disabilities get the services they’re entitled to. It’s the expert staff who turn funding into real progress, providing technical assistance, oversight and guidance that keep the system working.

As the administration fires these experts or shifts their responsibilities to agencies unequipped to handle them, Latino students and English learners stand to lose the most. When the people who make the system function disappear, the promise of education as the great equalizer disappears with them.