On Tuesday, several reports indicated that major shakeups are coming at the United States Department of Education (ED).
First, Semafor’s White House Correspondent, Shelby Talcott, took to her X account to announce that all ED offices in DC will be closed tomorrow (Wednesday) for “security reasons.”
All Education Department offices in DC will be closed tomorrow — no reason beyond “for security reasons” and workers instructed to leave by 6pm today, per source.
This was followed by NBC News Senior National Political Reporter Natasha Korecki, who announced:
ED Regional offices to be closed too until Thursday, according to memo we’ve reviewed.
Then, Shelby Talcott added:
Scoop: Per person familiar, “reduction in force” notices for the Education Department are expected to go out today at 6pm. Nearly half of the department is expected to be eliminated.
“Nearly half” doesn’t seem to align with some administration members gunning to shut down the ED completely, a notion that Education Secretary Linda McMahon claimed in an interview on Monday wasn’t on the table.
Linda McMahon tried to walk back the shutting down of the Department of Education despite previously noting her “mission” was to dismantle the agency.
On Friday, the president was expected to sign an executive order tasking his freshly confirmed education secretary to dissolve the federal department, before the White House reversed course.
McMahon later confirmed she believed her job is to secure a near-impossible three-fifths supermajority, or 60 votes, needed in the Senate to abolish the agency – but said that she would not simply walk away and abandon the department. Republicans currently hold a slim 53 to 47 seat majority in the Upper Chamber.
“This is not a turn off the lights and walk out of the department,” McMahon told NewsNation Friday. “It’s in close consultation with Congress and looking at how the needs of students can best be serviced.”
Anyone conversant with the Constitution and its restrictions on the federal government under the 10th Amendment (like me) might be tempted to ask, “Why only half?”
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President Trump has, as of this writing, demurred from signing the proposed executive order directing the Education Secretary to shut down the department, and as constitutionally satisfying as that would be, there are evidently legislative issues that have to go through Congress to be resolved. The odds of such a measure getting past the filibuster in the Senate, where Republicans are seven seats shy of a filibuster-proof majority, are so small as to be non-existent. For now.
Nevertheless, this looks like a big shakeup. Should these hints prove accurate — while the reporters have presumably done their due diligence (we hope), the sources are nevertheless anonymous — this will result in a 50 percent reduction in the ED’s DC workforce and, presumably, in the regional offices as well.
When a commercial enterprise is in the red, one of the measures it might take is to reduce the workforce. Many of us have been involved in just such a “downsizing.” The United States is in the red to the tune of $36 trillion, and if we are to have any hope of recovering from this, then Washington has to pinch every available penny. The federal workforce will have to be on the table. Education now — and more later.
DOGE is finding billions of dollars in wasteful spending, and the Democrats are losing their minds as they realize their gravy train and woke projects are coming to an end.
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