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Following the Department of Education’s announcement of significant staff reductions, President Trump downplayed the impact on those who were let go. While initially expressing sympathy, he then suggested that many of the employees were unproductive, stating, “Many of them don’t work at all,” during a meeting with the Irish Prime Minister, Micheál Martin, in the Oval Office. He added, “Many of them didn’t show up to work unfortunately.”
On Tuesday, the Department of Education revealed the elimination of 1,300 positions, furthering Trump’s goal of reducing the federal government’s involvement in education. The department’s workforce has been reduced by approximately half through recent layoffs and buyout offers, down from 4,100 employees at the end of the Biden administration. Additionally, the department is terminating leases on office spaces in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and New York. The Education Department’s headquarters was temporarily closed on Wednesday, reopening the following day.
“When we cut, we want to cut the people who aren’t working,” Trump stated. “We want to keep the best people.” He described the cuts as part of his vision to decentralize education and shift control to the states. While state authorities already oversee public school curricula, the Department of Education manages college loan programs, Pell grants, and distributes funds to states for specific educational initiatives. These rapid staff reductions are part of a broader effort across the federal government spearheaded by Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has recently focused on the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Trump’s campaign platform included a pledge to abolish the Department of Education entirely. In a memo titled “Our Department’s Final Mission,” issued on March 3, the same day of her Senate confirmation, Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote that Trump had “tasked us with accomplishing the elimination of bureaucratic bloat.”
William Bennett, who served as Education Secretary under Ronald Reagan, commented on Fox News Wednesday that McMahon’s cuts were too extensive and lacked specificity. “It’s hard for me to believe she knows who the best people are. It may be right you can probably get by with 20% of that staff, but you got to carefully do it by going through who’s working and who’s not.” During his presidency, Reagan also vowed to dismantle the Department of Education, but his efforts were thwarted by a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.
