President Trump said Wednesday he wants to shut down the Department of Education as soon as possible.
“I’d like it to be closed immediately,” he told reporters in the Oval Office, describing the agency as “a big con job.”
He blasted the US education system for being ranked 40th in the world, but being ranked No. 1 for “cost per pupil.”
“Send it back to Iowa, to Idaho, Colorado,” Trump went on, keeping to his pledge to put education back to the states.
The 78-year-old president is reportedly considering issuing an executive order that would move many DOE functions to other agencies, only keeping those functions that are explicitly written in statute, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The order would call on Congress to pass a bill to completely dismantle the department, which was created in part through legislation enacted by President Jimmy Carter.
Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk will be going through the Department of Education to look for cost cuts, as he already did with the US Agency for International Development.
“He will be looking at education pretty quickly,” Trump said Friday about Musk’s plans.
Trump had campaigned on ending the Department of Education and sending education back to the states, and nominated Linda McMahon to spearhead the effort.
He has specifically called out the department for making education decisions in Washington, DC., far away from school districts across the country, and filling the curriculum with liberal content.
“We will drain the government education swamp and stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing,” Trump said at a rally in September.
