White House preparing executive order to abolish the Department of Education

The White House is preparing an executive order to eliminate the Department of Education, two sources familiar with the plans told NBC News. 

President Donald Trump cannot unilaterally abolish a federal agency without the approval of Congress.

The planned order follows years of campaign promises from Trump to abolish the federal Education Department.

In September 2023, the then-candidate posted a video to social media saying, “One other thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington D.C., and sending all education and education work and needs back to the states.”

“In total American society pours more than $1 trillion a year into public education systems but instead of being at the top of the list, we are literally right smack — guess what — at the bottom,” Trump said earlier in the video.

Last week, Trump signed another education-related order to expand school choice, directing the Education Department to issue guidance to states within 60 days about how they can use federal funds to boost school choice programs in their states.

School choice has long been a cornerstone of the GOP agenda, with a significant number of Republican-led states freeing up more funding in recent years for low-income families to send their students to private or charter schools.

In recent years, “cleaning out” or fully abolishing the federal Department of Education has also become a leading Republican policy plank.

In the Republican presidential primary, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy called for eliminating the Department of Education while on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania in 2023. And former United Nations Amb. Nikki Haley said she would “clean out the Department of Education” if elected during a 2023 campaign stop in New Hampshire.

In a July 2024 campaign email, Trump laid out his other priorities for American education, which included cutting federal funding for any schools or programs pushing “critical race theory,” opening civil rights investigations into schools discriminating against Asian Americans, implementing a new credentialing system to certify teachers who “embrace patriotic values,” and “find[ing] and remov[ing] radicals who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education.”