The gutting gets the green light: When President Donald Trump took office, the federal Department of Education had about 4,000 employees, some of whom seemingly did things that the taxpayers found useful (but whose roles were always kind of unclear to me). Trump quickly took a pickaxe to the agencies and found that at least 1,300 of those employees were not actually needed.
The legality of those firings had been percolating through the courts. But yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration may continue with its plans to fire vast numbers of Education Department employees. "We will carry out the reduction in force to promote efficiency and accountability and to ensure resources are directed where they matter most—to students, parents, and teachers," said Education Secretary Linda McMahon in a statement. The administration would "return education to the states," but would "continue to perform all statutory duties" while "reducing education bureaucracy."
The Department of Education, according to The New York Times, "manages federal loans for college, tracks student achievement and enforces civil rights laws in schools." We don't actually need any of those functions as currently done. Let me explain.
