How Would Shutting Down the Education Department Disrupt Public Schools?

The most recent victim of Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s gutting of public departments and social programs is the Department of Education. And since most Americans have no idea what each branch of the government actually does, we took some time to investigate what the impact of shutting down the Department of Education would have.

We have limited our analysis to immediate and verifiable consequences. While pundits on all political sides might use hypotheticals, misinformation, or noble goals to justify shutting it down or keeping it open, we will not. We use only the impacts and consequences that experts and analysts agree will happen immediately or very soon.

Background on the Department of Education

The Department of Education was elevated to a cabinet position by President Carter and was immediately attacked and despised by Republicans. Ronald Reagan made dismantling, defunding, and eliminating the Department of Education a hallmark of his campaign and presidency. He was successful in significantly cutting funding for education, leading to many of the education and school issues we face today.

Ever since then, Republican lawmakers have repeatedly introduced legislation and fought to eliminate the Department of Education, but it can only be completely eliminated by a vote from Congress.

Trump and Musk have gotten around this issue by simply cutting funding to the department, which, along with many of their other actions, has thrown the legality and future of the government into chaos.

Delays to Student Financial Aid

Students attending college or university who rely on federal student loans, grants, or even government scholarships will start to see the tuition payments for their schooling delayed, reduced, or even canceled. Even a single semester or term left unpaid means that all the time and money invested in a degree are worthless.

The government pays for tuition for many students because it understands that education is an investment and that an educated population pays more taxes with better jobs and grows the economy faster. Eliminating this education financial aid not only means poor students will no longer be able to get educated, it means long-term damage to the economy and tax revenue.

Reduced Federal Funding

The funding provided by the Department of Education pays for more than just tuition. It helps schools pay for salaries, hiring, education resources, school meals, safety, first aid, and more. In a country where teachers are already having to buy classroom supplies with their own limited salary, cutting federal funding will cause more problems than just fewer textbooks. It could mean schools become less safe, even dangerous, and teachers will have to work harder with older and less effective materials. Schools in richer neighborhoods will get more money while those in poor neighborhoods might even be forced to close, exacerbating wealth inequality, crime, and child homelessness.

Employee Cuts

Teachers and educators are already leaving education in droves due to low pay and low appreciation, along with higher requirements and workloads than ever before. And as public funding is reduced, schools will be unable to hire good teachers to replace them or even retain the good teachers they already have. In fact, federal funding is essential for thousands of schools to pay their existing staff, which means that very soon schools will have to choose which teachers to let go in order to make ends meet. (Schools won’t be able to use salary funding for other purposes and vice-versa as federal money is often earmarked for specific purposes.)

Unpredictable School Funding

Because there is no plan for what Elon Musk and Donald Trump are doing, there is no guarantee that shutting down the Department of Education won’t be combined with additional laws or executive orders that impact schools and education funding. There is no guarantee that any programs or funding unaffected by the shutdown won’t also be eliminated. Together, this means that schools can’t effectively plan or budget for future years. Inadequate budgets mean fewer school extracurriculars and arts and education because schools won’t know if they will have the money for them.

Falling Educational Outcomes

Increased classroom sizes, cheaper teachers, shorter schooldays, fewer extracurriculars, fewer education resources for struggling students, fewer school counselors, older and less experienced teachers, and outdated materials (along with innumerable other things) all mean that for the same amount of time, a student spends in school, they will be learning less now that the Department of Education is shut down. Students will be doing more busy work and teachers will be less able to actually help students with learning and spend more time trying to control a huge class.

Many have argued that this is the entire point of shutting down the Department of Education. As public schools (the responsibility of the government) fail, private schools will step in to fill the gap, but only in neighborhoods where the people are rich enough to pay for it.

This has been the playbook with other government departments and programs over the last century.

Different Impacts Vary by State

Republican states receive more money, per student (in more areas than just education as well), than Democrat states. This means that some states will see their students and young people become effectively dumber, or at least less intelligent than the students in other states that are better able to fund their schools.

Increased Child Starvation and Vagrancy

Because of weak labor protections, non-existent wage growth, and our sky-high wealth inequality, thousands of families across the country rely on public school to keep their children educated, safe, and actually at the school so that both parents (or the only parent in a single-parent household) can work. Many more rely on school lunch and breakfast programs to help them feed their children.

Without funding from the government, child starvation will increase. (Yes, children are actually starving to death in the United States). Schools that close or schools that can’t keep track of all their students effectively either mean that a parent will have to stay home with the children and be able to work, leading to homelessness, or leave the children at home, or take the children to work with them. All of these situations lead to less income and more crime.

No Special Education Funding

Funding for special education programs around the country comes from the Department of Education. The cutting of this funding means that families can’t learn how to help their children but also the children themselves won’t have any affordable education resources.

No More Education Research

The Department of Education is responsible for “collecting data on America’s schools and disseminating research.” It is also responsible for directing the government’s attention to key issues in our education system and recommending education changes to the president. Without this work, there will be no reliable, regular data on our education system, if it is working, how it can improve, and how it is falling behind or progressing. We will have an education system of the blind leading the blind.

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