US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order aimed at "abolishing" the Department of Education, a decades-long goal of the American right-wing who want individual states to run schools independent of the federal government. Surrounded by schoolchildren seated at desks in the East Room of the White House, Trump signed the order at a special ceremony and smiled as he passed it on.
Trump said the order would "abolish the federal education department forever." "We're going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible. It's not doing us any good. We're going to put education back in the states where it belongs," Trump said.
The Department of Education, created in 1979, cannot be closed without congressional approval, but Trump's order would likely result in its funding being stopped and employees not being paid.
This move is one of Trump's election promises and is one of the most drastic changes in the government so far, which Trump is carrying out with the help of tech giant Elon Musk.
The order directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to "take all steps necessary to close the Department of Education and return education authority to the states."
Democrats and educators have denounced the move.
Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, called it a “tyrannical power grab” and “one of the most devastating and destructive actions Donald Trump has ever taken.”
Republican leaders including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott were present at the signing ceremony.
Trump has described the move as necessary to save money and improve educational standards in the United States, claiming that the US lags behind Europe and China.
But education has been a battleground in America’s culture wars for decades, and Republicans have long sought to strip control of it from the federal government.
