A.G. Gancarski
Gov. Ron DeSantis was in Washington when President Donald Trump signed his executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. But DeSantis says the presidential edict alone has limited efficacy.
“I think he can, from the inside, neuter the organization, but it will not be wiped off the statute books by an executive order. That has got to come from the Congress,” DeSantis said on “The Ingraham Angle.”
When asked if Congress would do what’s needed to get rid of the Department that was instituted in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter and criticized ever since on the Right, DeSantis said “probably not.”
“You can’t win a Republican Primary in this country as a Republican saying you want to keep the Department of Education. And so why aren’t they voting to codify?” DeSantis said.
“This is like so many other things President Trump’s done. They’re not codifying his immigration executive orders. They’re not codifying these things. So while this is good policy in the instant, we want it to stand the test of time. Congress has to be the ones to do that.”
It’s unclear how sweeping the changes will be, or even if there will be any unless Congress surprises DeSantis and takes action.
“Closing the Department does not mean cutting off funds from those who depend on them — we will continue to support K-12 students, students with special needs, college student borrowers, and others who rely on essential programs. We’re going to follow the law and eliminate the bureaucracy responsibly by working through Congress to ensure a lawful and orderly transition,” said Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
McMahon’s statement that the Department will work with student borrowers contradicts the language of the executive order itself.
“The Department of Education currently manages a student loan debt portfolio of more than $1.6 trillion. This means the Federal student aid program is roughly the size of one of the Nation’s largest banks, Wells Fargo,” the order reads.
“But although Wells Fargo has more than 200,000 employees, the Department of Education has fewer than 1,500 in its Office of Federal Student Aid. The Department of Education is not a bank, and it must return bank functions to an entity equipped to serve America’s students.”
The Department is cutting its staff. But without a reduction in functions by Congress, that may simply mean that it will just be less effective while tasked with the same statutory responsibilities it’s had for decades.
25 comments
Michael K
March 21, 2025 at 9:01 am
Pure performative political theater – including the use of children as human props. No serious, sound policy – just another smokescreen and boogeyman to cover up more huge tax cuts for billionaires. And the rubes just continue to salivate over the red meat.
Erica Ashley
March 21, 2025 at 5:02 pm
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Chuck Anziulewicz
March 21, 2025 at 9:05 am
I don’t think there are the votes in Congress to completely eliminate the Department of Education, so the co-presidents will do whatever they can to shrink it.
Peachy
March 21, 2025 at 9:30 am
Shrinking our over bloated and highly inefficient government is a good thing. Don’t you think?
Victoria Olson
March 21, 2025 at 11:30 am
The majority of Americans read & comprehend at a 5th grade level. So let’s cut education so we can have make people even more Stupid. I know why…..stupid people are easier to control because they are too stupid to know what evil men are slowly doing to them which want to make us working slaves. So if this is the world you don’t want call your Congressperson & Senator. Remember they Work for us We the People of the United States
jgo
March 23, 2025 at 9:04 am
The problem is that the decline in learning is traced to the hatching of the Department of Education with its proposal under LBJ and creation under Jimmah Cahtah.
Eliminating this counter-productive bureaucracy would help recover educational standards. (Keep NCES, though, to track the regress/progress, and include the info in the status of the USA messages.)
A hateful, racist, anti-Semitic Illiberal Leftist/ Dem/ Red/ Regressive/ Socialist/ Fascist/ Nazi/ Marxist/ Communist/ Bolshevik/ Stalinist/ Maoist/ Collectivist mind is a terrible thing to impose on children.
MH/Duuuval
March 24, 2025 at 6:42 pm
Others would argue that the high-stakes testing crowd — in Florida that was Jeb! — were where the country went wrong on education. All stick, no carrot. Opening the door to voucher schools that use taxpayer dollars without any taxpayer oversight.
A White Spiteful Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Watse
March 21, 2025 at 11:51 am
Cut NOAA , when a Cat 5 hurricane, obliterate the Florida coast with 150 miles winds and 30 ft tidal surge in Miami on July 8 2025 and do.pay people in Florida Fema recovery claims from past storms
MH/Duuuval
March 22, 2025 at 10:23 am
Shrinking our over bloated and highly inefficient government?
Right: Cut Social Security staffing and make old folks come in person to the office. Then invite Musk to fiddle with Social Security documents. And, finally, announce cuts from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are in the works.
All of this in order to give the top one percent and corporations a windfall tax break.
Skeptic
March 22, 2025 at 8:02 pm
From your phone to God’s ears. If only Emperor Elon and King Donald would support shrinking the bloat and inefficiencies in government instead of blowing up rockets, crashing cars with 404 auto-pilot programs and ketamine trolling on social media. The Department of Government Inefficiency may crash and burn anything that is nailed down (the stuff not nailed down will be gone by morning). If either of them could run a business that didn’t only exist to suck up taxpayer subsidies (Elon) or scam deluded customers (Donald), they might have views on efficiency that made economic sense.
Paul Passarelli
March 21, 2025 at 10:26 am
What boggles same minds is the politics of stupidity. The insistence that failed programs & failed departments deserve continued funding.
Michael K
March 21, 2025 at 10:42 am
Fun fact: Federal employees – who serve 342 million Americans – account for less than 2% of the US workforce – which is the same absolute level it was in 1969. And, the federal payroll accounts for about 6% of federal expenditures. In fact, the US federal government workforce is below that of other developed nations – Great Britain, Australia, Canada.
The only thing bloated is the egos of the current administration prioritizing huge tax cuts for billionaires at the expense of poor working people.
Peachy
March 21, 2025 at 10:59 am
The majority of my property tax bill goes to the public school system where I live. Fun fact.
FLPatriot
March 21, 2025 at 11:52 am
As it should to create an educated society. So we don’t repeat things like voting in low life fascists that destroy our country.
Skeptic
March 22, 2025 at 7:47 pm
Fun fact — none of your property tax goes to the federal government.
MH/Duuuval
March 23, 2025 at 11:40 am
Touche.
ScienceBLVR
March 21, 2025 at 11:05 am
My fear is if they are successful in decimating the DOE and simply send block grant funding to the states with no guidelines for spending, many groups of students will be marginalized and have their support funding eliminated. Think students with disabilities, low level readers, Title One services in high poverty schools , early childhood programs- all that serve students who benefit from specific federal funding. Can you imagine what happens and how those funds would be spent in Florida with this governor and legislature? Strip Mall Charter Schools here we come.
Ron Ogden
March 21, 2025 at 11:54 am
“Strip Mall Charter Schools here we come.”
And what is the matter with that? I would rather several small, neighborhood schools were located in under-used properties where students could attend without having to be bused halfway across town to one giant high school of the kind that were built in Florida 30 years and more ago. Effective teaching can take place in a grove of olive trees, as Plato famously showed. It doesn’t have to be some sort of educational megalith. Scientists who seem to think there is only one way of doing things are remarkably closed-minded. . .for scientists.
MH/Duuuval
March 22, 2025 at 10:28 am
You can”t have it both ways: either comprehensive neighborhood schools or less-comprehensive stores on every corner, most of the latter practicing religious indoctrination, discriminating in the employment of non-adherents, and selecting students with no physical or mental handicaps.
A White Spiteful Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Watse
March 21, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Who looking out for your children,not Republican politicians Google Trump Derangement Senator Arrest
Michael K
March 21, 2025 at 12:24 pm
Florida has the second-highest failure rate for unaccountable charter schools in the nation. One in four closes within five years – and more than 60% have failed in the past 20 years.
ScienceBLVR
March 21, 2025 at 2:14 pm
Absolutely correct, Michael, and when those “Mostly unaccountable Strip Mall Charter Schools” close, like the one in Pinellas that was formerly a Winn Dixie, students are thrown back to public schools with no funding because millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted in the set up and resources for the failed charter. Educational time is lost in translation, students fall behind and those that who need extra support truly struggle. Don’t have to be a scientist to know the results of these failed GOP led educational follies, although in my case 33+ years in public schools gives me a fairly informed perspective.
MH/Duuuval
March 22, 2025 at 10:31 am
Plus, it has been reported in the mainstream media that voucher schools will expel a student with behavioral or physical challenges — but keep the student’s allotment and throwing the responsibility on public schools.
Parents’ recourse in this situation? Good luck.
MH/Duuuval
March 22, 2025 at 10:38 am
And, if the property purchased by tax dollars for voucher school plants is sold later, the profit goes to the school operators and not back to the taxpayers.
There was an example of this in Duval in which $2 million was the selling price.
Skeptic
March 22, 2025 at 7:53 pm
Interesting that the lame duck does not mention how heavily Florida is dependent on Federal funds for its Republican-controlled failure of an educational system. Read the Florida budget if you get bored and note how much of the funding for state education programs comes from Uncle Sam. Then figure out how high sales taxes will need to go to maintain the lousy education system that has been foisted on taxpayers by 30 years of GOP mismanagement. Quack on brother!
P.S., and no, congressional Republican whose only interest is re-election and riding the gravy train, will NOT vote to kill any goose that lays golden eggs, no matter how much they pretend when they are campaigning.
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