School groups sue to stop dismantling of the Education Department
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 9 hours ago
- 3 min read
By MICHAEL C. BENDER
A coalition of educators, school districts, unions and an advocacy organization for people with disabilities sued the Trump administration in federal court Tuesday, arguing that the government’s latest attempt to dismantle the Education Department was unlawful.
The lawsuit challenges the far-reaching changes announced last week by Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who signed agreements to effectively offload the management of some of her department’s important functions to other federal agencies.
The education coalition argues in its lawsuit that the annual appropriations law approved by Congress requires the Education Department to carry out its programs and that McMahon lacks the authority to shift these functions to other federal agencies.
“The information and actions coming out of the Department have been unpredictable, chaotic, and unprofessional,” the education coalition said in the lawsuit. “This experience is unprecedented in administration changes.”
Education Department officials have said that McMahon has the power to transfer education functions to other agencies under the Economy Act, a federal law that allows agencies to obtain supplies and services from other branches of the government.
The changes that McMahon announced last week included shifting about $28 billion for elementary and secondary schools and about $3 billion for postsecondary education to the Labor Department. The Education Department transferred management of additional programs to the departments of Health and Human Services, Interior and State.
Madi Biedermann, an Education Department spokesperson, suggested that the education coalition had misplaced motivations.
“It’s no surprise that blue states and unions care more about preserving the D.C. bureaucracy than about giving parents, students, and teachers more control over education and improving the efficient delivery of funds and services,” Biedermann said in a statement.
President Donald Trump has prioritized closing the department, arguing that states should be in full control of educating students. But he has focused on cutting staff and shifting programs rather than building support in Congress, where his fellow Republicans in charge of the House and Senate have shown little interest in abolishing the department.
McMahon’s changes, by shifting her department’s responsibilities to other agencies, also appeared to run counter to the goal of empowering states, critics said. Even some Republicans have said the changes may increase the burden on students, parents and teachers by dispersing education offices across multiple agencies, instead of keeping those programs in the Education Department.
“These changes are also likely to make it much more complicated for states,” Margaret Spellings, an education secretary under President George W. Bush, said in a social media post. “They distract us from the real and critical needs of students — and that’s where our focus needs to be.”
The coalition made its argument in an amended complaint as part of a continuing lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The initial lawsuit, filed in March, was aimed at blocking Trump’s attempt to effectively abolish the Education Department, which can be closed only by an act of Congress.
The judge in that case, Myong J. Joun, temporarily halted the administration from firing more than 1,000 workers in the department while the lawsuit worked its way through the courts. But in July, the Supreme Court reversed that ruling, allowing the administration to cut the agency’s staff in half.
The initial complaint was filed by the Somerville Public School Committee, the Easthampton School District, the American Federation of Teachers, AFT Massachusetts, AFSCME Council 93, the American Association of University Professors and the Service Employees International Union. The plaintiffs’ coalition, represented by Democracy Forward, a liberal-leaning legal nonprofit involved in dozens of lawsuits against the Trump administration, now also includes the Arc of the United States, a disability rights organization.