President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that seeks to eliminate the Department of Education and realize a decades-old refrain from Republicans: that education needs to be sent back to the states. The subtext is that when the Education Department drops the reins, state education authorities will be the ones to pick them up and keep things moving.
While the rhetoric couldn’t be any clearer, what Trump’s order functionally entails for state governments remains to be seen. State education officials tell NOTUS that they’re on standby, waiting to hear more from Education about what all of this will mean for them.
“On March 14, the Kentucky Department of Education received correspondence from the U.S. Department of Education regarding its announced reduction in force. To date, KDE has received no further communication from USED regarding closure or additional reorganization,” Robbie Fletcher, Kentucky’s commissioner of education, told NOTUS in an emailed statement hours before Trump signed the order. “In the event of additional changes at USED, KDE will expect immediate guidance on how federal education funding to states, as appropriated by Congress, will continue to flow to Kentucky without disruption.”