Trump’s pledge to axe the Department of Education explained

One of the key promises President-elect Donald Trump made while campaigning for the White House was to abolish the US Department of Education.

The federal agency, established in 1979, oversees funding for public schools, administers student loans and runs programmes to help low-income students.

Trump has accused the agency of “indoctrinating young people with inappropriate racial, sexual, and political material”.

But in order to scrap the department, the incoming Republican president would need congressional approval – an uphill battle.

On his own, no.

Not only would Trump need congressional approval, but he would also probably need a supermajority – 60 out of 100 senators.

While Republicans have a majority in the Senate, they do not have 60 members in the upper chamber, so they would need a few Democrats to vote to abolish the agency. There’s zero chance of that.

Even in the House of Representatives, Trump would struggle to gain necessary support.

A vote last year to abolish the education department – which was attached as an amendment to another bill – failed to pass as 60 Republicans joined all Democrats in the House to vote no. So Trump’s pledge could turn out to be largely symbolic.

The Department of Education oversees student loan programmes and administers Pell grants that help low-income students attend university.

The department also helps fund programmes to support students with disabilities and for students living in poverty.

And it enforces civil rights law that prevents race or sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools.

The Department of Education’s allocation was $238bn (£188bn) in fiscal year 2024 – under 2% of the total federal budget.

The idea has been floated by Republicans for decades. During Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign, he pushed for it to be dismantled.

Republicans have accused the education department of pushing “woke” political ideology on to children, including gender ideology and Critical Race Theory.

They want the federal agency’s authority shifted back to the US states, which run schools and the vast majority of education matters.

Conservatives also argue that other education department functions, such as administering loans, should be handled instead by the US Department of Treasury, and that civil rights infractions are the Department of Justice’s domain.

Trump’s allies also want to expand school choice, which would allow students and families to select alternatives to public schools, and break up what they see as an “education cartel” of the teachers’ unions.