Frankel rips Trump administration's decision to close U.S. Department of Education (2025)

Trump signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take 'all necessary steps to close the Department of Education and return education authority to the States.'

U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, joined parents, educators and a pair of Palm Beach County School Board members Monday in blasting the Trump administration's efforts to close the U.S. Department of Education.

"This could be a devastating blow to public schools all over the country," Frankel said during a press conference in front of the Dreyfoos School of the Arts in downtown West Palm Beach, where she once served as mayor. "It strips from our schools vital resources and also financial assistance to kids who are going to graduate from schools like this."

Trump signed an executive order on Thursday directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take "all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States."

The president's executive order would achieve a long-time goal of Republicans, who argue that education should be a state and local function. Many Republicans have come to view the department as a bastion of waste that has not been successful in improving learning.

"We're going to eliminate it, and everybody knows it's right," Trump said.

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The department has already sought to get rid of nearly half of its 4,100 employees through firings and severance packages, and Trump said some of its duties will be assigned to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, another federal agency the Trump administration has targeted for large employee reductions.

Trump's actions have generated fierce pushback. Frankel and other members of Congress are fanning out across the country to decry his decision. And on Monday the National Education Association announced it was joining with the NAACP in a coalition with parents, students and school employees to sue the administration in a bid to stop what it called the administration's "illegal" attempts to dismantle the federal agency.

The U.S. Department of Education was authorized by Congress, and dismantling it would ordinarily require congressional approval. Trump's moves to shut down the department have not been opposed by his fellow Republicans, who have a majority in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. The president's decisions to suspend or delay other congressionally approved spending has not been completely blocked by the federal courts, raising the question of whether his efforts to shutter the Education Department without congressional approval will be allowed to stand.

Democrats and the coalition suing the Trump administration argue that gutting the department's staff and farming out its duties amounts to a closure in everything but name.

"Taken together, Defendants’ steps since January 20, 2025, constitute a de facto dismantling of the Department by executive fiat…," the coalition's complaint argues. "But the Constitution gives power over 'the establishment of offices [and] the determination of their functions and jurisdiction' to Congress — not to the President or any officer working under him."

How much did Palm Beach County receive from Federal Department of Education in 2024?

The Palm Beach County School District received $150 million in funding from the Education Department in 2024. It used the money to augment teacher recruitment, training and retention at schools with a high percentage of poor students. The money was also used to help educate immigrant students and others with disabilities.

"I'm very concerned that, if we don't tread lightly in any modifications to the Department of Education, we'll see substantial encumbrances in the lives of these children that were not there before, and those could have very long, reverberating effects moving into the future," School Board Member Edwin Ferguson said.

One of Ferguson's colleague on the School Board, Virginia Savietto, noted that she was an immigrant who moved to the United States from Argentina when she was 13.

"Thanks to all of the partnerships and the programs that we had, I was able to thrive," Savietto said. "Thirty-something years later, here I am as an elected official. We need the Department of Education."

Supporters of federal involvement in and financial support for local education efforts argue both are necessary to even the playing field for students who live in areas where the tax base could not provide enough money to pay for the additional help poor, immigrant and disabled students often need.

Lois Frankel fears money could be reallocated and hurt public schools

Frankel said she fears that, if federal money for education is given to Florida as a block grant instead of for specific purposes, state legislators in Tallahassee will use it for private school vouchers, cutting out the public schools where most children in the state are educated.

"You look at the state of Florida, that money will most likely go to private school vouchers," she said. "That's probably what will happen in this state."

Mark Jacoby of Delray Beach, who worked for more than three decades as a special education teacher and administration in New York City, said the Department of Education is a crucial source of funding and assistance for students with special needs.

"All the therapies, the supportive services for these children would not be available without the public funding," Jacoby said.

He recalled that his sister, whom he said was born with with a disability, had to go to a different school than he attended in the early 1970s because it was up to his school's administrators to allow her to enroll. Federal law at that time did not require schools to make accommodations for disabled students.

"We don't want to go back," Jacoby said. "These children, the most impoverished and the most needy, are going to be left behind."

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In looking for parents to highlight the importance of the Department of Education, Frankel didn't have to go far. Vicki Ward of Boca Raton, the daughter of one of Frankel's staff members, has relied on department-supported services for her 5-year old daughter, who has struggled since Ward's husband died in 2023.

"She goes to a Palm Beach County public school," Ward said of her daughter. "She has an IEP (individualized education program). She was diagnosed with ADHD and separation anxiety. The school was able to give her mental health care as well as speech therapy and behavior therapy. Without the funding, they won't be able to give her those therapies any more. It would have a great detriment to her growing up and staying focused and staying with her classmates. We really, really need this to stay put."

(Information was added to this story to correct an inaccuracy.)

Wayne Washington is a journalist covering education for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him atwwashington@pbpost.com.Help support our work;subscribe today.