The mass layoffs that touched virtually every division of the U.S. Department of Education cut deeper into some offices than others, particularly affecting the agency’s civil rights investigation and research arms, according to an Education Week analysis of documents detailing the cuts.
The firings, which the department announced on Tuesday, will shrink the already diminished federal agency’s footprint by nearly half as a “first step” toward abolishing it, should Congress approve such an effort, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a Fox News interview Tuesday night. President Donald Trump is also considering an executive order that would direct McMahon to prepare for the agency’s closure.
Already, the layoffs have drawn a lawsuit filed Thursday by 21 Democratic attorneys general arguing that the reductions imperil the agency’s ability to fulfill its congressional mandates.
A department spokesperson said the layoffs “are strategic, internal-facing cuts that will not directly impact students and families.”
The Education Department had 4,133 employees on Jan. 20, when Trump was inaugurated, according to the agency. After the reductions in force—a combination of layoffs and the loss of employees who accepted buyout offers—the department will have 2,183 staff members, a 47 percent reduction.
The chart below shows the number of union-represented positions cut from each office in Tuesday’s announced reduction in force and the 2023 full-time equivalent headcount for each office.
The cuts shown in the chart don’t represent all the positions the Education Department has lost. The numbers don’t include non-union-represented employees who were let go. They don’t include probationary employees dismissed weeks ago or employees who accepted deferred resignation, early retirement, or buyouts, either.
The 2023 headcount is the most recent available data from budget documents. These numbers could vary from the employee headcount as it existed immediately before the reduction in force.
Two of the department’s larger divisions that saw some of the most significant cuts were the office for civil rights, which investigates discrimination claims at the nation’s schools and colleges, and the Institute of Education Sciences, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and statistics-gathering and dissemination through the National Center for Education Statistics.
The office for civil rights, the second-largest division in the department, will lose more than 40 percent of its staff by the end of this month.
The office, which investigates discrimination claims at the nation’s schools and colleges, had 562 staffers doing that work in 2023. At least 243 of its employees will no longer have jobs.
The department also shuttered regional offices in cities that include Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Regional offices allow attorneys to do on-site investigations, rather than parachuting in from Washington, an OCR staffer said.
Those cuts come as the department ramps up its enforcement efforts to follow a barrage of Trump directives, which have threatened to pull funding from schools that allow transgender athletes to play on girls’ and women’s teams, have race-based programming, or require COVID-19 vaccinations.
Meanwhile, the Institute of Education Sciences will lose at least 62 percent of its staff, going from 167 employees in 2023 to 62 at most. A source familiar with IES cuts said the dismissals essentially hollow out the National Center for Education Statistics, one of four centers within IES and the one that handles key data collections and the number-crunching behind the NAEP.
The department’s largest division, the Federal Student Aid office, will see at least 23 percent of its staff cut. It had 1,371 full-time equivalent employees in 2023.
The office of elementary and secondary education—the primary office supporting K-12 districts—is losing at least 17 percent of its staff, which numbered 282 in 2023.
The career, technical, and adult education office will see at least nine employees lose their jobs from a staff of 67 in 2023.
The office that oversees state compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the office of special education and rehabilitative services, will lose a smaller portion of its staff—at least 16 from a staff of 185 in 2023.
And the office of English language acquisition, which helps states and schools better serve English learners, will see at least 75 percent of its staff depart: 12 employees were laid off. The office’s 2023 headcount was 16.
“As much as we were all expecting it, it still hurts,” a department employee said by text the night agency employees were told they were losing their jobs.
