Updated: This story has been updated with additional information on the staff cuts.
The U.S. Department of Education is cutting its staff by almost half as it starts a massive reduction in force, the federal agency announced Tuesday evening, leaving a diminished workforce to carry out all the agency functions required by law.
The reductions will bring the agency’s total workforce to about 2,183 employees, the agency said, from the 4,133 who worked there when President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20 following a campaign in which he repeatedly pledged to eliminate the 45-year-old department.
The reductions will be a multistep process. First, the department will place almost 1,400 employees on administrative leave starting March 21. Those employees will receive pay and benefits through June 9 as well as severance pay or retirement benefits.
The department is also counting among its reductions the nearly 600 employees who accepted an earlier deferred resignation offer through which they’re promised pay through September and a more recent buyout offer of up to $25,000.
On top of the employee reductions, the department’s Washington headquarters and its regional offices will close Wednesday for “security reasons,” according to an email sent to employees earlier on Tuesday that was obtained by Education Week.
The reduction in force and office closure come as President Donald Trump weighs an executive order that would direct the secretary of education to prepare the federal agency for closure and take other measures to downsize the department.
A staff member, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the email about the one-day office closures rattled employees who had been taking earlier reduction measures in stride.
“I didn’t really hear or see any reaction to the email … until I got in the elevator to leave the building,” the employee said. “This woman said, ‘we’re all being fired.’ I was like, ‘oh, OK.’ It hyped everybody up. Obviously, everybody is certainly on edge, anxious.”
Among those dismissed are all staff working in six of the department’s 12 regional divisions of its office for civil rights, according to two sources familiar with those layoffs and emails reviewed by Education Week. OCR is the department’s arm that enforces civil rights laws in federally funded schools and colleges. The regional offices that are closing are in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.
The department also dismissed all staff from the division of the civil rights office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests and customer service.
Trump and his administration have already severely diminished the department in the first weeks of the president’s second term, with the deferred resignation and buyout offers, as well as the dismissal of probationary employees who didn’t yet qualify for full civil service protections. (A judge later found their firings to be likely unlawful.)
At the same time the administration has been dismissing staff, it’s stepped up its reliance on the office for civil rights to implement Trump’s political agenda—launching investigations, for example, into schools, athletic associations, and other entities over potential violations of the president’s executive order barring transgender athletes from girls’ sports.
The Education Department is the smallest Cabinet agency by headcount. And the Biden administration in recent years had boosted staffing from a low of about 3,600 during the first Trump administration to its estimate of nearly 4,500 employees for the 2025 fiscal year.
In addition to staff reductions, the department has also slashed millions in contracts and grants, saying the funds didn’t align with the president’s orders on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the staff reductions reflected the agency’s “commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers.”
“I appreciate the work of the dedicated public servants and their contributions to the department,” she said. “This is a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system.”
The union representing most Education Department employees blasted the move, saying it will “fight these draconian cuts” and urging Americans to contact their representatives in Congress to protect the department’s work.
“What is clear from the past weeks of mass firings, chaos, and unchecked unprofessionalism is that this regime has no respect for the thousands of workers who have dedicated their careers to serve their fellow Americans,” Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees chapter representing Education Department staff, said in a statement. “It is also clear that there is a rampant disinformation campaign to mislead Americans about the actual services, resources, grants, and programs that the U.S. Department of Education provides to all Americans.”
A union spokesperson said 969 union members were among those affected by Tuesday’s reductions.
Trump doesn’t have unilateral authority to abolish the U.S. Department of Education, which was established in statute nearly 45 years ago. But he can certainly downsize it.
Early into his second term, the president made it easier for employees who do policy work to be reclassified as political appointees, whom his administration can hire and fire more easily.
A draft of Trump’s expected executive order directs McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education,” acting on a campaign promise Trump made repeatedly last year.
McMahon has embraced the president’s mission, and shortly after her March 3 swearing-in, McMahon laid out what she called the department’s “final mission” in a note to agency employees.
The staff cuts immediately drew outrage from the nation’s main teachers’ unions and Democrats. The National Education Association had lobbied for the department’s formation in the 1970s.
“Firing—without cause—nearly half of the Department of Education staff means they are getting rid of the dedicated public servants who help ensure our nation’s students have access to the programs and resources to keep class sizes down and expand learning opportunities for students so they can grow into their full brilliance,” NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement.
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said, “Denuding an agency so it cannot function effectively is the most cowardly way of dismantling it.”
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee, called the move illegal.
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations committee, said the staff cuts were about “breaking government.”
Conservatives have long called for eliminating the department, going back to President Ronald Reagan, who took office the year after it started operating.
“For 45 years, the Department of Education has only grown while student test scores have collapsed,” the Defense of Freedom Institute, a conservative think tank co-founded by former Education Department staffers, said in a statement. “Secretary McMahon is taking decisive action to weed out wasteful, bureaucratic functions that provide no benefit to students. Funding to states to assist low-income students and students with disabilities will continue. The bloat will not.”
