The U.S. Department of Education is resuming a partnership that will move some of its functions to another federal agency after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a lower court’s order that temporarily halted mass firings and other changes to downsize the department.
The department will partner with the U.S. Department of Labor, with Labor taking “a greater role in administering” programs that support career and technical education funded by the $1.4 billion Perkins program, and adult education and family literacy programs under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, the Education Department announced Tuesday.
The programs will be managed “alongside ED staff, with continued leadership and oversight by ED,” according to a news release.
The partnership is the latest indication the Trump administration is moving fast to shrink the Education Department after receiving the Supreme Court’s OK. On Monday, shortly after the high court’s order came down, the agency informed laid-off staff who had been on administrative leave and on the agency’s payroll since March that their leave would end Aug. 1.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement that it’s “inefficient and duplicative” for multiple agencies to manage different parts of the federal government’s workforce training portfolio.
“Support from the Department of Labor in administering the Department of Education’s workforce programs is a commonsense step in streamlining these programs to better serve students, families, and educators,” she said.
Labor will carry out certain ‘day-to-day’ functions previously executed by Education
Under the agreement, the Labor Department’s employment and training administration will carry out the “day-to-day” authorization of formula grants under the Perkins Act, which flows to states and schools to pay for CTE. It will distribute other formula grants and discretionary grants that support adult learners—though the Trump administration is currently withholding two key adult adult education formula grants that Congress approved in March totaling more than $700 million and has proposed to eliminate them in future years.
The Labor Department will also be tasked with conducting monitoring visits to ensure compliance, monitoring states’ draw-downs of funds, and more.
The departments will provide additional guidance on implementing the agreement in the coming weeks, the announcement said.
Interagency partnerships are common—allowing departments to share expertise and resources—and the agreement between the Education and Labor departments is fairly standard, experts said previously. The agreement notes that its office of career, technical, and adult education maintains authority over the programs—meaning it doesn’t overstep a statutory requirement for the office to exist.
But it comes as President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to dismantle the Education Department, and has already taken drastic steps to do so. In addition to reducing its staff by nearly half, the department has already canceled scores of grants and contracts, begun withholding congressionally approved funds, and is seeking to cut its bottom line by 15% under the president’s proposed budget.
Trump in March signed an executive order directing McMahon to facilitate the department’s closure. McMahon called the 1,400 layoffs announced the same month—as well as the departure of hundreds of other department employees through buyout offers and early retirement—a “first step” toward abolishing the agency. And she has said she views her work as carrying out the department’s “final mission.”
The text of the agreement between the Education and Labor departments cites Trump’s March executive order on facilitating the Education Department’s closure.
Lawsuits have argued Trump is seeking to shutter Ed. Dept. without authorization
This combination of efforts shows that the Trump administration is seeking to effectively shutter the department without the necessary approval from Congress, which is the only entity that can abolish a Cabinet-level agency and transfer its programs to other parts of the federal government, those who have filed lawsuits against the administration have argued.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun agreed, and on May 22 ordered the department reinstate the 1,400 employees it laid off, and halt any efforts to carry out the president’s order.
In a June 10 filing to the court laying out the agency’s steps to comply with Joun’s order, Chief of Staff Rachel Oglesby said the department had paused “significant interagency agreements, preventing the department (and other agencies) from pursuing operational efficiencies and cost-savings,” and included the agreement between Labor and Education.
In his first term, Trump proposed merging the departments of Education and Labor. In his second term, he and McMahon have floated the possibility of different agencies taking over the Education Department’s core functions, like oversight of services for students with disabilities by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and management of $1.6 trillion in student loans to by the U.S. Department of the Treasury or the Small Business Administration.
In addition to the arrangement with Labor, the Education Department also has a “detail agreement” with Treasury, which sent nine staff members to Treasury to help restart that agency’s offset program, which helps collect delinquent debt.
That agreement did not pause under the court order, but the Education Department did pause negotiations with Treasury regarding management of its student loan portfolio.
