Conservative activists have been dreaming of dismantling the Department of Education for decades.
On Tuesday, the Department of Education announced mass firings of its workforce, which would cut the department staff down to about half of what it was when Joe Biden left office — from about 4,000 to about 2,000.
President Donald Trump had promised to abolish the department on the campaign trail, but since it was established by Congress and many of its functions are legally required, he can’t make it go away with a stroke of a pen. Instead, his team is slashing its personnel and will likely try to cut back its spending to the greatest extent they think they can get away with.
Now, it’s very unclear how big the policy impact of these layoffs will actually be. The biggest things the Education Department does in practice are sending money to public schools that have many low-income students, sending money to help educate students with…