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Next, we report on the implications of a plan to lay off almost 1,400 staffers at the U.S. Department of Education. As we've been reporting, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the firings this week. The conservative majority overruled a lower court and made a ruling in favor of the Trump administration, giving no reasons for that choice. Now the layoffs can go ahead. NPR's Sequoia Carrillo looks at what's at stake.
SEQUOIA CARRILLO, BYLINE: Some Republicans have been calling for the dissolution of the Education Department since its creation in 1979.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: People have wanted to do this for many, many years, for many, many decades. And I don't know, no president ever got around to doing it, but I'm getting around to doing it. So thank you very much.
CARRILLO: President Trump talked about that history while signing his executive order to dissolve the department earlier this year. Here's then-candidate Ronald Reagan on PBS in 1980.
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RONALD REAGAN: I would like to dissolve the $10 billion National Department of Education created by President Carter and turn schools back to the local school districts, where we built the greatest public school system the world has ever seen.
CARRILLO: Giving power back to the states is a big political talking point, but, in reality, the Department of Education has never had the power to decide what is and isn't taught in schools. Now, as it faces disbandment, it raises the question - what exactly does the Education Department do? The department is relatively small, but it does some pretty big jobs.
KERI RODRIGUES: The Department of Education isn't some wasteful bureaucracy.
CARRILLO: Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, is concerned about who will do them.
RODRIGUES: It's how students access financial aid. It's how civil rights are protected in schools. It's how students with disabilities get the services they're legally entitled to receive.
CARRILLO: It's also how Title I funds - those reserved to help students from low-income families - get to communities in need. And the Education Department also keeps tabs on student achievement by analyzing national test scores and surveying colleges to get accurate graduation and admissions rates. In 2024, it had more than 4,000 employees. Now, with the renewed layoffs, combined with employees who resigned or retired this year, the department stands to be roughly half the size it was last year. So while we don't know yet exactly how this will affect schools, an NPR investigation found that layoffs disproportionately targeted the Office for Federal Student Aid, the Office for Civil Rights and education research teams. So those are the areas most likely to be impacted.
Whether Trump's moves to dismantle the department are lawful, that's still being debated in lower courts. But the Supreme Court's ruling is a serious blow to the states and school districts that worry the department will be unsalvageable by the time a final ruling comes through.
Sequoia Carrillo, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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