While publicly acknowledging earlier this year that Congressional approval would be needed to officially terminate the Education Department, the Administration announced today a series of Interagency Agreements (IAA) to move vast portions of its portfolio to other agencies in an effort to dismantle it from the inside. The announcement from ED is available here.
Specifically, ED is proposing to move six sets of programs to four other federal agencies:
- Programs currently under jurisdiction of Office of Higher Education (NOT Title IV student financial aid programs) and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education would be transferred to the Department of Labor– the factsheets for these agreements are here and here.
- Most of tribal and Native American education programs would be moved to the Department of Interior– the factsheet is available here.
- International Education and Foreign Language Studies would be shipped to State Department– the factsheet on that transfer is available here.
- Two sets of programs would be moved to the Department of Health and Human Services: Foreign Medical Accreditation and Child Care Access Means Parents in School– the factsheets for these proposed moves are here and here.
Additional reports about the proposed moves are available here, here, and here.
Although these moves have been proposed by the Administration, they are unlikely to be the last word on this front. We should expect legal and other challenges to today’s annoucements.