Sponsors (3)
Official title: Abolish the Department of Education, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 9, 2025 by Marion Michael Rounds · Last progress April 9, 2025
The bill trades a smaller, streamlined federal education footprint and greater state flexibility (with some alignment benefits and preserved privacy protections) against significant near‑term risks: service disruptions for students, weakened civil‑rights and special‑education enforcement, legal uncertainty, and transition costs that could offset projected savings.
States and school systems gain greater flexibility and consolidated block grant funding (K–12 and postsecondary) with preserved Title I parity, letting states tailor programs to local priorities while maintaining prior funding levels.
The bill preserves continuity and transition protections — a one-year delay before repeal, requirements to preserve ongoing grants/contracts/proceedings, and protections for transferred employees' terms — reducing immediate disruption during reorganization.
Student privacy protections under FERPA are preserved and extended to transferred programs, maintaining federal protections for education records after program moves.
Students (including those needing special education) and institutions face major risk of service disruptions and delays — including in special education, K–12 supports, and federal student aid disbursements — during the transfers and one‑year transition.
Abolishing the Department of Education and OCR and fragmenting oversight across agencies risks weakening enforcement of civil‑rights and disability protections (Title IX, IDEA, Title VI/VII), reducing specialized education enforcement, guidance, and local accessibility of remedies.
The repeal and reassignment of statutes and programs creates legal and administrative uncertainty for longstanding programs, grants, and student‑loan systems, raising compliance costs and confusion for states, schools, and beneficiaries who rely on clear statutory references to ED.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Abolishes the Department of Education in one year, reallocates most education programs to other agencies, and creates state block grants for K–12 and postsecondary aid.
Terminates the U.S. Department of Education one year after enactment and moves nearly all of its programs, functions, personnel, assets, and liabilities into other federal departments or to new State block‑grant programs. It preserves FERPA and a few remaining statutory provisions, abolishes the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (moving enforcement for covered education programs to the Justice Department), creates new HHS and Treasury state block grants for K–12/early childhood and postsecondary assistance respectively, and requires the President to submit a reorganization plan and provides implementation funding for transfers and transition activities. The bill restructures how federal education policy and funding are administered (shifting large parts of K–12, special education, career/technical, workforce and student aid programs among HHS, Treasury, Labor, Interior, Defense, State, and DOJ), sets conditions for state receipt of grants (data, audits, civil‑rights compliance), and authorizes unspecified sums as necessary to carry out the transfers and transition work.