Sponsors (3)
Introduced April 9, 2025 by Marion Michael Rounds · Last progress April 9, 2025
The bill trades centralized federal oversight and specialized education enforcement for greater state flexibility and potential administrative savings by dismantling the Department of Education and reallocating its functions — a shift that could empower local control but risks major disruptions to funding, civil‑rights protections, student aid delivery, and services for vulnerable students.
States and local school systems gain greater flexibility to design and fund K–12 and postsecondary programs through consolidated block grants and state-directed allocations, letting them target funds to local priorities.
Students retain federal privacy protections because FERPA is preserved and explicitly extended to programs and grants after transfer, reducing risk to student-record privacy during and after reorganization.
The bill could produce federal administrative efficiencies and cost savings by eliminating a Cabinet-level Department and consolidating certain functions (including moving student-aid administration to Treasury), and it requires reporting on expected efficiencies or added costs.
Students, schools, and states face major disruption to federal education funding and program administration (Title I, IDEA, Pell, and other core programs) as centralized ED functions are dismantled and moved, risking delays or interruptions in grants and services.
Civil‑rights and disability enforcement could be weakened if specialized education oversight (OCR) is abolished and responsibilities are dispersed or shifted to litigation‑focused DOJ or other agencies, reducing proactive compliance assistance and technical guidance.
Moving Title IV student-aid and loan programs to Treasury and reorganizing aid administration risks operational disruptions that could delay disbursements, borrower services, and access to financial aid during the transition.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Abolishes the Department of Education and transfers most education programs to other federal departments and to new state block grants, effective one year after enactment.
Terminates the U.S. Department of Education one year after enactment and moves most of its programs, functions, personnel, assets, and liabilities to other federal departments and to new state block-grant programs. It preserves only a few GEPA provisions (including FERPA), shifts civil-rights enforcement for covered education programs from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to the Justice Department, and requires a presidential reorganization plan and transition funding to carry out the transfers. The bill creates two major block-grant programs administered by other agencies: an HHS-administered State block grant for early childhood through secondary education (including career and technical education) and a Treasury-administered postsecondary state block grant tied to prior-year enrollment. Many specific program lines are reassigned to departments such as HHS, Treasury, Labor, Interior, Defense, and State, and the measure authorizes whatever sums are necessary to implement the transfers during a short transition period.