Department of Education makes major cuts to staff

The Department of Education has eliminated nearly half of its employees, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

Of the 4,133 department employees, 1,315 employees were informed of their elimination through the reduction in force at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, a senior department official told the DCNF. Previously, 259 were cut as part of the deferred resignation program, 313 accepted voluntary separation incentive payments of $25,000, and an additional 63 probationary employees were terminated in February, leaving 2,183 employees remaining.

The layoffs were part of the Trump administration’s larger effort to eliminate government waste and improve education in the country. The cuts will not affect the department’s function, the official said, but they will begin the process of allowing more education oversight to occur at the state level.

The Department of Education under the Biden administration was used to push radical ideology, with millions of taxpayer funds being poured into topics such as “LGBTQ inclusion” and “anti-racism and anti-oppression” in schools. President Donald Trump has since made it his mission to dismantle divisive DEI initiatives within the department and other federal agencies, wiping hundreds of documents outlining DEI practices from the department’s website, dissolving several related teams and placing staff members on administrative leave, and halting DEI training.

Trump has also expressed plans to dismantle the department entirely and return control over education to the states, citing the department’s failures. Recent data from the Nation’s Report Card found that one-third of eighth graders failed to reach the National Assessment of Educational Progress’s (NAEP) reading assessment benchmark in 2024, the largest percentage ever recorded, and about 40% of fourth grade students tested below the NAEP’s reading proficiency, the largest percentage since 2002, according to data released in January.

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