WASHINGTON (States Newsroom) — A coalition of advocacy and labor groups says it plans to file suit against the Trump administration Monday over its sweeping efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.
The National Education Association, NAACP, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Maryland Council 3 and public school parents are set to file a lawsuit asking a court to “immediately halt” the administration’s attempts to shutter the agency, the coalition members said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the American Federation of Teachers, its Massachusetts chapter, AFSCME Council 93, the American Association of University Professors, the Service Employees International Union and two school districts in Massachusetts sued the administration in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Monday over the executive order and recent mass layoffs at the department.
Trump direction to McMahon
President Donald Trump last week directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the department to the maximum extent that is legally permissible.
Only Congress, which established the 45-year-old department, has the power to abolish it.
The following day, Trump announced that some of the department’s key responsibilities — including its handling of the massive student loan portfolio and special education services — would be housed in the Small Business Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, respectively.
The president also said HHS would handle “nutrition programs,” though it was unclear what he was referring to as the Department of Agriculture manages school meal and other major nutrition programs.
In a Monday statement, NEA’s president Becky Pringle said “gutting the Department of Education will hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more out of reach, taking away special education services for students with disabilities, and gutting student civil rights protections.”
“Parents, educators, and community leaders know this will widen the gaps in education, which is why we will do everything in our power to protect our students and their futures,” Pringle said.
Layoffs, cuts
Prior to the executive order, the agency already saw significant changes in the weeks since Trump took office, including mass layoffs, contract cuts, staff buyouts and major policy changes.
The department also announced earlier this month that more than 1,300 employees would be cut through a “reduction in force” process, calling into question how those mass layoffs would affect the agency’s abilities to carry out its main responsibilities.
The cuts prompted a lawsuit from a coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general — who are trying to block the department from implementing the “reduction in force” action and Trump’s “directive to dismantle the Department of Education.”
“The NEA and NAACP have done nothing to advance the educational outcomes of America’s students and the latest NAEP scores prove that,” Harrison Fields, White House principal deputy press secretary, said in a statement shared with States Newsroom.
The latest data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that average math and reading scores in 2024 for pupils in fourth grade and eighth grade were lower compared to before the coronavirus pandemic, in 2019.
“Instead of playing politics with baseless lawsuits, these groups should ditch the courtroom and work with the Trump administration and states on improving the classroom,” Fields said.
The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
