The president made it clear in a pre-inaugural speech at his rally in Washington, D.C., that he’d like to lessen the control of the Department of Education. Jonathan Butcher of the Heritage Foundation thinks he'll need Congress to accomplish the intricacies involved in giving the states full autonomy.
"However, there are things that can be done to reduce the department's footprint, and the president has done some of that already with an executive order on DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) saying that those offices should be closed across federal departments. So that's a big first step."
He says some aspects, such as the agency's Office of Civil Rights, could be moved to the Department of Justice.
"What we have right now with the department is a set of federal administrative tasks that get handed down to states, and that takes the focus off of state agencies, what should be some innovative and certainly parent-centric and student-centric policies."
Butcher says the biggest task would be getting the government out of the business of making student loans because currently the DOE handles around 91% of student borrowing.
