This spring, Education Secretary Linda McMahon slashed staff at the Department of Education, laying off 1,400 employees to shrink the agency to just over 2,000 — about half its former size. The reductions vastly exceeded what most had expected and shattered the department’s comfortable lethargy.
The savings aren’t enormous (probably totaling somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 million a year in salary, benefits, and facility costs), but they’re real and a terrific prelude to downshifting and course-correcting Washington, D.C.,’s role in education. But it will take much more to see the job through: namely, publicizing the problems, delivering on promises, and taking a hatchet to the accumulated red tape.
Now, some readers may say, “Hold on! Isn’t Trump going to abolish the department? What more is needed?” Well, the odds are that a smaller department will still be with us, in some form, in 2029. And even if it’s not, congressionally mandated education funds will continue to flow to K–12 and higher education. The bottom line: Whatever the department’s ultimate fate, it’s important to finish what McMahon started. There are a few steps that department leadership should take.
