AFT’s Weingarten on President Trump’s Order to Dismantle the Education Department

WASHINGTON—AFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement responding to the announcement today revealing President Donald Trump’s plan to move multiple parts of the U.S. Department of Education to other federal departments:

“This move is neither streamlining nor reform—it’s an abdication and abandonment of America’s future. Rather than show leadership in helping all students seize their potential, it walks away from that responsibility.

“The AFT was opposed to a stand-alone Education Department back when it was first proposed in the 1970s. Teachers have always hated bureaucracy for bureaucracy’s sake. What we have supported in the decades since is a federal role that helps all children, not just some, succeed.

“What’s happening now isn’t about slashing red tape. If that were the goal, teachers could help them do it, and we invite Donald Trump and Linda McMahon to sit down with educators and hear from the people who actually do this work every day. Teachers know how to make the federal role more effective, efficient and supportive of real learning—if only the administration would listen.

“Instead, spreading services across multiple departments will create more confusion, more mistakes and more barriers for people who are just trying to access the support they need. It’s a deliberate diversion of funding streams that have helped generations of kids achieve their American dream. And it will undermine public schools as places where diverse voices come together and where pluralism, the bedrock of our democracy, is strengthened.

“We are now watching the federal government shirk its responsibility to all kids. That is unacceptable. Congress must reclaim its authority over education during upcoming federal funding battles. In the meantime, the AFT will continue to fight back, including in court, because every American, no matter their background, deserves a strong, well-resourced public school that forges a future full of purpose, promise and possibility.”