Education Dept Shifts Workforce Duties As Trump Moves To Dismantle Agency

“The Trump administration is committed to ensuring that all Americans are prepared for a fulfilling and significant career,” said education secretary Linda McMahon in the press release. “I am convinced that the Ministry of Labor is well placed to administer, implement and rationalize in cooperation these critical career and adult education programs.” (Related: the Supreme Court allows Trump Administrator to go ahead with the staff of the Trush Education Department

President Donald Trump speaks to the media as (LR) Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, Lori Chavez-Deremer work secretary and education secretary Linda McMahon, after having signed decrees in the oval office of the White House on April 23, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo of Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

“To prepare for our next generation of American workers, the Trump administration takes decisive measures to rationalize the unnecessary bureaucracy and advance the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the future,” said work secretary Lori Chavezremer in the press release. “The Ministry of Labor has an exciting and important role to play here, and I am honored to team up with the secretary McMahon and our state partners to better connect workers to the training they need to find jobs in mortgage demand.”

President Donald Trump signed an executive decree ordering McMahon in March to “take all the measures necessary to facilitate the closure of the Ministry of Education and the return authority on education in states and local communities” to the “appropriate maximum measure and authorized by law”.

The ministry quickly went to work by redistributing some of its functions to other agencies, in particular by working to transfer student loan programs to the Small Business Administration (SBA) and special needs and nutrition programs at the Ministry of Health and Social Services (HHS).

ED also reduced almost half of its staff in March, although a June decision on the Federal Court has informed the action.

ED and the DOL announced a partnership in July focused on the development of labor “to create an integrated federal system of education and labor”.

“The labor development partnership marks a major step in the management of selected programs to partner agencies,” said Ed at the time.

The action was an answer to the April executive decree of Trump promising to restore “fragmented federal workforce development programs which are too disconnected from the propulsion of workers in secure, well-remunerated and superior quality American jobs”. ED and Dol were invited to reform, improve and consolidate federal workforce and workforce programs to make Americans more effective in entering skilled work areas and making programs more effective.

“Thanks to our labor development partnership, states will now be able to administer their programs more easily and effectively,” continued McMahon. “I am proud to work alongside secretary Chavez-Deremer while we continue to implement common sense reforms that will better serve students, families and states.”