Education Department terminates 1,300 workers as Trump admin takes 'first step' toward shutdown

The Department of Education terminated more than 1,300 workers on Tuesday as the Trump administration moves forward with its plan to dismantle the department altogether.

During an interview with Fox News, Education Secretary Linda McMahon confirmed that the layoffs were the "first step" toward shutting down the agency.

'[Trump's] directive to me clearly is to shut down the Department of Education.'

The layoffs impacted 1,315 of the department's roughly 4,000 employees.

On Tuesday, a DOE official stated, "Today we are beginning the process to cut the total number of staff at the Department of Education roughly in half."

"We are focusing on eliminating full teams whose operations are either redundant or not necessary for the functioning of the department," the official noted, adding that 131 teams would be removed.

"We're going to have these folks roll over their responsibilities by Friday, March 21st. They will then go on paid administrative leave until the reduction in force is complete," the DOE official continued. "They will be teleworking from tomorrow until March 21st. Then all of that is being done for safety reasons to protect the 2,183 employees that are going to remain after the [reduction in force] is complete."

The DOE official praised McMahon's leadership, adding that the recent changes were "being done with a very careful eye towards making education better, reducing bureaucracy, and empowering the states to take charge of their own education decisions."

Another 600 workers had already previously left the department voluntarily as part of the administration's buyout effort, the DOE noted. Last month, 63 probationary workers were terminated.

Fox News' Laura Ingraham asked McMahon whether the mass layoffs were part of President Donald Trump's plan for a "total shutdown" of the department.

McMahon responded, "Yes, actually, it is."

"That was the president's mandate. His directive to me clearly is to shut down the Department of Education," she stated.

McMahon acknowledged that the administration knows it must coordinate with Congress to dismantle the federal agency permanently.

"What we did today was to take the first step of eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat," she added.

McMahon stated that the goal of the layoffs was to eliminate the bureaucracy, noting that some of the department's programs "are really excellent."

"We wanted to make sure that we kept all of the right people, the good people, to make sure that the outward-facing programs, the grants, the appropriations that come from Congress, all of that are being met, and none of that's going to fall through the cracks."

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