Education Department shifts programs to other agencies via interagency agreements

The Trump administration is moving significant portions of the U.S. Department of Education to other federal agencies through a series of interagency agreements, reshaping the management of programs covering civil rights enforcement, special education, career training, tribal schools, and international exchanges without congressional approval.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon emailed department employees in March 2025 outlining what she called the agency’s “Final Mission” — what she described as “an overhaul — a last chance to restore the culture of liberty and excellence that made American education great.” To date, the department has executed the overhaul by transferring functions and programs to multiple federal agencies through interagency agreements.

The Career and Technical Education offices and youth workforce development programs are moving to the Department of Labor. The Bureau of Indian Education and tribal school operations and support programs are moving to the Department of the Interior. The Office for Civil Rights has moved to the Justice Department. The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, along with Early Childhood Technical Assistance Centers and family engagement and community support programs, is moving to the Department of Health and Human Services. The State Department is assuming control over international student exchange programs and global education initiatives and partnerships.

By law, eliminating cabinet-level departments and redirecting congressionally approved funds requires an act of Congress. Jill Siegelbaum and Emily Merolli, partners at Sligo Law Group, told UPI that the administration has used interagency agreements to skirt congressional authority.

“The main statutory concern that I see here is that I am not aware of any authority within the department that allows the secretary of education to delegate responsibilities and functions outside of the Department of Education,” Siegelbaum said. She added that the agreements do not cite statutory authority for the transfers beyond “this vague contracting authority which these clearly do not fall within the scope of those authorities.”

Sligo Law Group has already filed for a preliminary injunction to stop the Education Department from terminating community school grants. The lawsuit alleges that the department’s decision to end two community school grants totaling $18.5 million violates the Administrative Procedures Act.

“What we’re seeing is a department that is not interested in negotiating or improving outcomes,” Merolli said. “We’re seeing a department that is interested in pushing its own priorities and terminating and canceling based on a number of pretty ill-defined and sometimes arbitrary delineations.”

The Government Accountability Office reported earlier this year that between March and September 2025, the Office for Civil Rights received more than 9,000 complaints of alleged discrimination and resolved 7,000 of them. Those resolutions were reached by dismissing 90% of the claims, according to the GAO. The office had already seen about half of its staff placed on paid administrative leave in March 2025, and seven of its 12 regional offices were closed. Those staff members were recalled in December.

Eric Duncan, director of P-12 policy for EdTrust, told UPI that the Office for Civil Rights has taken a new approach to complaints under the Trump administration.

“Previous administrations didn’t necessarily see the department saying, ‘We are investigating you and if you don’t make changes to programs we will withhold federal funding, we will use punitive measures to drive folks to policies we want to prioritize,’” Duncan said.

Duncan also said that the administration’s interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act — which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs receiving federal funding — has changed how the Justice Department enforces the law. In December, the Justice Department announced it was eliminating the disparate impact test from its Title VI enforcement rules without opening the rule change to public comment as required by the Administrative Procedures Act. The disparate impact test is a legal standard used to determine if a policy or practice disproportionately affects a protected group.

“The administration hasn’t gotten a court decision on their interpretation of Title VI,” Duncan said. “The court has not said anything about their interpretation of Title VI and how it applies to race-conscious programming or practices that the Department of Justice is now being more punitive of.”

Duncan raised concerns about service gaps from the organizational reshuffling, noting that a majority of the Office for Civil Rights complaints related to special education, which now falls under Health and Human Services. “It just fragments it even more and puts it in an agency that doesn’t necessarily have the expertise or functions to provide timely support,” he said.

McMahon has described the purpose of the moves as an effort to eliminate “bureaucratic bloat” and improve efficiency. Leslie Hiner, senior adviser for legal policy for the organization EdChoice, told UPI she believes the description is accurate and that transferring some programs to agencies with more relevant expertise — such as moving Career and Technical Education to the Department of Labor — will improve outcomes.

“We’re going to find that in these key areas, service and effectiveness of that work will improve tenfold,” Hiner said. “This is very positive.”

Hiner said the department’s core competency should be to help states figure out how to properly educate children, and that functions better suited to other agencies should be moved there.

Rachel Gittleman, AFGE Local 252 union president, told UPI the questions she hears from members consistently focus on the rationale for the changes. “The big one is, ‘Why are we doing this?’” she said. She said the department has long been the smallest cabinet-level agency and the most efficient when it comes to “dollars in versus dollars out” delivery of service. Yet about half of the agency’s workforce was reduced during DOGE cuts and shakeups.

“Massive loss of expertise,” Gittleman said. “Actually the department is embarking on a huge hiring spree right now. A lot of positions that they are hiring for were positions that were riffed and terminated last year because they do not have the bandwidth to be able to do the statutorily required functions that are required of the department.”

Gittleman pointed to one example of weakened efficiency: the department has long used a proprietary system called G5 for all funding functions outside student loans at no cost. The system used by Health and Human Services and Labor — Grants Management Solutions — is made up of three systems used together and costs the department money.

“On the efficiency side of things I can point to a myriad of places where we are just adding more bureaucracy,” she said.

Despite the changes, Gittleman said she believes the work can be undone. “I wouldn’t be in this job if I didn’t believe this could be undone,” she said. “There’s a lot of conversations happening right now, not just at the department but about how do we rebuild a federal workforce that could withstand — hopefully this is a once in a lifetime attack.”