Staff Reports
America’s fight to put education back where it belongs — in the hands of parents, teachers, and state officials — took a decisive turn this year as Secretary Linda McMahon began executing a plan to shrink the federal Department of Education. The White House followed with an executive order on March 20, 2025 directing the department to “facilitate” a return of authority to the states while preserving essential services, a move conservatives have long demanded to overturn Washington’s one-size-fits-all schooling.
Erika Donalds, a tireless advocate for school choice and chair of AFPI’s Center for Education Opportunity, rightly applauded McMahon’s early work while making clear the obvious constitutional reality: Congress must pass the legislation to fully abolish the agency. Donalds has been front and center in explaining that administrative pruning is meaningful, but only a congressional statute can permanently end a federal behemoth that has strangled local control for decades.
Conservatives should celebrate the practical steps already taken — cutting waste, moving redundant offices, and reducing bureaucratic bloat — because they show the administration is serious about restoring accountability to the states. Those moves have not been merely symbolic; staff cuts and reassignments and a clearer plan to redistribute functions demonstrate a roadmap out of Washington-run schooling that critics refuse to acknowledge.
Of course Democrats and federal bureaucrats are screaming about Pell Grants and civil rights enforcement, as if maintaining a sprawling central authority is a moral good rather than a political racket. The truth is conservatives are not trying to abandon students; we want to rethink where federal responsibilities belong and ensure programs like student aid and special education continue — administered efficiently and locally, not used as leverage for woke agendas.
Those who pretend abolition would leave the vulnerable behind ignore common-sense alternatives that have been discussed publicly: transferring transactional functions to other agencies, safeguarding essential funding, and letting states innovate with accountability. If Republicans in Congress are sincere about empowering parents and improving outcomes, they must stop selling reform short with lip service and pass the statutory changes necessary to finish the job.
This moment is a clarion call to every citizen who believes in limited government and robust local control. Call your representatives, hold them accountable, and demand they act — not tomorrow, but now — to give parents the power that was stolen by bureaucrats and to end decades of federal overreach in our children’s classrooms. The American people know what’s right: reclaim education for families and states, and never let Washington run our schools again.
