Education Department To Lay Off 1,300 Employees | EUROtoday

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department plans to put off greater than 1,300 of its staff as a part of an effort to halve the group’s workers ― a prelude to President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the company.

Department officers introduced the cuts Tuesday, elevating questions concerning the company’s skill to proceed normal operations.

The Trump administration had already been whittling the company’s workers, although buyout gives and the termination of probationary staff. After Tuesday’s layoffs, the Education Department’s workers will sit at roughly half of its earlier 4,100, the company mentioned.

The layoffs are a part of a dramatic downsizing directed by Trump as he strikes to scale back the footprint of the federal authorities. Thousands of jobs are anticipated to be reduce throughout the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Social Security Administration and different companies.

The division can be terminating leases on buildings in cities together with New York, Boston, Chicago and Cleveland, officers mentioned.

Department officers mentioned it might proceed to ship on its key capabilities such because the distribution of federal assist to varsities, scholar mortgage administration and oversight of Pell Grants.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon mentioned when she acquired to the division, she needed to scale back bloat to have the ability to ship extra money to native schooling authorities.

“So many of the programs are really excellent, so we need to make sure the money goes to the states,” McMahon mentioned in an interview Tuesday on Fox News.

McMahon advised staff to brace for profound cuts in a memo issued March 3, the day she was confirmed by the Senate. She mentioned it was the division’s “final mission” to eradicate bureaucratic bloat and switch over the company’s authority to states.

The division despatched an e mail to staff Tuesday telling them its Washington headquarters and regional workplaces can be closed Wednesday, with entry forbidden, earlier than reopening Thursday. The solely cause given for the closures was unspecified “security reasons.”

Trump campaigned on a promise to shut the division, saying it had been overtaken by “radicals, zealots and Marxists.” At McMahon’s affirmation listening to, she acknowledged solely Congress has the ability to abolish the company however mentioned it is perhaps due for cuts and a reorganization.

Whether the cuts shall be felt by America’s college students — as Democrats and advocates concern — is but to be seen. Already there are issues the administration’s agenda has pushed apart a few of the company’s most basic work, together with the enforcement of civil rights for college students with disabilities and the administration of $1.6 trillion in federal scholar loans.

McMahon advised lawmakers at her listening to that her goal is to not defund core applications, however to make them extra environment friendly.

Even earlier than the layoffs, the Education Department was among the many smallest Cabinet-level companies. Its workforce included 3,100 individuals in Washington and an extra 1,100 at regional workplaces throughout the nation, in accordance with a division web site.

The division’s employees had confronted growing stress to stop their jobs since Trump took workplace, first by a deferred resignation program after which by a $25,000 buyout provide that expired March 3.

Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform, which advocates for constitution college enlargement, mentioned the cuts had been vital and needed.

“Ending incessant federal interference will free up state and local leaders to foster more opportunities to give schools and educators true flexibility and innovation to address the needs of students, wherever they are educated,” Allen mentioned.

Some advocates had been skeptical of the division’s declare that its capabilities wouldn’t be affected by the layoffs.

“I don’t see at all how that can be true,” mentioned Roxanne Garza, who was chief of workers within the Office of Postsecondary Education underneath President Joe Biden.

Much of what the division does, like investigating civil rights complaints and serving to households apply for monetary assist, is labor intensive, mentioned Garza, who’s now director of upper schooling coverage at Education Trust, a analysis and advocacy group. “How those things will not be impacted with far fewer staff … I just don’t see it.”

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