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How many jobs are being cut from the Department of Education, and what percentage of the total workforce is that?
The department's staff will be reduced from 4,133 employees to about 2,183 employees. This significant downsizing aligns with broader efforts to restructure the department.
This significant downsizing aligns with broader efforts to restructure the department.
What are the broader efforts to restructure the Department of Education?
The broader efforts to restructure the U.S. Department of Education are part of a larger initiative to reduce federal oversight and shift control to states and local governments. Here are some key aspects of the restructuring:
- Shifting Control to States: The plan emphasizes giving states and local governments more authority over education policies and reducing federal mandates.
- Reducing Federal Bureaucracy: The department's workforce and budget are being significantly downsized, with some functions being transferred to other federal agencies or state governments.
- Restructuring Student Loan Programs: Oversight of federal student loans may be shifted to other agencies, focusing on privatizing loan servicing.
- Scaling Back Civil Rights Oversight: The Office for Civil Rights, which enforces policies on gender and racial equity in schools, is facing reductions in its role.
- Eliminating "Woke" Curriculum Policies: The administration aims to reduce federal influence over school curricula, particularly in critical race theory and social-emotional learning areas.
- Expanding School Choice Initiatives: Federal funding for low-income schools may be reallocated to support school choice programs.
These changes align with longstanding conservative goals to minimize federal involvement in education.
What are the specifics of the plan to restructure Student Loan Programs
The restructuring of student loan programs involves several significant changes:
- Suspension of Income-Driven Repayment Plans: The Department of Education has halted enrollment in four popular income-driven repayments (IDR) plans, including Income-Based Repayment, Pay As You Earn, and the SAVE plan. These plans previously allowed borrowers to make payments based on their income and family size, with the promise of loan forgiveness after 20 or 25 years.
- Privatization of Loan Servicing: Oversight of federal student loans is being shifted to private entities, aiming to streamline operations and reduce federal involvement.
- Elimination of Loan Forgiveness Pathways: The suspension of IDR plans also impacts pathways to loan forgiveness, such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness, leaving borrowers with fewer affordable repayment options.
- Focus on Simplification: The restructuring aims to simplify the repayment process, potentially consolidating multiple repayment plans into fewer options.
These changes are part of broader efforts to reduce federal oversight and align with the administration's goals of minimizing government involvement in education.
Why and how does the Trump Administration want to reduce the Department of Education's Civil Rights oversight?
The Trump administration's efforts to cut back the Department of Education's civil rights oversight are part of a broader initiative to reduce federal involvement in education and shift responsibilities to states. Here's the reasoning and approach behind these changes:
- Reasoning: The administration argues that reducing federal oversight will streamline operations, eliminate what they see as "bureaucratic bloat," and allow states more control over education policies. They believe this approach will lead to more efficient and localized decision-making.
- How It's Being Done:
- Staff Reductions: The Office for Civil Rights, which enforces policies on gender, racial equity, and disability rights in schools, is facing significant staff cuts. This downsizing limits its capacity to investigate and address complaints.
- Policy Changes: The administration has redefined what constitutes discrimination in schools, narrowing the scope of federal intervention. For example, they have rolled back policies related to racial and gender equity and reduced protections for transgender students.
How will changes in the Department of education specifically attempt to limit what they call "Woke Education"
The Department of Education's efforts to limit what they refer to as "woke education" focus on reducing federal funding and support for programs and initiatives tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), as well as critical race theory (CRT). Here are some specifics:
- Elimination of DEI Initiatives: The department has dissolved councils and programs dedicated to DEI, such as the Diversity & Inclusion Council, and has removed related resources from its public platforms.
- Cancellation of Grants and Contracts: Over $600 million in grants for teacher training programs that included DEI, CRT, and social justice topics have been terminated. Additionally, $350 million in contracts with organizations promoting equity audits and DEI training have been canceled.
- Policy Revisions: The department has withdrawn its Equity Action Plan and archived guidance documents that promoted DEI or CRT in schools.
- Focus on "Neutral" Education: The administration aims to reorient education policies toward what they describe as "meaningful learning" rather than "divisive ideologies."
These changes are part of a broader push to reduce federal influence over school curricula and align with the administration's priorities.
All data and information were obtained from Copilot, an AI-powered chatbot owned and operated by Microsoft Corporation.
David Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.