The U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday that it will fire over 1,300 of its employees beginning March 21 as part of a “reduction in force,” according to a news release.
The department said it will cut its employees to 2,183, which is approximately half of the 4,133 employee workforce that existed when President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20. The reduction includes more than 500 employees who have voluntarily resigned over the past seven weeks and what the Dallas Morning News reports as a total layoff of the department’s office in Dallas.
“Today’s reduction in force reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a news release. “This is a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system.”
Despite cuts to all divisions of the department, programs such as student loans and Pell Grants will continue to operate, according to the news release. However, Rachel White, associate professor in UT’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy, said the cuts could potentially slow these programs down.
“With less capacity, with less people available to process forms, to make sure that people are held accountable to distribute the funds and things like that, the more challenging this process could be,” White said.
Although the impact of the cuts is yet to be seen, White said they should be done with knowledge of their exact impact, and she said she believes large cuts could potentially impact useful programs such as accumulated research or government data collected over the past few decades that is critical to faculty work and K-12 resources for support.
“Right now, it seems as though we’re making cuts without actually knowing or understanding what the programs and departments are doing,” White said. “Before supporting axing thousands of employees, I would encourage folks to really try to better understand the work that the Department of Education does and the far-reaching implications that this can have for students, particularly our most vulnerable students.”
