US president Donald Trump has signed an executive order handing over control of education policy from the federal government to states and local boards.
Sitting at a small desk surrounded by children dressed in uniforms, Mr Trump made good on election promises, signing the order, while vowing to return education “back to the states where it belongs.”
During the White House ceremony on Thursday, the president asked the group of children gathered around him if he should sign the order, with the question met by enthusiastic nodding. While Mr Trump signed the order, the children behind him, who were given their own markers and documents, signed their names before raising the documents in the air.
It follows the department of education’s announcement last week that it was to cut nearly half of its staff, as Mr Trump increasingly doubles down on pledges to dismantle federal bureaucracy.
“We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible,” the president said on Thursday, adding: “It’s doing us no good.”
Mr Trump has long called for the department to be axed, and has been a persistent critic of the department as being captured by liberal ideology, making a campaign pledge to scrap it.
However, its shuttering would require the approval by Congress – which is unlikely to pass because Republicans would need to enlist Democratic support to meet the 60-vote threshold required to close a department. At present, Republicans hold a slim 53-47 majority in the Senate.
The move is already subject to legal challenges from those seeking to block the closure of the agency as well as sweeping job losses announced last week.
However, even if the department remains formally open, the Trump administration could sharply cut its funding and staff numbers as it has done with the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The executive order has cited poor literacy levels and testing scores among American children as a justification for cutting the department down.
“The US spends more money on education by far than any other country” yet students “rank near the bottom of the list in terms of success,” according to the president.
At present, the department oversees some 100,000 public and 34,000 private schools across the country, as well as student loans taken out by tens of millions of US students. Mr Trump has insisted that student loans and funding for children with disabilities, some of the department’s “useful functions” will be “fully preserved.”
“They’re going to be preserved in full and redistributed to various other agencies and departments that will take very good care of them,” he said.
Under the plans, US states could have education systems similar to some European countries including Denmark, Norway and Finland.
Mr Trump today pledged to support teachers, saying that they are “among the most important people in this country.”
“We are going to love and cherish our teachers along with our children,” he said.