by Malia Loock
A coalition of conservative organizations is urging congressional leaders to continue the Trump administration’s work of closing the Department of Education.
“We urge each of you to continue the essential process of closing the U.S. Department of Education,” states the letter sent Thursday to Education Secretary Linda McMahon; Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.; Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La.; and Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., chairmen of the respective House and Senate education committees.
Spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation, the letter includes signatures from groups such as Concerned Women for America, the Center for Christian Virtue, Family Policy Alliance, Military Families in Support of Parental Rights, and many state education policy groups.
“By returning education to the states, the US Department of Education has focused on student needs, not on the operation of a failed federal bureaucracy,” Jonathan Butcher, acting director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy and Will Skillman senior research fellow in education policy, told the Daily Signal in a statement.
Under McMahon’s leadership, the department allows states to apply for waivers that exempt them from federal education requirements, meaning parents and states have more agency in their children’s education.
“Such waivers,” the letter affirms, “are a welcome change to the heavy-handed operations of previous federal administrations.”
As of late October 2026, the department had approved Returning Education to the States waivers for at least eight states, including Iowa, Louisiana, Indiana, Vermont, Arkansas, South Dakota, Mississippi and Ohio. These waivers allow states to consolidate multiple federal funding streams, such as portions of Title II, III and IV funds, into more flexible pools, with officials citing reduced compliance burdens and the ability to redirect money toward state priorities like literacy and workforce readiness. Ohio’s approval alone covers more than $38 million through 2029.
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce has also approved proposals for agreements that transfer the department’s traditional responsibilities — such as civil rights enforcement and oversight of federal student loans — to other executive agencies.
Since its opening in 1980, the Department of Education has not accomplished any of the goals it was tasked with reaching, the letter claims.
“This transfer of authority is essential because by any measure,” the letter says, “the Education Department has failed to improve student achievement, make state education agencies more efficient, or protect parent and student rights.”
The letter cites the Nation’s Report Card, which found that nearly two-thirds of fourth graders score “at basic or below in math” and nearly 70% score “at basic or below in reading.”
This performance is “mediocre,” the letter asserts, considering that U.S. spending exceeds $20,000 per student.
The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results, released in early 2025 for the 2024 assessment, showed that 39 percent of fourth-graders scored at or above proficient in math — up slightly from 2022 but still below 2019 levels — while only about 31 percent reached proficient in reading. Roughly 40 percent of fourth-graders scored below basic in reading, and average reading scores had declined further from both 2022 and pre-pandemic 2019 levels. Per-pupil spending figures cited by the letter exceed $20,000 when combining federal, state and local sources.
The letter also referred to congressional reports that claim Education Department paperwork places unfair burdens on state and local educators.
One 1998 House report says the Department of Education has created a “cottage industry in selling information on program descriptions, application deadlines and filing instructions for each of the myriad federal education programs.” The letter claims the agency’s “operation and performance” have not changed in the decades since the report.
As a concrete suggestion, the letter points to The Heritage Foundation’s model legislation that would “close the agency and remove any reference to the Education Department from federal law.”
McMahon herself has affirmed her commitment to closing the agency she leads.
“President [Donald] Trump believes that the bureaucracy in Washington should be abolished so that we can return education to the states, where it belongs,” McMahon wrote to senators before her confirmation as secretary. “I wholeheartedly support and agree with this mission.”
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Malia Loock is a Daily Signal intern. Executive Editor of The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network Christina Botteri contributed to this report.
