Figure 01. Name of Figure. What is in the figure? Matches alt text. Credit.

U.S. Department of Education

Est. 1979, Disbanded 2025

Noting a gone in the midst of its prospective terminus piques uncertainty; one must hedge with conventional qualifiers: we shall see; time will tell; maybe it will end, maybe not. The United States Department of Education (DoEd) was established in 1980, a result of the passage of S.510, The Department of Education Organization Act, on October 17, 1979, legislation whose secondary “short title” was, “A bill to establish a Department of Education, and for other purposes.” The bill’s introduction to the 96th U.S. Congress on March 3, 1979, listed its eight purposes as follows:

Title I: Findings and Purpose - Declares the purpose of this Act to be: (1) to strengthen the Federal commitment ensuring access to equal educational opportunity for every American; (2) to support more effectively States, localities and public and private institutions in carrying out their responsibilities for education; (3) to promote improvements in the quality and usefulness of education through federally supported research, evaluation, and the sharing of information; (4) to improve the management and efficiency of Federal education activities; (5) to increase the accountability of Federal education programs to the President, the Congress, and the public; (6) to encourage the involvement of the public, parents, and students in Federal education programs; (7) to improve the coordination of Federal education programs; and (8) to prohibit Federal control of education.

On March 3, 2025, POTUS Donald J. Trump appointed Linda E. McMahon as the 13th Secretary of Education. Before McMahon first ran for public office in Connecticut in 2009, she worked as the president and later Chief Executive Officer of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), an ascendant brand whose showy performances merged theatrical physical clashes, pyrotechnics, and extravagant if convoluted dramaturgy. Popular WWE figures included Randy “Macho Man” Savage, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, Andre the Giant, and, perhaps most fitting in the context of ephemeralist practices, gone-noting, and the U.S. Department of Education, The Undertaker.

On March 11, 2025, McMahon’s eighth day as secretary, a press release announced that the Department of Education “today initiated a reduction in force (RIF) impacting nearly 50% of the Department’s workforce.” Nine days later, on March 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order titled, “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities,” whose basic bottom line—the discontinuation of the DoEd—articulates in Sec. 2. Closing the Department of Education and Returning Authority to the States, as follows:

“The Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

Notes

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