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In a move that may redefine the federal role in American education, a coalition of Republican senators has introduced sweeping legislation to dismantle the US Department of Education, accelerating a long-gestating conservative objective to return control of schooling to states and local jurisdictions.
Introduced Wednesday morning, the Returning Education to Our States Act comes just days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order instructing the Department to begin preparations for its closure. The bill, authored by Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and co-sponsored by Senators Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), seeks to eliminate the Department outright and redistribute its functions across multiple federal agencies.
Federal overhaul, state reclamation
The proposed legislation would reassign portions of the Department’s responsibilities to agencies, including the Departments of the Interior, Health and Human Services, Labour, and Defense—effectively diffusing federal oversight and ceding educational autonomy to individual states.
Key mandates previously tied to federal funding—such as the enforcement of standardised assessments to identify underperforming schools and federally dictated teacher certification requirements—would be dismantled. Instead, states would gain the authority to define their own educational metrics, professional development protocols, and curricular guidelines.
The bill also nullifies existing mandates around Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) and Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) designations—mechanisms designed under federal law to flag schools needing intensive intervention.
Sharp critique of federal oversight
For Republicans, the move is both philosophical and practical. Senator Banks underscored the bill’s populist appeal, citing glaring disparities between federal bureaucratic compensation and classroom realities.
Senator Sheehy echoed the sentiment, calling the Department a “bloated federal machine” that has squandered historic levels of education funding without measurable gains in student outcomes.
Backed from within
Unusually, the effort has found vocal support within the Department itself. Education Secretary Linda McMahon—appointed by Trump and a longstanding advocate of administrative downsizing—has endorsed the plan. In a recent op-ed, McMahon laid out her vision for dismantling the agency, aligning her department’s leadership with its would-be executioners.
A recent closed-door meeting between McMahon and Senator Rounds further cemented coordination between the Department and the Senate GOP on advancing the proposal, signaling an unprecedented level of internal buy-in.
An existential moment for Federal Education Policy
This is no symbolic gesture. The GOP’s legislative blitz, backed by president and his political allies, reflects a tectonic shift in conservative education doctrine—one that seeks to uproot the very foundation of federal involvement in schools.
The stakes are high. Should this bill become law, it would represent not just the closure of a cabinet agency, but the collapse of a federal education framework that has shaped American schooling for nearly half a century.
For now, the Department remains operational. But the signal is clear: The era of Washington-led education may be drawing to a historic close.
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