The Wikipedia article on ED (as it's abbreviated) gives a summary overview of its formation, in 1980, when the former Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the present ED and the Department of Health and Human Services.
It also gives the ED's principle four functions of:
- Establishing policies on federal financial aid for education and distributing as well as monitoring those funds.
- Collecting data on America's schools and disseminating research.
- Focusing national attention on key issues in education, and making recommendations for education reform.
- Prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education.
As with other recent cessations of governmental functions, a sudden disruption of services and function is likely to sow chaos affecting institutions, students, educators, and their many partners. Which is strongly speculated to be a major point of such disruptions.
Quite aside of the downstream effects (which are going to be a mess), I'm struck by the administration's open solicitation of constitutional crises - in this case disregarding the fact that the department's creation was mandated by Congress.
It also gives the ED's principle four functions of:
- Establishing policies on federal financial aid for education and distributing as well as monitoring those funds.
- Collecting data on America's schools and disseminating research.
- Focusing national attention on key issues in education, and making recommendations for education reform.
- Prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ed...>
As with other recent cessations of governmental functions, a sudden disruption of services and function is likely to sow chaos affecting institutions, students, educators, and their many partners. Which is strongly speculated to be a major point of such disruptions.