{"id":39577,"date":"2025-03-11T21:24:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T02:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=39577"},"modified":"2025-03-11T22:32:59","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T03:32:59","slug":"department-of-education-to-lay-off-nearly-half-its-workforce-as-it-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=39577","title":{"rendered":"Department of Education to lay off nearly half its workforce \u2013 as it happened"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Department of Education\u2019s ‘final mission’ starts with laying off nearly half its workforce, secretary says<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs part of the Department of Education\u2019s final mission,\u201d the new education secretary, Linda McMahon<\/strong>, announced<\/a> on Tuesday evening, \u201cthe Department today initiated a reduction in force (RIF) impacting nearly 50% of the Department\u2019s workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On social media, McMahon, the former chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment, shared posts praising the move, including one by a founder of Moms for Liberty, a conservative activist group that has called for the banning of books<\/a> it calls pornographic, curtailing the teaching of LGBTQ+ experiences and restricting discussions of race in schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Tuesday\u2019s layoffs of about 1,300 workers, the department\u2019s staff will be roughly half of its previous 4,100, the agency said in a statement<\/a>. According to the department, another 572 employees had already accepted \u201cvoluntary resignation opportunities and retirement\u201d over the last seven weeks. The newly laid-off employees will be placed on administrative leave at the end of next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department is also terminating leases on buildings in cities including New York, Boston, Chicago and Cleveland, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Department officials said the agency would continue to oversee the distribution of federal aid to schools, student loan management and oversight of Pell grants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump campaigned on a promise to close the department, claiming it had been overtaken by \u201cradicals, zealots and Marxists\u201d. At McMahon\u2019s confirmation hearing, she acknowledged that only Congress has the power to abolish the agency but said it might be due for cuts and a reorganization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday, McMahon wrote to 60 universities<\/a> to warn them that they were under investigation for supposed violations of the Civil Rights Act because of protests against Israel\u2019s war on Gaza that the Trump administration defines as \u201cantisemitic harassment and discrimination\u201d of Jewish students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the department pushes ahead with cuts, a federal judge in Boston blocked the Trump administration\u2019s plan to cut hundreds of millions of dollars for teacher training, finding that cuts were already affecting training programs aimed at addressing a nationwide teacher shortage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US district judge Myong Joun sided with eight states that had requested a temporary restraining order. The states argued the cuts were likely driven by Trump\u2019s drive to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which the president seems to believe is a form of racism against white Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

theguardian<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Department of Education\u2019s ‘final mission’ starts with laying off nearly half its workforce, secretary says \u201cAs part of the Department of Education\u2019s final mission,\u201d the new education secretary, Linda McMahon, announced on Tuesday evening, \u201cthe Department today initiated a reduction in force (RIF) impacting nearly 50% of the Department\u2019s workforce.\u201d On social media, McMahon, the former chief executive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":39578,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5781],"tags":[2132,1564,31302,2361],"class_list":["post-39577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-education","tag-layoffs","tag-linda-mcmahon","tag-workforce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39580,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39577\/revisions\/39580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}