I said yesterday here that shutting down the US Education Dept. is simply NOT gonna happen….
Talking about shifting programs to ‘other’ places makes abosolutly NO sense….
People handling those programs can’t be laid off and their expertise lost as programs are dumped in other places…
We’re talking about funding for the nation’s Education….
It’s Future….
The lawsuit is from almost half of the states….
A coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general sued the Trump administration on Thursday, two days after the Education Department fired more than 1,300 workers, purging people who administer grants and track student achievement across America.
The group, led by New York’s Letitia James, sued the administration in a Massachusetts federal court, saying that the dismissals were “illegal and unconstitutional.”
“Firing half of the Department of Education’s work force will hurt students throughout New York and the nation, especially low-income students and those with disabilities who rely on federal funding,” Ms. James said in a news release. “This outrageous effort to leave students behind and deprive them of a quality education is reckless and illegal.”
The cuts to the department’s staff will cause a delay in “nearly every aspect” of the K-12 education in their states, the attorneys general said in their suit. Therefore, the coalition is seeking a court order to stop what it called “policies to dismantle” the agency, arguing that the layoffs are just a first step toward its destruction….
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Thursday’s move was made in concert with the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin, Vermont and the District of Columbia.
“President Trump is not a king, and he cannot unilaterally decide to close a cabinet agency,” said Matthew J. Platkin, New Jersey’s attorney general.
The suit is the most recent legal challenge to Mr. Trump’s fast-moving agenda. At the core of his goals has been a push to slash jobs, programs and funding across the government. To lead the push, Mr. Trump appointed Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, to run a program called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Staffed by Mr. Musk’s young aides, DOGE has bulldozed through federal agencies.
In its 52 days, the Trump administration has dealt crippling blows to several departments, including the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Layoffs have also left thousands of federal workers unemployed and looking for employment in a sluggish job market….
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The attorneys general argued in their Education Department suit that the executive branch “does not have the legal authority to unilaterally incapacitate or dismantle it without an act of Congress.”
The cuts announced this week would have “devastating effects,” they said. The Education Department serves nearly 18,200 districts and more than 50 million students, attending roughly 98,000 public schools and 32,000 private schools, they said. The department’s funds support programs for special education — both in public and private schools — and students in rural communities…
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In their filing on Thursday, the attorneys general said the Department of Education was essential and that their states relied on the agency for “an extraordinary array of programs.”
Although Congress has granted the secretary the authority to restructure the agency, she is “not permitted to eliminate or disrupt functions required by statute, nor can she transfer the department’s responsibilities to another agency outside of its statutory authorization,” the suit said.
The court should declare the directive from Mr. Trump to cut the agency unconstitutional, they argued….
Note…
While the Republican state’s haven’t joined the suits…
They would actually be in worse condition since they rely MORE on Federal Aid…
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