The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education must temporarily reinstate the hundreds of employees laid off earlier this year and cannot follow through on an executive order from President Donald Trump seeking to dismantle the agency, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled Thursday.

The ruling stems from a pair of March lawsuits — one from a slew of Democratic attorneys general, another from a coalition of advocacy and labor groups — and blocks three Trump initiatives, marking a major blow to the president’s education agenda as his administration seeks to dramatically reshape the federal role in education.

The lawsuits challenge some of the administration’s m

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