WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s aim to shutter the Education Department faces steep hurdles in Congress, where Republicans’ legislative efforts to abolish the agency remain stalled and appropriators have rejected many of his proposed cuts to education spending.

After campaigning last year on a pledge to shut down the department, Trump came into office promising to follow through, and made some preliminary moves.

He said he wanted Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “put herself out of a job” and signed a sweeping executive order in March calling on her to facilitate the closure of the Education Department to the extent she is permitted to by law.

He won a key victory in the U.S. Supreme Court in July that temporarily cleared the way for the administration to move ahead with mass

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