Education Secretary Linda McMahon testifies in front of a congressional committee in May 2025.

Shortly after she was sworn in, I invited Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to my office.

I looked her dead in the eye and asked, “Now, I just want to be clear, do you think you can shut down the Department of Education?”

She looked straight back at me and said, “No, I don’t have the legal authority to do that.”

But here we are.

It’s official: Donald Trump and Secretary McMahon are dismantling the Department of Education one piece at a time. This is, in Secretary McMahon’s words, the department’s “final mission.”

The assault on the department has come in several directions. On Nov. 18, Secretary McMahon announced that she was transferring major functions of the department to four other federal agencies. This means that programs are being moved into other agencies that have no relevant expertise to be managed by people who know nothing about the issues.

No part of public education will remain untouched

Here’s just one example of how this will work: Under this new arrangement, the Department of Labor will be in charge of supporting K-12 literacy, American history and civics, and Title I funding. Drink that in: Labor Department employees will decide which reading readiness programs to support for kindergartners.

In fact, no part of public education will remain untouched by this move. Title I provides the biggest federal fund for K-12 schools and is used to help pay for good teachers and new textbooks all across America. School administrators are concerned that these changes may result in bigger class sizes, fewer afterschool and tutoring programs, and not enough workbooks for our kids because federal funding isn’t coming through.

There’s more: Secretary McMahon has been trying to slash the section of the Department of Education that assists students with disabilities and their families. If she’s successful, this could sharply limit access to speech therapy, individual aides and special equipment that are all essential for these children to participate fully in a classroom education.

Secretary McMahon has also fired half the staff at the Department of Education. For the 6 million students taking out loans for college each year and the 43 million wrestling with their outstanding loans, cuts at the Department of Education's student loan division will hit hard. The secretary of Education seems determined to sideline the cop on the beat to stop the scammers who prey on these students.

Both families and schools will suffer. Because of the changes the secretary has made, schools will no longer be able to turn to the Department of Education when they face problems. Instead, they will now have to navigate four federal agencies and new staff and systems.

Trump and McMahon want to destroy Education Department from within

Agencies that have no experience will be in charge, risking mistakes, confusion and delays in funding. For all the Trump administration’s talk about government efficiency, this is the opposite. This is no accident.

While Donald Trump and Secretary McMahon claim to care about efficiency, the real goal has been clear all along: They want to destroy the Department of Education from within. They want to make the department so dysfunctional that people will want to get rid of it.

Because here’s the thing: If they can create a system so complicated that it doesn’t work and if they hollow out the Department of Education just enough, there will be nothing left to abolish.

This isn’t a fight over a national curriculum or putting education back into the hands of states. Federal law already guarantees that states – not the federal government – will decide what gets taught. Instead, this assault on public education is exactly that – an effort to undermine public schools all across America.

I was a special education teacher. I know how much families rely on the Department of Education to ensure that their kids get the resources they need. To me, what’s at stake in this fight is more than the future of a federal agency. It’s about whether our country is truly committed to the idea of public education: the idea that anyone, no matter where they are born or how much money their parents have, can get a first-class education.

Public education is a foundational block in our democracy, both for informed citizens and to give everyone a chance to build lifelong skills. And that’s what the Trump administration is trying to dismantle by closing down the Department of Education, an agency dedicated to building opportunities for kids all across the country.

Public service is exactly that – serving the public. When a secretary of Education is actively dismantling our public education system, it’s time to reconsider her role in government. When the secretary is working to make class sizes bigger, take away aides for kids with special needs, leave college students at the mercy of financial predators, and make the whole department nonfunctional, it’s time for new leadership.

Linda McMahon has no business leading the Department of Education. She should resign.

Elizabeth Warren is the senior United States senator from the state of Massachusetts.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Education Secretary Linda McMahon should resign

Reporting by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Opinion contributor / USA TODAY

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