is this really happening?

Killing DoE and returning educational curricula to the states? This would be a dream come true if it could be made to stick, but it's only an executive order, and a questionably constitutional one at that. From what I understand, Trump's strategy for the dismantling of organizations has been not to abolish major organizations outright, but rather to hollow them out from the inside through mass firings, de-staffing them to the point where they can no longer function. (Now, as we're learning about the JFK situation, the CIA itself really ought to be on the chopping block for this sort of treatment since we've learned about its—frankly unsurprising—role as a government within a government, i.e., a deep state.) But this thing with the Department of Education strikes me as new: an executive order that will make abolishing the organization easier. I hate to say it because it's basically a useless body, but if Trump wants this change to stick, he needs to have Congress get off its fat ass and endorse the action, ratifying the idea that the DoE should no longer exist, and that curricular power should devolve to the individual states. Down with national standards!

As a former teacher, though, I suspect that, in the end, if market forces are allowed to rule, what will happen is that not much will change. As long as there remain standardized tests like the SAT and ACT and whatever else is out there, many states will adopt a teach to the test mentality, resulting in state curricula that will all look eerily similar.

Headline (probable paywall):

Trump Signs Order to Dismantle Department of Education
The order says the education secretary shall facilitate the closure of the department.

“We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible,” Trump said before signing the order.

The order states in part that “The Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement after Trump signed the order that funds for special needs students, those who have federal student loans, and others would not be cut off.

“We’re going to follow the law and eliminate the bureaucracy responsibly by working with Congress and state leaders to ensure a lawful and orderly transition,” she said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier Thursday that the Department of Education would continue to administer key programs such as Pell grants.

However, Trump said that critical components of the department such as Pell grants and resources for children with disabilities would be “preserved in full” but shifted to other agencies, while the rest of the department would be abolished.

The Department of Education was split by a federal law from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1979, becoming an independent agency.

It helps promote education of students and administers student loans and other programs.

In discussing eliminating the agency, Trump and the White House have pointed to subpar test scores in the United States and in global rankings when compared to other countries, including other nations that are also part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

“Despite per-pupil spending having increased by more than 245% over that period, there has been virtually no measurable improvement in student achievement,” the White House said in a statement.

[ ... ]

Reagan campaigned for the abolition of the Department of Education during his presidential run in 1980, but was unable to do so due to a lack of congressional support.

Apparently, some on the left think my prediction of "not much would change" is quite wrong:

Others criticized the move, including teachers unions.

National Education Association President Becky Pringlen said in a statement that, if successful, the action would “hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, taking away special-education services for students with disabilities, and gutting student civil-rights protections.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, issued a brief statement: “See you in court.”

While speaking with reporters after the signing ceremony, McMahon said she had not yet spoken with Weingarten regarding her legal challenge, but added that she disagrees with the teacher-union president’s assertions that Trump wants to “take education away from children.”

“He wants to get those dollars, even more dollars, back to the states, without the bureaucracy of Washington. So that’s our plan,” McMahon said.

The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, which has recently opened investigations into anti-Semitism and alleged Title IX violations at multiple schools, may continue under the Department of Justice, McMahon added.

“The executive order did not specify what happens with any of the departments within Education. So we are looking at where best those departments can be located,” she said.

A reporter asked the secretary what would happen to all of the agency’s employees after the dismantling.

McMahon said last week that the department had already terminated nearly half of its workers, giving them three months of full pay and benefits.

“After that, under the rules of civil service, they also will get a severance package,” she said, adding that the administration was trying to provide an off-ramp for the Education Department’s employees. She did not say what would happen to the remaining workers.

Regarding the agency’s funding to the states, McMahon said the president’s goal is to provide the money “without any strings attached.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told reporters after the signing ceremony that his state would be providing more funding for public schools.

“First, student funding will be at an all-time high. We’re very meaningfully increasing teacher pay for teachers in large school districts. There’ll be a teacher pay raise of up to $5,500 a year,” Abbott said. “For teachers in rural Texas, which is [independent school districts] of 5,000 students or less, it’ll be a teacher pay raise of up to $10,000 more per teacher.”

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry told The Epoch Times on Thursday that he is eager to see the federal funding sent to the states as block grants “so we can utilize it in the best way possible so there’s no more strings” attached.

“I’m willing to give the president an opportunity to give it to us and see how we can change the trajectory of education in this country and in our states,” Landry said.

Despite the order, Trump needs congressional approval to abolish the department.

Killing the Department of Eduction is going to take a long time. I wonder whether DOGE will still be around by the time the job is done. I wonder whether the task can even be done. In a sense, too big to fail is a thing: some bureaucratic structures are so massive that killing them is like killing the Lurker of the Sarangrave from the Thomas Covenant novels. In that story, the Lurker is an enormous, amorphous, tentacled beast, a mass of primitive evil covering at least the size of the vast marsh in which it hides. It's surrounded and protected by its own ecology of perverse, twisted, mutant creatures; it can affect atmospheric conditions by making the air so thick as to be nearly unbreathable, and even by the end of the Covenant story in the Last Chronicles, the Lurker still lives on, apparently unkillable by mortals. The Department of Education, very much a version of the Lurker of the Sarangrave, was founded in 1979, about 46 years ago. I was ten years old. It has grown vast since then, its metastases reaching far and wide throughout the nation like so many other departments, agencies, and organizations that DOGE is taking on. Even if the DoE gets "debulked" in the manner of my mother's brain tumor, its outer edges have the potential to regrow, fuse, and come back stronger than ever. While this executive order is welcome news, it's far from the final answer.