Movement to Abolish the Education Department, Decades in the Making, Lives On

How the department came to be and why critics want to end it

The Department of Education building building in Washington on July 22, 2019. Alastair Pike/AFP via Getty Images

The very day that Congress confirmed Betsy DeVos as the Secretary of Education in early 2017, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced legislation that would dismantle the federal agency she was about to head.

“The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018,” the one-sentence measure reads.