Yesterday evening, the U.S. Department of Education announced it is cutting 50% of its staff. These layoffs are considered phase one of completely shuttering the Department of Education—an agency established by Congress. This is part of a plan first outlined in Project 2025, the Trump administration’s policy blueprint. 

In response to the mass firings, the BlueGreen Alliance released the following statement from Executive Director Jason Walsh: 

“The Education Department is vital to supporting working families and ensuring that every child has a fair shake at a successful future. Tearing down the U.S. Department of Education will only serve to build up barriers to the middle class. With this new action by the Trump administration, we must ask the question: Is keeping people poor and uneducated to serve the billionaire class their goal?”