Trump administration announces plan to shutter Education Department, give duties to other agencies

The Trump administration on Tuesday announced its detailed plan to dismantle the federal government's Education Department.

The plan calls for transferring responsibilities from the department to five other federal departments. It also attempts to make good on Trump's campaign promise to shutter the department and return education to the states, a longtime goal of conservative-minded lawmakers before and with Trump.

The announcement was immediately met with backlash from Democratic members of Congress, who questioned the legality of the plan, which Republicans have longer vowed to execute, according to the Connecticut Mirror newspaper.

The agreements – with the departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services and State.

“The Trump Administration is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement alongside the announcement.