As the United States Department of Education is reduced after mass layoffs in the agency, President Donald Trump and his allies continue to make doubtful statements about the agency and education in the country.
ABC News examined some of the common complaints of President Donald Trump about the Department of Education and the State of Education in the United States.
Versus results
Trump has repeatedly stated that the United States lasts in the world in education among developed countries while spending more as a student.
“So classify the 40 main countries of the world, we are in the number 40, but we are in number 1 position in an department: cost per student.” Trump said at the White House last month. “So we spend more for a student than any other country in the world, but we are in number 40.”
The headquarters of the Department of Education of the United States, which was ordered closed for the day so officials described as security reasons amid large -scale layoffs, is seen on March 12, 2025 in Washington.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
This statement is not true based on data reviewed by ABC News. The United States does not occupy the last place in education or spend more as a student.
The White House did not respond to the application for ABC News information on Trump’s claim. It is not clear what data Trump used to base their statements.
Although the country goes through a student, the Education Data Initiative He found an average of $ 20,387 per year of federal, state and local expenses. The amount is the highest third per student (after adjusting to local currency values). The country is not the last in any educational statistics that ABC News has reviewed.
The United States is above the average in reading and science, and approximately the average when it comes to mathematics scores, according to the Program of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for the International Student Evaluation (PISA). PISA is the standard of the industry to classify students from different countries, according to experts in education. There are approximately 40 member countries and economies in the OECD and about 40 more countries have participated in the last three evaluations. It varies per year: in 2015, 70 countries and economies participated; In 2018, 78 participated.
In 2022, the most recently published data, approximately 81 countries participated in the PISA evaluations of the OECD, which measure the capacity of the 15 -year years to use their knowledge of reading, mathematics and sciences. The United States occupied the ninth of 81 in Reading, 16/81 in Science and 34/81 in Mathematics, according to the results of 2022 PISA.
Pisa’s results discredit Trump’s long statement that “we are at the bottom of each list.”
The next Pisa data collection will be carried out in 2025, and is expected to be launched in September 2026, according to an OECD spokesman.
However, this does not mean that American students always have great performance. Some results in the exams administered nationwide have shown concerns lately.
The sliding reading scores of the students of fourth and eighth grade of the United States worsened in 2024, according to the National Evaluation of Educational Progress, called Reports Reports de la Nación, administered by the National Center for Education Statistics under the Department of Education. Compared to 2022, this year’s average reading scores fell into 2 points for fourth and eighth grade evaluations, according to the data of Nes made between January and March 2024. That adds to the decrease of 3 points for both degrees in 2022.
Despite the decrease in reading, there was some recovery in mathematics in 2024, but the increase has not returned students to pre-pondemic levels.
And there are also almost One third The US students ended the 2023-2024 school year behind the degree level in at least one academic subject.
It is not clear if these data will be collected in future years if the DOE is eliminated.
State and local education agencies
The Trump administration has declared that through cuts in the Department of Education, they want to return education to the United States.
“The president wants to return education to the United States, empower those closest to people to make these important decisions for the life of our children. And … This is a first step in that process,” said the White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, to Selina Wang of ABC News, when asked about the cuts in the DOE.
Education is a local level already, since the Federal Education Department only manages approximately 10% of public schools throughout the country, according to multiple education experts.
Chloe Kienzle de Arlington, Virginia, has a signal while it is outside the headquarters of the United States Department of Education, which were ordered closed for the day for which officials described as security reasons in large scale layoffs, on March 12, 2025, in Washington.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
The Education Department does not manage a curriculum or create lessons for the students of the Nation. Nor does it establish requirements for registration and graduation or establish or accredit schools or universities.
In fact, the curriculum comes from local states and districts. The Department of Education does not teach students to take standardized exams and evaluations. The states already do that.
The Department of Education responsible for schools for enforcing non -discrimination laws based on race, gender and disability.
The agency also manages funds for K-12 educational support programs, such as the Rural Education Achievement Program, which supports rural districts that can lack personnel and resources; Title I, which finances programs aimed at improving the performance of low -income and low performance schools; and subsidies for people with disabilities, including transition and post -secondary programs for students.
The department not only manages K-12 assistance, but also helps students to follow higher education through the Federal Student Aid Office through subsidies, Labor Study Funds and Low Interest Loans.
Finally, the DOE holds schools for the performance of students through the law of success of all students, which requires that each State provide data on the performance of the subjects, the graduation rates, the suspensions, the absenteeism, the qualifications of the teachers and more.
The mission of the Department of Education is to promote the performance and preparation of students for global competitiveness promoting educational excellence and guaranteeing the same access, according to Ed.gov.
Doe employees that are presented to work
Trump has affirmed, without evidence, that many employees of the Department of Education were not going to work or do a good job.
“Many of them do not work at all. Many of them never appeared to work. Many of them, many of them never appeared to work,” Trump said at the White House on Wednesday.
The White House did not respond to ABC News comments on where Trump obtained this information.
Based on dozens of interviews, ABC News Reporting has not found any evidence that employees “never” will be presented to work, as Trump said.
ABC News has spoken with employees in charge of everything, from carrying out critical research projects to enforcing laws against discrimination for students based on race, gender and disability, among other characteristics.
When the Department of Education reduced almost 50% of its workforce earlier this week, an email to those who remained employees said: “Please know that these decisions were not made lightly, and in any way reflect on the dedication and hard work of those who leave.”
Joe Murphy, whose position as a management and data analyst was eliminated in the Department of Education earlier this week, said Wednesday that he felt “disposable.”
“We have the feeling that we were disposable in a certain sense, especially those of us in the data space,” he told ABC News.
Victoria Delano was a specialist in equal opportunities in the office of the Department of Civil Rights Education that serve people with disabilities. Delano said he believes she was the only one in the OCR that was parked in Alabama.
“It is horrible that the Office of Civil Rights, to begin with, have little personal, but then, when I was left without access to work last week, to think, OK, one more person who was taken from the equation,” Delano said.
“These students do not have anyone else. You can still present complaints to Ocr. Please understand that OCR has little personal in the best case, and OCR at this time does not have an external communication with all of you. So I do not know where you turn,” he added.
An employee of the Department of Regional Education, who received the email of reduction in force on Tuesday and spoke with ABC News on condition of anonymity for fear of remuneration, said that his civil rights office was abolished.
The offices in the main cities, including San Francisco, New York, Cleveland, Boston, Chicago and Dallas, have closed, and the three buildings of the United States Department of Education in DC will eventually consolidate, according to officials of the Department of Education.
“All these disabled children, which is most of our file, will not receive help,” said the employee.
