{"id":6006,"date":"2025-04-02T09:29:21","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T09:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=6006"},"modified":"2025-04-02T09:29:23","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T09:29:23","slug":"senator-launches-campaign-to-investigate-department-of-education-closure-i-will-fight-it-with-everything-ive-got","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=6006","title":{"rendered":"Senator launches campaign to investigate Department of Education closure: ‘I will fight it with everything I’ve got’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is launching a “Save Our Schools” campaign on Wednesday against President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s attempt to dismantle the Department of Education.<\/p>\n

“The federal government has invested in our public schools,” Warren said in an exclusive interview with ABC News. “Taking that away from our kids so that a handful of billionaires can be even richer is just plain ugly, and I will fight it with everything I’ve got.”<\/p>\n

Warren suggested she is working with students, teachers, parents and unions to “sound the alarm” nationwide.<\/p>\n

“My starting point with this campaign is that I know the power of telling stories and the power it brings to organize people into the fight. We need numbers to win, and this is how we start,” Warren said.<\/p>\n

In a short video obtained by ABC News that Warren is posting to her roughly 20 million social media followers Wednesday morning, Warren says she is launching an investigation into reported plans to replace Department of Education call centers with chatbots. ABC News has not independently confirmed these reports.<\/p>\n

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks during a news conference with Democratic Senators about protecting Social Security benefits for Americans, at the Capitol, April 1, 2025.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Jim Watson\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Warren said that through a combination of federal investigations, oversight, storytelling and even lawsuits, she will work with the community, including lawmakers in Congress, to do everything she can to defend public education. Warren did not provide further details on how she plans to challenge the administration through federal oversight and lawsuits.<\/p>\n

A former special education teacher, Warren said she opposes the Trump administration’s agency overhaul because she said it may result in fired teachers and increased class sizes, adding that programs for students with special needs will “disappear.” However, the Trump administration has vowed to keep statutory funding, such as the programs for students with special needs.<\/p>\n

Trump said those services for students with disabilities, such as those protected by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, will be rehomed in other departments, including the Department of Health and Human Services, which is undergoing massive layoffs<\/a> itself.<\/p>\n

“They think that the American people are stupid [and] will be fooled by slapping a different title on the door and that somehow our kids will get the help that they’re entitled to,” Warren told ABC News.<\/p>\n

“No one is fooled and certainly not the kids who need that help,” she added.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has said it is returning education to the states in dismantling the federal department and that students will be better served by their state departments.<\/p>\n

The campaign is also personal for Warren. In the video obtained by ABC News, Warren said she has seen with her own eyes what the Department of Education does for special needs families and that she is doing everything she can to “fight back.”<\/p>\n

Warren said she was inspired by her second grade teacher to join the education ranks.<\/p>\n

“Whenever someone asked about my future, I would stand a little taller and say: ‘I’m going to be a teacher,'” Warren recalled. “It guided my entire life.”<\/p>\n

Last month, Trump signed an executive order<\/a> that aims to gut the Department of Education. It directs McMahon to close the department using all necessary steps permitted under the law. Still, eliminating the department would require an act from Congress because it was created by Congress.<\/p>\n

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Secretary of Education Linda McMahon stands with President Donald Trump during the signing ceremony for an executive order to shut down the Department of Education in the East Room at the White House in Washington, Mar. 20, 2025.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Carlos Barria\/Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The campaign comes in the wake of the department cutting nearly half its workforce last month. Hundreds of employees in the Federal Student Aid Office were let go, which Warren said could have “dire consequences” on the tens of millions of student loan borrowers who rely on the department’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio to achieve higher education. Trump has said student loans will now be handled by the Small Business Administration.<\/p>\n

“The Department of Education (ED) appears to be abandoning the millions of parents, students, and borrowers who rely on a functioning federal student aid system to lower education costs,” Warren and a group of Democratic senators wrote in a letter urging McMahon to reinstate the fired federal employees.<\/p>\n

The FSA’s operations have already been affected, according to a source familiar. The federal student loan website was down briefly less than 24 hours after the agency cuts. Fired IT employees were called frantically to join an hourslong troubleshooting call to restore the website for millions of borrowers, according to the source.<\/p>\n

As part of Warren’s campaign launch, the senator said she will also highlight the real-world impact on educators, students and families through a series of story collections. She said she is encouraging community members to share submissions on how public education has influenced their lives and what it means to them. Warren told ABC News she did a similar campaign with federal employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau earlier this year.<\/p>\n

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The headquarters of the Department of Education are shown Mar. 12, 2025 in Washington.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Win McNamee\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

However, Warren’s investigations and federal oversight could be hampered by Democrats’ position in Washington.<\/p>\n

“Democrats are in the minority in the House and the Senate, and obviously we don’t have the White House, but not having as much power as we want does not mean having no power,” Warren told ABC News. “We’ve still got a lot we can do, and this combination of investigations, oversight, storytelling and lawsuits is that we can combine more power and push back hard, and it’s already yielded some results.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the administration’s quest to abolish the department has already triggered a legal battle by a coalition of states and education and civil rights groups, including \u200b\u200ba group of teachers unions and public school districts in Warren’s home state of Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

The senator said she is hopeful every person who cares about education joins her campaign.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got to fight for an America where it’s not just the kids of billionaires who get a good education but it’s every kid in every community who gets a great education,” she said. “This fight is our fight.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is launching a “Save Our Schools” campaign on Wednesday against President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s attempt to dismantle the Department of Education. “The federal government has invested in our public schools,” Warren said in an exclusive interview with ABC News. “Taking that away from our kids so that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6006"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6008,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6006\/revisions\/6008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}