Gavin Newsom leads liberal outcry as Donald Trump guts Department of Education

Sacramento, California: Gov. Gavin Newsom has come out swinging at President Donald Trump's executive order calling for the dismantling of the US Education Department.

"This overreach needs to be rejected immediately by a co-equal branch of government. Or was Congress eliminated by this executive order, too?" the governor said.

Newsom claims: "If there were to be any reduction in funding, a child with disabilities, a child who may be on the spectrum, could lose their paraprofessional, their teacher aid," Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said. "There could be reductions for after school tutorial programs in math and reading for struggling kids in poverty, kids who may be experiencing homelessness could be deprived of direct assistance.

On March 20, Trump signed an executive order directing US Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the Department of Education. Trump announced the order during a White House signing ceremony, reiterating his campaign promise to “send education back to the states".

The executive order instructs McMahon to shut down key functionalities of the department. “We’re going to shut it down as quickly as possible. It’s doing us no good,” he declared. The department’s budget primarily funds federal grant and loan programs, including $18.4billion for Title I, which supports high − poverty K−12 schools, and $15.5 billion for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

The White House clarified that these programs, along with the $1.6 trillion federal student loan program, would remain unaffected.