In the latest effort by the Trump administration to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, it announced on Thursday that all staff will be leaving the department's longtime, Washington, D.C., headquarters in the Lyndon B. Johnson building, which the administration estimates "is roughly 70% vacant."
"Thanks to the hard work of so many, we have made unprecedented progress in reducing the federal education footprint," said Education Secretary Linda McMahon in a statement announcing the move, "and now we are pleased to give this building to an agency that will benefit far more from its space than the Department of Education."
That incoming agency will be the larger Department of Energy, currently housed in the James V. Forrestal building that, the Trump administration says, is "outdated" enough that the move will save taxpayers more than $350 million in "deferred maintenance costs," according to a press release.
Education Department staff will be relocated to a smaller office roughly a block away from their old headquarters, at 500 D Street SW, this August.
The move was decried by Democrats.
"Leaving the Lyndon B. Johnson headquarters building does not cut bureaucracy — it rearranges it," said Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the House education committee. "This decision to close the Department's physical building is not just a symbolic move — it reflects a broader effort to reduce the federal government's role in ensuring people have equal access to a quality education."
In an email to staff, obtained by NPR, McMahon called the move a "critical step in returning education to the states." In just over a year, in keeping with President Trump's pledge to eliminate the Education Department entirely, McMahon has cut its staff by nearly half, down to 2,300 employees, and reached 10 agreements to offload the department's work to other federal agencies.
The most recent of those agreements, to move much of the department's management of the federal student loan program to the Treasury Department, resurfaced McMahon's greatest challenge in trying to help Trump keep his campaign promise: The Education Department was created by Congress in 1979, and only Congress can truly unwind it.
In response to an NPR question about the Treasury move, a senior Education Department official acknowledged that the Treasury Department cannot fully assume all the Education Department's statutory student loan obligations. The official said the department will be wound down to the extent allowable by law and that McMahon understands that "Congress is the only entity that can close the Department."
Leaving the Lyndon B. Johnson building is freighted with symbolism. It was during Johnson's tenure as president that the White House and Congress created some of the country's most consequential federal education policy – much of it focused on helping students in poverty.
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