The Education Department Was Created To Ensure Equal Access. Who Would Do That In Its Absence?

As the Trump administration moves to dismantle the Education Department , officials have suggested other agencies could take over its major responsibilities: civil rights enforcement to the Justice Department, perhaps student loans to Treasury or Commerce oversight of student disability rights to Health and Human Services.

Less clear is what could happen with a more lofty part of its mission - promoting equal access for students in an American education system that is fundamentally unequal.

The department has cut its workforce in half, including a layoff of 1,300 people announced Tuesday. President Donald Trump pledged during his campaign to eliminate the department entirely, calling it wasteful and infiltrated by leftists .

Without the department, advocates worry the federal government would not look out in the same way for poor students, those still learning English, disabled students and racial and ethnic minorities.

"Gutting the agency that is charged to ensure equal access to education for every child is only going to create an underclass of students," said Weade James, senior director of K-12 education policy for the Center for American Progress, a think tank that advocates for racial equity policies and increased investment in public schools.