As the US Education Department shrinks after a massive sorting in the agency, President Donald Trump and his associates continue suspicious claims about agency and education in the country.
ABC News investigated some common complaints of President Donald Trump about the Education Department and Education State in the United States.
Expenditure vs results
Trump has repeatedly claimed that the world has the final rank in the world in education among developed countries, while the students spend the most per students.
Trump said at the White House last month, “So they rank the top 40 countries in the world, we are at number 40th, but we are at number 1 in a department: per disciple cost.” “So we spend more per student than any other country in the world, but we are at number 40.”
The headquarters of the US Department of Eduction, which was ordered to be closed for the day for the officers described as security reasons amid large -scale trimmed, is seen on 12 March 2025 in Washington.
Mark Sheffelbin/AP
This claim is not correct based on the data reviewed by ABC News. America is not given a final place in education nor does it spend the most per student.
The White House did not respond to the request of ABC News for information about Trump’s claim. It is not clear what data Trump did to make his claims the basis.
Even though the country spends a lot of pupils per pupil, the education data initiative found an average of $ 20,387 federal, state and local expenses on average. The amount is the third largest per student (after adjusting local currency values). The country is not in any education statistical, which has been reviewed by ABC News.
According to the Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) program for International Student Evaluation (PISA), the US is above average in reading and science, and average is a matter of score in mathematics. According to education experts, PISA is the industry standard for ranking to students from different countries. OECD has about 40 member countries and economies and about 40 more countries have participated in the last three assessments. It varies in the year – in 2015, 78 countries and economies participated; In 2018, 78 participated; In 2022, 81 participated.
In 2022, the recently released data, around 80 countries participated in the PISA assessment of OECD, which measures 15 -year -old children’s ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge. According to 2022 PISA results, the US ranked ninth out of 80, 16th in science and 34th/80 in mathematics.
PISA results of Trump’s long -running claim that “we are at the bottom of every list.”
According to an OECD spokesperson, the next PISA data collection is taking place in 2025 – and is expected to be released in September 2026.
However, it is not to say that American students are always high recipients. Some results on the national level -administered examinations have shown late concerns.
Sliding reading scores of students fourth and eighth grade students deteriorated in 2024, dubbing Nation’s report card, as per the National Center for Education Statistics under the Department of Education. Compared to 2022, the average reading score of this year declined by 2 points for assessment of both fourth and eighth grade, according to NCES data made between January and March 2024.
Despite the decline in reading, there was some recovery in mathematics in 2024, but the increase has not returned students to pre-political levels.
And NCES also found that about one third of the students abolished the 2023-2024 school year behind at least one academic subject.
It is not clear that this data will be collected in future years if DOE is abolished.
State and local education agencies
The Trump administration has said that through the cut in the education department, they want to return education to the states.
The White House press secretary Karolin Lewit said ABC News’ Celina Wang asked about the cut in the dow, “The President wants to return to the states, empowering the people close to these important decisions for our children’s lives. And … this is the first step in that process.”
Education is a local level-day because already the federal education department operates only 10% public school funds according to many education experts.
Arlington, va. K. Clok Kinjal, holding an indication, as he stands outside the US department headquarters, which was ordered to be closed for the day by officials described as security reasons in Washington.
Mark Sheffelbin/AP
The Department of Education does not conduct the syllabus or does not make a lesson for the students of the nation. It also does not determine the requirements for enrollment and graduation or establishes or recognizes schools or universities.
In fact, the course comes from states and local school districts. The Department of Education does not teaches students to take standardized examinations and assessments. States already do this.
The Department of Education holds schools accountable to implement non-discrimination laws on the basis of race, gender and disability.
The agency also provides funds for rural education achievement programs such as K -12 education aid programs, which supports rural districts that may lack workers and resources; Title I, which funds programs aimed at improving the performance of low income and low-achieving schools; And grant for persons with disabilities including infection and postcondary programs for students.
Not only the department provides K-12 assistance, it also helps students to pursue higher education through the office of federal student aid through grants, work-study funds and low-blessings.
Finally, the DOE schools are responsible for the student achievement through the Act that succeeded through each student, which requires every state to provide data on subject performance, graduate rates, suspension, absence, teacher qualifications and more.
According to the Mission of Education Department ED.Gov, by promoting educational excellence and ensuring equal access, it is to promote the achievement and preparation of the student for global competition.
DOE employees show to work
Trump has claimed, without evidence, that many education department employees were not going to work or doing good work.
Trump said at the White House on Wednesday, “Many of them do not work. Many of them never showed to work. Many of them, many of them never showed to work.”
The White House did not respond to the ABC News request to comment about getting this information to Trump.
Based on dozens of interviews, ABC News Reporting has not found any evidence of employees, as Trump claimed, “never to work”.
ABC News has talked to employees that among other characteristics, everything has been assigned from the operation of important research projects to implement anti-discrimination laws for students on the basis of breed, gender and disability.
When the Education Department cut about 50% of its workforce earlier this week, an email for those who were employed said, “Please know that these decisions were not made lightly, and somehow did not reflect on the dedication and hard work of those who were leaving.”
Joe Murphy, which was as a management and data analyst, was terminated in the Department of Education earlier this week, stated on Wednesday that he found “disposable”.
“We understood that we were disposable in a certain sense, especially in the data space to those of us,” he told ABC News.
Victoria Delano was a equal opportunity specialist in the office of the Education Department for civil rights serving people with disabilities. Delano said she believes that she was the only employee within OCR who was posted in Alabama.
“It is terrible that the office for civil rights, to start, is understood to be, but then, when I was out of reach to work last week, to think, well, another person who was taken out of the equation,” said Delano.
“These students have no other. They can still file complaints with OCR. Please understand that OCR is considered the best, and OCR is not right now external communication with you. So I don’t know where they turn,” he said.
A regional department of education, who on Tuesday, gained a decrease in force email and spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity for fear of vengeance, abolishing his civil rights office.
Offices in major cities including San Francisco, New York, Cleveland, Boston, Chicago and Dallas have been closed, and three American education buildings in DC will eventually be consolidated, according to officials of the senior department of education.
The employee said, “All those disabled children, who are the wholesale of our dock, will not be helped.”
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