Rory O’Neill, WOR national correspondent Interview

Mendte in the Morning talks to Rory O’Neill about the Trump administration starting the process of dismantling the Department of Education.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, a lot of presidential candidates, a lot of politicians,
mostly Republican, have talked about getting rid of the Department
of Education because they say that the federal government has
no place in education. That's all States rights. And nobody's
really done anything about that until Donald Trump, who is

(00:22):
slowly dismantling it and covering that. Today is Rory O'Neill,
wr National correspondent. So what is happening with the Department
of Education right now?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Rory, Yeah, good morning. We got some news from the
Department of Education about how they are essentially farming out
their services to other departments, not really downsizing it. Because
the Department of Education, created in nineteen seventy nine by Congress,
can only be dissolved by another Act of Congress. And look,

(00:54):
we all know right now nothing's getting passed in Washington,
right So it doesn't look like there's going to be
a formal integration of the department. So instead, the Trump
administration is reassigning a lot of its duties. For instance,
the Department of the Interior will take over much of
the work for the Office of Indian Education, the Department

(01:14):
of State taking over international education, foreign language studies programming
that kind of thing. So essentially a lot of the
responsibilities now in DOE are being put out to other
departments across the federal government.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Right, but so many people have run on getting rid
of the Department of Education, And if it was never
going to be done in the first place, why go
through all of this when it can just be undone
as soon as another president comes in.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, I guess they want to try to make this
department as ineffective as possible, wind it down, get all
of its operations out to other agencies. So essentially they
can go to Congress and say, look, there's nothing here anymore,
this department has no responsibilities. Let's just shut it down.
And you know, Congress may eventually zero out the department
but still have it established. And again, if the Democrats

(02:08):
win back control of the House and Senate, they may
have a different agenda.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Right, that's really interesting. I never heard that before. So
it's really death by attrition that when you make it
so that, yeah, that they are so ineffective that they
or they have no power, that why not just get
rid of it. I'm not sure that's going to work.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Rory the other well, and the other issue is, well,
if all you're doing is you know, putting them in
a different office. Then what are we saving here?

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:33):
If you're maintaining what they do and just doing it
in different offices, does that really get us where we
want to be? To your introduction saying that the Department
of Education or Education is the purview of local government,
state and local governments, not Uncle Sam.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Right, It has always been seen as a way of
the federal government using money to force their will on
all of the local school districts around the country, and
that that is the way it has worked out over
the years. They'll have edicts on how they're supposed to
take care, what they can do in the classrooms, and

(03:09):
if they don't do it, that these local school districts
they're going to hold withhold money. This does nothing to
stop that, right.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, right, So this doesn't really change the operations at
this point or the rules that are in place, especially
when it comes to dealing with students with disabilities and
the funding stream that can be available there. A lot
of this may move under Health and Human Services when
it comes to the childcare Access Means Parents in school
program things like that that that the programs are still

(03:38):
there because look a lot of Senators and members of
Congress fight hard for these funding streams to go to
their local communities. Right, they're all there with a golden
shovel and a pair of oba sized for this stuff.
And that's you know, that's how they consider it, you know,
serving their constituencies.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, it seems like it always comes down to mine.
But you're right. I mean, they should just put this
up for a vote and say they want to dismantle it,
and just take whatever vote it is. If it's not
going to happen, it's not going to happen. At least
he tried. But this I agree with you. You didn't
use this word, I'm going to use it. This all
just seems silly and ineffective. Rory O'Neil wr National Correspondent.

(04:21):
It's going to be back tomorrow morning at seven fifty.
Thanks a lot, Rory. Thanks Larry Mayor alex.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Or in Mam.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Donnie is not the city's only problem. The city council
is even more to the left now than the socialist
We're going to talk to one of the sane city
council members, Vicky Palladino, after the eight o'clock news