טראמפ מצמצם את סמכויות משרד החינוך האמריקני לקראת אפשרות של סגירת המשרד

President Trump starting the process of dismantling the Department of Education with an executive order today. He vows to preserve key funding and programs but also signals Congress to go further to gut the department completely. Joining us now live is NTD's White House correspondent Iris Tao. Good evening Iris. What is the president's rationale behind this move and what it means for students nationwide? Good evening to you too. So a major reason that President Trump says behind today's EO is that he thinks individual states as opposed to the federal government can understand and handle students' education more effectively. He's also been complaining about what he calls an exploding budget for the Department of Education especially as students' performance is not getting better. Seventy percent of eighth graders are not proficient in either reading or in math. Seventy percent. Forty percent of fourth graders lack even basic reading skills. Can't read. Students in our public elementary and middle schools score worse in reading today than when the department opened. At today's signing ceremony there were kids and parents, teachers as well as local leaders and governors. And President Trump meanwhile vows to preserve key programs and funding for example for low-income students with Pell Grants and also for special education. It comes though as he also signals Congress to give him the support needed to completely shut down the department as his EO today only narrows it down. Watch. Beyond these core necessities my administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department. We're going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible. It's doing us no good. And when it comes to how exactly today's order will impact public schools in different states and Texas Governor Greg Abbott told NTD that one is that they will ramp up funding for both schools and teachers who are going to get a raise. They're also going to improve the curriculum to focus more on math and reading. Back to you today.