The Department of Education announced Wednesday it will vacate the Lyndon B. Johnson Building — the agency's Washington headquarters for four decades — by August 2026, with the Department of Energy assuming the lease. The building has been roughly 70 percent vacant since the Trump administration began mass layoffs nearly a year ago. Education Secretary Linda McMahon described the relocation as a milestone in the administration's ongoing effort to dismantle the department, stating: "One year ago, President Trump signed one of the most consequential executive orders of his presidency to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states." The relocation is expected to save approximately $4.8 million annually in operating costs. Fox News confirmed the details under its education coverage; NBC News reported the headquarters move in the context of broader agency dismantling.
The building's vacation is the latest in a series of steps the administration has taken toward functionally eliminating a cabinet department that only Congress has the legal authority to formally close. Over the past year, the administration has transferred programs through nine interagency agreements: student loan management, now standing at $1.7 trillion, was moved to the Treasury Department; family engagement and low-income school funding were assigned to the Department of Health and Human Services; and teacher training programs were shifted to the Department of Labor. McMahon has used these transfers as "proof of concept" that the Education Department's core functions can be performed by other agencies, arguing the cabinet-level department itself is unnecessary.
Rachel Gittleman, a union representative for Education Department employees, characterized the announcement starkly: "The message the Secretary's announcement sends to our staff and the American public is clear — education is next on the chopping block." Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), ranking member on the House Education and Workforce Committee, said: "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." Congressional Republicans who support the department's elimination have called the executive branch actions a model for how a future Congress could codify the closure into law.
The practical consequences for education programs remain hotly contested. Supporters of the dismantling argue that transferring programs to line agencies with narrower mandates will produce more focused execution of specific programs. Critics argue that the Education Department exists precisely to coordinate and prioritize equity across all federal education activities — a function distributed agencies with competing priorities cannot replicate. The student loan portfolio's transfer to Treasury has been the most consequential move: the $1.7 trillion in outstanding federal student debt will now be managed by an agency whose primary mission is fiscal and monetary policy rather than education access.
Left-Leaning Emphasis
- NBC News and Rep. Bobby Scott framed the building vacating as a concrete step in an unconstitutional end-run around Congress — only the legislative branch can eliminate a cabinet department, yet the executive branch is functionally dismantling the agency without a vote, transferring programs to agencies that are not structured or resourced to prioritize education equity.
- Left-leaning coverage highlighted the union representative's warning that education workers face effective elimination of their jobs and that the dispersal of education programs to Treasury, HHS, and Labor creates accountability gaps — there will be no single agency responsible for monitoring whether disadvantaged students receive the federal support the law guarantees.
Right-Leaning Emphasis
- Fox News framed the headquarters move as a model of responsible downsizing — eliminating wasted real estate costs, transferring programs to better-suited agencies, and demonstrating that a bloated federal bureaucracy can be streamlined without harming the programs that actually reach students.
- Secretary McMahon's framing — that administration staff are 'working to put themselves out of a job' — was treated favorably in right-leaning coverage as an example of genuine ideological commitment to reducing the federal government's role in education, which conservatives argue has produced decades of declining outcomes despite increasing spending.