Republicans push for hiring freeze at the Education Department

A group of House Republicans is looking to institute a hiring freeze at the Education Department, joining a chorus of conservative lawmakers and politicians putting the agency in their crosshairs. 

The Fostering Resource Efficiency in Education by Zero Employment (FREEZE) Act (H.R. 5095) would immediately prevent Education from hiring any new employees or creating any new position. All funding for the department that was no longer necessary due to the attrition that would occur would be permanently rescinded. The measure does not set a sunset provision to end the freeze.

Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee's panel on Early Childhood, Secondary, and Elementary, said the department had provided too much responsibility to "unelected government bureaucrats." 

“It’s past time to get the feds out of the classroom and stop the ever-increasing bureaucracy at the Department of Education,” Bean said. “Imposing a hiring freeze at the department is just the first step to decrease the role of the federal government and return education policy to where it belongs—the state and local level.” 

Former President Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence and Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., are among the Republican presidential candidates who have pledged to eliminate Education if elected. Various Republican bills have also called for getting rid of the department, but Bean’s measure would take a different approach by starving it of personnel. Education is the smallest Cabinet-level department by a significant margin, with just 4,100 employees. 

Education, like the rest of government, went through a hiring freeze when Trump first came into office. During his four years in office, the department lost a greater percentage of its workforce than any other major federal agency. About 15% of its workforce left under Trump, and it has grown by just 1% during President Biden’s first two years in office. 

Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., vice chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, accused the Biden administration of using the department to institute a “radical left” agenda. 

“Parents should play a central role in their children’s education, not the federal government,” Miller said.

Education has been in the crosshairs of numerous politicians since its creation in 1980. President Reagan pledged to eliminate it, as have Republican lawmakers ever since. A previous iteration of the department also served as a rare example of an agency actually being abolished. Congress created an original Education Department in 1867, but eliminated it a year later in the backlash to Reconstruction.