With the stroke of a pen.

Late yesterday afternoon, President Trump made good on another campaign promise, signing an executive order aimed at dismantling the federal Department of Education.

The white House argues the office hasn't improved student outcomes and isn't needed in a country where states and local districts already have a lot of control over their education needs.

But the agency does have a critical role, like overseeing enforcement of discrimination laws and distributing aid money for schools with low income students and students with disabilities.

Experts say you may not see much change in the short term, but the long term impact of this decision could have major implications for students and families.

For more on that, I'm joined by Robert Kim, executive director of the Education Law Center.

Robert Kim, good to see you.

The Trump administration said that this was coming yesterday.

They did it, an effort to dismantle the Department.

What was your first take?

It's extremely disappointing.

It's devastating, for the country that the president would go so far as to dismantle a federal agency meant to galvanize our resources and efforts in support of education, public education in this country.

We know that 90% of students go to public schools.

And, there are so many kids with special needs, in those school systems that are represented by different agencies and parts of the U.S. Department of Education.

So that to signal dismantling all of that is devastating.

Not only signaling the wrong direction for education from this country at the highest levels, but also devastating to the millions of students and families who rely on so many functions, so many funds and so many, functions, of that department and the states and districts that also rely on the federal government to provide that support and guidance.

So it's really disappointing, devastating, and frankly outrageous.

Congress created this department under the Carter administration back in the late 70s.

It's pretty much been in the crosshairs.

Since then.

Can President Trump do this lawfully?

No.

The Congress created, as you mentioned, the U.S. Department of Education in 1979.

At the time, they recognized and found that the different functions of the current department were already dispersed, among multiple different agencies across government.

And that was causing a lot of fragmentation, a lack of coordination and efficiency and really a lack of focus on education in this country at a time when even back then, it was recognized by Congress that education was becoming more and more important as a national priority in order to ensure the well-being of our country.

And so that's why the Department was created by Congress, back then.

And those rationales still hold true today, and only Congress has the authority to affect the future of a cabinet agency like the United States Department of Education.

In such a dramatic way, not the president.

Three of the department's areas that are among the most important.

You know, student loans, federal student loans, Pell grants and civil rights enforcement, according to the white House press secretary, will remain, but what are your concerns, about how they might be able to carry out that work?

And is there room, maybe for more efficiency if these tasks are disbursed among other government agencies?

Well, again, we're hearing different stories about, those functions remaining or, or purporting to remain, albeit, disbursed to other agencies.

But I think that that is, you know, that really shows a lack of understanding of why it was so important to have these functions housed, at the U.S. Department of Education.

We have millions of students, 12 million plus students who are, student borrowers.

They get federal aid, they get loans and other grants to support them going having access to go to college or to get work study programs, approved and up and running so that they can, make ends meet, and pay some bills and, while they're in college.

So those are critical functions.

And so to, you know, for that alone to, threaten that and threaten disruption and delays in that process by transferring them to an agency that does not have experience with those functions.

That's, that's playing with fire here because so many millions of students directly rely on those funds, and any delay or disruption in that would be catastrophic to those students.

The civil rights function is another matter.

I used to work in the US, Federal Government Office for Civil Rights.

So I know very deeply what takes place in that office.

We have thousands of investigations, going on, affecting districts, K-12 and higher ed all over the country.

They're already disrupted.

And the idea that there would be a transfer of those functions to another agency, such as justice, or for students with disability issues to be handled by HHS, for example.

Tremendous disruptive and, really betrays a lack of understanding that, in the civil in the education context, civil rights laws such as title nine, such as the Civil Rights Act, such as the the major disability rights laws in this country, they there's expertise that needs to be applied in the education context.

Other agencies just don't have.

And so I think this would be a huge this already is a huge disruption and would only continue if there were attempts to.

That said, first of all, that said Robert very quickly, where might you think folks here in new Jersey will see the first impacts of these changes?

I'm sure that they are already seeing the impacts, but I believe that what we will see are, delays in funds and, money that is entitled to go to districts for a number of services.

We will see those delays.

And that will translate to cuts in the classroom.

Bigger class sizes, disruption to, services and, supports for students with disabilities.

So I think we'll see these, effects quite soon.

And so, we should not delay in our efforts to counter this effort.

Robert Kim is the head of the Education Law center here in new Jersey.

Robert.

Thank you so much for your insight.

Thank you.