(The Center Square) – Lawmakers, school advocates and teachers’ unions are taking swift action after President Donald Trump’s executive order to begin dismantling the Department of Education, one of his most controversial moves yet.

Opponents of Trump’s action responded with promises of legal retaliation. But supportive lawmakers may beat them to the chase, with U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Mike Rounds, R-S.D., each planning to introduce legislation to completely eliminate the department.

“I agree with President Trump that the Department of Education has failed its mission,” Cassidy said. “Since the Department can only be shut down with Congressional approval, I will support the President’s goals by submitting legislation to accomplish this as soon as possible.”

Rounds said he is already discussing legislation with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon “that would return education decisions to states and local school districts while maintaining important programs like special education and Title I.”

Trump already shrunk the department’s workforce to half its size last week. His executive order Thursday directs McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely,” as far as legally possible.

For now, that means the department will still continue critical functions like enforcing Title IX and civil rights laws, funding special education and disability programs, and overseeing student loans and Pell grants, Trump said. On Friday, Trump said the Small Business Administration would take over the nation’s student loans.

But the ultimate goal is to redistribute these programs among other federal departments and agencies, which would require congressional approval.

School choice organizations are praising Trump’s plan to eventually eliminate the Education Department as a necessary development that will save taxpayers’ money and return power to states, local governments, and parents. 

“These are the first steps towards reforming an American education system that should have always been a state and local proposition,” Parents Defending Education Vice President Sarah Parshall Perry said. “We are looking forward to continuing our mission to empower parents and students in educational environments that are once again value-neutral, and devoid of radical ideologies”

Supporters also point to how the department has spent $3 trillion taxpayer dollars since its creation by congressional legislation in 1979. Meanwhile, U.S. students rank 28 out of 37 member countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and standardized test scores have remained flat for decades.

ACE Scholarships, which provides aid to lower-income K-12 students, said in a statement that the Department of Education’s efforts have been “a wasteful distraction” and that the president’s “new approach” to education “puts children first by increasing choice and empowering parents instead of Washington bureaucrats.”

But public school advocacy organizations and teachers unions are already preparing lawsuits against what they say is an unconstitutional move.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.8 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers, had a simple message for Trump after the executive order: “See you in court.”

The New York-based United Federation of Teachers stated that “we are working with our partners to file lawsuits to stop this executive overreach.”

Democracy Forward, a legal services nonprofit, is also planning to join the fight.

“We will be filing litigation against this action and will use every legal tool to ensure that the rights of students, teachers, and families are fully protected,” President and CEO Skye Perryman stated. “Since Inauguration Day, the Trump-Vance administration has been taken to court more than 100 times, and we will do it again this time.”

Trump opponents argue that dismantling the department will cause property taxes to spike nationwide, strain public school resources and could cause struggling schools to close, expanding class sizes in the remaining schools.

“Beyond the obvious issue that the Education Department can’t be eliminated without an act of Congress, Trump’s order is yet another wild and illicit power grab,” Co-President of Public Citizen Lisa Gilbert said. “Attempting to destroy the cabinet agencies tasked with promoting and improving education isn’t just irresponsible, it is immoral, and will hurt the very fabric of our nation, as we keep generations of students from achieving their full potential.”

The Education department provides roughly 10% of funding for public education, with the vast majority of funding coming from state and local taxes.

The majority of Americans also appear opposed to ending the department, with a Marist poll in early March showing 63% of U.S. residents either oppose or strongly oppose getting rid of the U.S. Department of Education, while 37% of residents either strongly support or support abolishing the department.

(The Center Square) – Texas counties saw a massive influx of residents from July 2023 to 2024, according to newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Four of the top 10 counties reporting the greatest numeric growth and the greatest percentage growth were in Texas, according to the data.

Texas’ Harris County reported the greatest population growth last year in the U.S. While it reported gains, the top two most populous counties, Los Angeles and Cook, reported losses.

Top counties reporting the greatest numeric growth were Harris (105,852), Miami-Dade, FL (64,211), Maricopa, AZ (57,471), Collin, TX (46,694), Clark, NV (44,586), King, WA (43,398), Cook, IL (40,095), Broward, FL (34,686), Montgomery, TX (34,268) and Tarrant, TX (32,793).

Of the top 10 counties reporting the greatest growth by percentage, four also were in Texas.

The top 10 were Dawson, GA (6.4%), Kaufman, TX (6%), Jasper, SC (5.9%), Jackson, GA (5.8%), Pinal, AZ (5.6%), Liberty, TX (5.4%), Montgomery, TX (4.8%), Osceola, FL (4.7%), Caldwell, TX (4.6%) and Hendry, FL (4.6%).

Overall, the 10 most populous counties as of July 1, 2024, were Los Angeles, Cook, Harris, Maricopa, San Diego, Orange, Miami-Dade, Dallas, Kings and Riverside. Even though Los Angeles and Cook counties had the top two population totals, they both reported losses, as did Democratic-controlled Dallas County in Texas.

While Harris remains the third most populous county in the country and most populous in Texas, its neighboring counties to the north and east, Liberty and Montgomery, reported significant growth, making the top ten nationwide. Kaufman County in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex reported the greatest percentage growth in Texas. Caldwell County, south of Austin, also made the top 10 as one of the fastest growing counties in the country by percentage, according to the data.

When it comes to metro areas by numeric growth, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington ranked second and third in the country adding 213,403 and 198,171 people, respectively, over the year, according to the data.

Among the top 10 metro areas reporting the most growth by percentage, Midland and Odessa ranked 8th and 9th in the country, each reporting 2.8% growth. Located in the Permian Basin in west Texas, the oil and natural gas industry based there continues to break production records in Texas and the U.S., The Center Square reported.

Over the same time period, Texas continued to lead the U.S. in oil and natural gas production, emissions reductions and employing the most workers in the industry, The Center Square reported. Texas also continues to break its own employment records every month, leading the U.S. in job creation every month and every year over the last few years, The Center Square reported.

Overall, between 2023 and 2024, the number of people living in a U.S. metro area increased by nearly 3.2 million to 293.9 million, or 1.1% growth, according to the Census data.

All 387 metro areas in the U.S. reported a positive net international migration between 2023 and 2024, which “accounted for nearly 2.7 million of the total population gain in metro areas – up from 2.2 million between 2022 and 2023,” the Census report states.

“While births continue to contribute to overall growth, rising net international migration is offsetting the ongoing net domestic outmigration we see in many of these areas,” Kristie Wilder, a Census Bureau Population Division demographer, said.

The revised Census report used current data on births, deaths and migration to calculate population changes since the 2020 Census to “produce an annual time series of estimates of population,” it says. The revised data includes population totals that changed in counties, metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas, it says.

(The Center Square) – Fully funding the state retirement plan is not within the budget proposal of the North Carolina governor, says state Treasurer Brad Briner.

“We are disappointed the governor is proposing for only the second time in 83 years to not fully fund our state’s retirement system,” Briner said in a statement. “This proposal sent to lawmakers today would create a $206 million shortfall in the funds for our retirees over the next two years.”

Briner expressed confidence that legislative leaders will “take the needs of the state’s retirees more seriously.”

The governing board of the state retirement system recommended in January that the state increase its contribution to the pension plan by $44.3 million for fiscal year 2026. About 371,932 people receive state retirement payments.

Gov. Josh Stein’s office disputes Briner’s allegation that the budget proposal fails to fully fund the retirement plan.

“The governor respects and values retired state employees, which is why his recommended budget more than fully funds the state retirement system,” Stein’s office said in a statement. “Governor Stein’s proposal holds the state’s contribution rate steady, which will provide over $380 million more than what actuaries say is necessary in FY 2025-26, and over $551 million more than recommended for the biennium. Governor Stein is committed to protecting the retirement benefits of these employees who have given so much to our state.”

However, Briner maintains that keeping the state’s contribution rate the same is actually a decrease.

“Under the process long used for measuring these types of proposals, the governor’s budget proposal calls for $0 in new money” for the retirement system, Briner’s office said in a statement. “That is because it would make no increase to the contribution rate for already-promised benefits” as a percentage of salaries.

According to Briner’s office, the state retirement plan’s investment performance has lagged other states for decades. The result has been that the state’s contributions to pensions have doubled in the last decade, costing taxpayers the equivalent of $2 billion.

Briner has proposed creation of a board of professional experts appointed by the Legislature, treasurer and governor to manage the retirement system’s investments. The board would be chaired by the state treasurer. Forty-seven other states have similar boards, according to Briner.