President Trump is expected to issue an executive action as early as Thursday calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education,” according to a draft of the action obtained by NPR.

The move has been expected since early February, when the White House revealed its intentions but withheld the action itself until after McMahon’s Senate confirmation.

The Senate voted Monday to make McMahon the next education secretary. Democrats uniformly opposed her after McMahon publicly committed to unwinding the department.

The draft action instructs McMahon to act “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law,” an acknowledgement that the department and its signature responsibilities were created by Congress, are protected by statute and cannot legally be altered without congressional approval, which would almost certainly require 60 votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster.

News of the action was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The order offers as justification for the department’s closure that, “since its founding in 1979, the Department of Education has spent more than $1 trillion without producing virtually any improvement in student reading and mathematics scores.”

According to The Nation’s Report Card, one of the oldest and most reliable barometers of student achievement in the U.S., reading scores changed little between 1992 and 2019, though math achievement improved considerably. The pandemic though wrought havoc on student achievement, with many learning gaps remaining nearly five years after schools first closed.

The draft executive action declares “the experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars … has failed our children.”

On average, federal dollars make up roughly 10% of public schools’ funding, the lion’s share coming from states and local taxes. Those federal dollars are also largely targeted to help the nation’s most vulnerable students: those living in low-income communities, including millions of rural students, and children with disabilities. The department is prohibited by law from telling schools what, or how, to teach.

Within hours of McMahon’s confirmation Monday, she shared a lengthy message with Education Department staff attempting to rally support for the department’s unwinding, calling it “our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students.”

Early moves to reduce the department

The executive action also arrives as the department has already been the subject of widespread cuts and staff departures. Last month, the administration gutted the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which is responsible for gathering and disseminating data on a wide range of topics, including research-backed teaching practices and the state of U.S. student achievement.

Among the canceled department grants were programs exploring how to accelerate students’ math learning and efforts to study how best to prepare some students with disabilities for the difficult transition from high school into the working world.

The Trump administration has also laid off dozens of newer, probationary employees and put dozens more on paid leave for having any associations with DEIA programs, including some who were encouraged to attend a diversity workshop during the first Trump administration.

During her Senate confirmation hearing, McMahon was asked about this looming executive action and whether she would faithfully execute it. She would, she said.

“We’d like to do this right,” McMahon told the committee, saying she would present Congress with a plan to unwind even the department’s key, statutory responsibilities “that I think our senators could get on board with.”

Key programs target poor communities and students with disabilities

Multiple senators asked whether the department’s dismantling would include cuts to two key federal funding streams for K-12 schools: Title I for students in lower-income communities and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for students with disabilities.

McMahon said repeatedly that she considers the department separate from that funding. The former, she said, can be dismantled without affecting the latter. “It is not the president’s goal to defund the programs. It was only to have it operate more efficiently.”

Later, McMahon elaborated that IDEA funding, for example, is protected by statute and would not be targeted for cuts. But, she offered, it might be more effectively administered by a different agency, perhaps the Department of Health and Human Services.

The department also has legal authority to enforce federal civil rights laws on behalf of students, and it’s unclear how its unwinding would affect the department’s Office for Civil Rights. Though the Trump administration has already sent a warning to all schools that receive federal money, K-12 and colleges alike, that they must stop all DEIA programs or risk being investigated by the department and potentially losing their federal funding.

House Republicans have tried before to close the department and failed, and Republicans enjoy only narrow majorities in the House and Senate. Many of the department’s statutory responsibilities enjoy the support of Republicans as well as Democrats.

The Education Department is among the smallest of all federal agencies, with roughly 4,200 employees. According to the website for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the wages of Education Department employees account for 0.31% of all federal wages.

In an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll taken late last month, 63% of Americans surveyed said they would oppose getting rid of the department, compared with 37% who supported its closure.

When the jewelry company Alex and Ani sought to redefine its product line in 2023, executives turned to L.A.-based designer Pamela Love.

Along with her own eponymous brand, Love had worked with J. Crew, Shinola and Top Shop. At Alex and Ani, she would be “creative director” for about $21,000 per month, plus royalties.

Now, Love has taken Alex and Ani’s owners to court, saying the company is selling her designs but owes her up to $6 million in royalties and other costs, along with more than $200,000 in unpaid consulting fees.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in New York, Love and her attorneys are seeking to collect the unpaid money while also alleging that the jewelry brand’s owners — including a company held by L.A. celebrity attorney Mark Geragos — engaged in a “shell game” and orchestrated “a collusive foreclosure” to dodge paying Love and other creditors.

The suit names the jewelry company’s two owners, the Bathing Club LLC, which it alleges is controlled by Geragos, and LC A&A Holdings, which it alleges is controlled by financier Lyndon Lea through the private equity fund Lion Capital.

“After Pamela Love commenced the arbitration against Alex and Ani to recover unpaid consulting fees and sales royalties … Alex and Ani’s ultimate beneficial owners, Lyndon Lea and Mark Geragos, executed a years-old conspiracy to render Alex and Ani judgment proof,” Love’s suit said.

Neither Geragos nor Lea immediately responded to the allegations or to requests for comment.

The lawsuit comes as Geragos has rocketed to wider celebrity from representing Lyle and Erik Menendez, and it spotlights the lawyer’s broader business ventures, which include ownership of Los Angeles Magazine, restaurants, hotels in California and New York, and the minority stake in Alex and Ani. The jewelry company has struggled in recent years, including a 2021 bankruptcy.

After starting at Alex and Ani in 2023, Love initially received payment but got none for her final 10 months. She designed jewelry for Alex and Ani that went on sale last summer, according to the suit. Under the three-year deal, Love was eligible for up to $2 million per year in royalties on products she designed or “otherwise contributed creatively,” but she never received such payments or sales reports that would allow her to determine royalties, according to the suit.

In the spring of 2024, she initiated arbitration to collect the unpaid funds.

“Alex and Ani did not deny that it owes Pamela Love substantial fees under the agreement,” the suit said. A former lawyer for the company “admitted” during the arbitration that Alex and Ani was “trying to find a way to pay Pamela her money.”

The arbitrator, former L.A. Superior Court judge Katherine Chilton, sided with Love and said it was “undisputed” that she had not been paid for 10 months. In a December decision, Chilton required Alex and Ani LLC to post as security $208,333.40 for the consulting work, along with $12,000 in costs.

Chilton noted that the company’s “sole justification” for not paying Love was its poor financial condition and “apparently, because the assets have been transferred to a third party.”

Love’s suit also alleges a years-long effort to move assets to make them difficult for creditors like Love to collect.

Among those steps: in February 2023, the Geragos-linked firm the Bathing Club recorded a security interest in all Alex and Ani assets, according to the suit. In 2024, shortly after Love initiated her arbitration, Lea, who owns 65% of the jewelry company, also assigned a lien on all of the company’s assets to the Bathing Club.

“The transfer was from insider to insider,” the lawsuit said. “With two insider liens on Alex and Ani’s assets and no defenses to Pamela Love’s claims … Geragos caused the Bathing Club and Alex and Ani to execute a strict foreclosure on Alex and Ani’s assets on or around July 24, 2024.”

The suit alleges that the foreclosure “was part of a sham to defraud creditors” and did not disrupt business operations.

“The purported foreclosure was in name only,” the suit said. “Employees of Alex and Ani were ‘laid off’ and ‘rehired’ on the same day.”

Love’s suit casts the foreclosure as part of an “‘insolvency defense” that Geragos attempted while also serving as Alex and Ani’s lawyer in the arbitration. In a September email, Geragos indicated that a board member “will be winding up the entity” and that the company’s CEO, Prita Kumar, had “not worked for Alex and Ani since July when the lender foreclosed.”

During the arbitration, the independent board member Larry Meyer declared under penalty of perjury that he was “managing the orderly shutdown of the company.”

According to the suit, however, Alex and Ani’s online business has continued, and in the fall, Love’s manager was able to purchase a ring that Love designed from the Alex and Ani website.

“Pamela Love did not receive a royalty payment for this sale,” the suit noted.

And earlier this year, Kumar, whom Geragos had indicated was no longer with the company, posted on LinkedIn that Alex and Ani was “on a tear” and looking to hire. One of the positions, she wrote, was for a “leader … who can drive revenue for our several million owned customers.”

Love’s suit alleges that the maneuverings were planned well in advance. As evidence, Love recounted a conversation with Alex and Ani’s chief creative officer, who told Love that she was “part of a ‘go-forward’ plan.”

“‘You would be switched to a different company, and we would all be paid by [Geragos’] company,’” the chief creative officer told Love, according to the suit.