On March 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.

The department was established by Congress in 1979 during President Jimmy Carter’s administration. The goal of the department has been “to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access,” according to the official mission statement from the Department of Education. The department has an annual budget of nearly $240 billion to support nearly 18,200 school districts, over 50 million students and thousands of public and private schools.

Trump’s ultimate goal is to shrink the size of the department and send the majority of the educational power and funding back to the states. The orders will not impact department activities aimed at meeting the needs of students with disabilities or Title I funding, which goes to school districts with high numbers of students from low-income fami-lies. This change, however, will affect the 16,000 workers who are currently employed across over 80 locations across the country.

While Trump seeks to dismantle the department, only Congress has the legal right to do so. Although this attempt to significantly change the department will likely be blocked by the courts, states and people across America have already started preparing. Twenty states, the District of Columbia and federal government employees have already sued the Trump administration since the signing of his executive order in hopes of protecting themselves and also trying to block this order.

The states that will be most affected by this dismantling will be southern states, such as Texas, Oklahoma and Florida, due to the lack of state funding sent to their public schools. According to ontocollege.com, a test prep website, in Oklahoma, the average SAT score is 953, and in New Jersey, it is 1066. This deficit is largely due to the lack of funding and opportunity in states like Oklahoma. Social Studies Teacher Daniel Farabaugh noted, “There is a district in Kentucky that gets 85 percent of its funding from the federal government, and the 12 states that get the most funding from the federal government all went for Trump electorally.”

Ultimately, this potential dismantling will not greatly affect the Westfield Public Schools, however, it will affect other schools nearby. Some of the districts that will face federal funding cuts according to Governor Phil Murphy include East Orange Public Schools, Newark Public Schools, Elizabeth Public Schools and Linden Public Schools.