White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pointed to poor proficiency statistics in schools to justify President Trump’s plan to dismantle the Education Department. Leavitt made the comments on the north lawn of the White House amid a government-wide staff purge, with a Thursday deadline for 2 million employees to decide whether to take a buyout that has them leave in September.

She dodged a question about whether Trump planned to completely take apart the department, which was created in 1979 by Congress and which Trump has called a haven for ‘radicals, zealots and Marxists.’ An order being prepared for Trump would start the process. ‘In fact, I have a statistic in front of me: 70 percent of eighth graders are at a below proficient level in math and reading – 70 percent!’ she told Fox News in an interview.

‘And that’s despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars on education every single year.’ Education policy experts have long eyed concerning drops in U.S. student proficiency, including after pandemic ‘learning loss.’ The test Leavitt was referencing is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), funded through annual appropriations by Congress.

It has spent years periodically testing U.S. 4th and 8th graders to produce metrics to assist policymakers and school districts around the country. For the prior year, 70 percent of eighth graders didn’t meet NAEP’s proficiency standards in reading. In math, it was 73 percent, on par with the number Leavitt cited.

The test was in the field in 2022 and 2024, and revealed both a concerning drop in proficiency and a persistent achievement gap between high-achieving and low performing students. That is something the Education Department tries to address through Title I grants to low-income schools, one of the areas it funds along with student loans, higher education grants, and programs for students with disabilities.

Last year, the Biden administration requested $185 million for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which measures student problem solving and knowledge, to allow for comparisons on a year-to-year basis. It is ‘the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of what our nation’s students know and can do in select subjects,’ according to the NAEP report.

Trump’s 2020 budget included a requested spending increase for the test, while slashing funds for National Institutes of Health and calling for cuts for the National Science Foundation. DailyMail.com has reached out to the White House for further comment.

Trump himself this week also cited U.S. student performance, comparing achievement to global peers. He said ‘we’re ranked 40 out of 40’ in the world, although assessments for teens show the U.S. is placing about average around the globe – still not the level officials would prefer.

In her Fox interview, Leavitt said ‘the current system located in Washington, D.C. is not working. And the president is committed to ensuring that states and parents have a greater say in our children’s education system.’ She said Trump is ‘wholeheartedly committed to spending cuts, and of course, making the government more efficient – that’s part of what DOGE is already hitting the ground running to do.

‘When it comes to the Department of Education, the president and his policy team continued to look at options and how to reduce the size of the Department of Education if not abolished it completely.’ She added: ‘You hear the president say half jokingly but also serious, he wants Linda McMahon, who will lead that agency, to put herself out of the job. Because he wants to turn the education system back to the states.’

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