For decades, right-wing activists have called for eliminating the agency, which was created by Congress in 1979. As Trump remakes the federal government, he has assailed the department as wasteful and responsible for spreading “woke” ideas such as programs to support diversity, equity and inclusion and protections for transgender students.

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to begin dismantling the US Department of Education, seeking to fulfill decades of conservative ambition to get rid of the agency, but raising new questions for the country’s millions of public schools,