Seal of the U.S. Department of Education
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Flag of the U.S. Department of Education
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Lyndon Baines Johnson Building, Department Headquarters |
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Department overview | |
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Formed | October 17, 1979 |
Preceding agencies | |
Jurisdiction | Federal government of the United States |
Headquarters | 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Washington, D.C. 38°53′11.45″N 77°1′7.86″W / 38.8865139°N 77.0188500°WCoordinates: 38°53′11.45″N 77°1′7.86″W / 38.8865139°N 77.0188500°W |
Employees | 4,400 (2016) |
Annual budget | US$32 billion (2009) US$56 billion (est. 2010) US$71 billion (est. 2011) US$68.1 billion (2012) US$69.8 billion (2013) ARRA Funding: US$102 billion (2009) US$51 billion (est. 2010) US$23 billion (est. 2011) US $19.4 billion (2012) |
Department executives |
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Child Department |
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Key document | |
Website | www |
The United States Department of Education (ED or DoED), also referred to as the ED for (the) Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. Recreated by the Department of Education Organization Act (Public Law 96-88) and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on October 17, 1979, it began operating on May 4, 1980.
The Department of Education Organization Act divided the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services. The Department of Education is administered by the United States Secretary of Education. It is by far the smallest Cabinet-level department, with about 5,000 employees. It has an annual budget of US$73 Billion (2016).
The agency's official abbreviation is "ED", and not "DOE", which refers to the United States Department of Energy. It is also often abbreviated informally as "DoED".
A previous Department of Education was created in 1867 but was soon demoted to an Office in 1868. As an agency not represented in the president's cabinet, it quickly became a relatively minor bureau in the Department of the Interior. In 1939, the bureau was transferred to the Federal Security Agency, where it was renamed the Office of Education. In 1953, the Federal Security Agency was upgraded to cabinet-level status as the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
In 1979, President Carter advocated for creating a cabinet-level Department of Education. Carter's plan was to transfer most of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's education-related functions to the Department of Education. Carter also planned to transfer the education-related functions of the departments of Defense, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture, as well as a few other federal entities. Among the federal education-related programs that were not proposed to be transferred were Headstart, the Department of Agriculture's school lunch and nutrition programs, the Department of the Interior's Indian education programs, and the Department of Labor's education and training programs.