Portal:Department of Education/Intro

The United States Department of Education is a cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services by the Department of Education Organization Act, which President Jimmy Carter signed into law on October 17, 1979.

The Department of Education is administered by the United States secretary of education. It has 4,400 employees – the smallest staff of the Cabinet agencies – and a 2024 budget of $238 billion. The 2023 Budget was $274 billion, which included funding for children with disabilities (IDEA), pandemic recovery, early childhood education, Pell Grants, Title I, work assistance, among other programs. This budget was down from $637.7 billion in 2022. Its official abbreviation is ED ("DOE" refers to the United States Department of Energy) but is also abbreviated informally as "DoEd".