​Braun at White House as Trump moves to dismantle Education Department​

Gov. Mike Braun was at the White House on Thursday when President Donald Trump signed an executive order to start eliminating the U.S. Department of Education.

"We're going to be returning education, very simply, back to the states where it belongs," Trump said. "And this is a very popular thing to do, but much more importantly, it's a common sense thing to do, and it's going to work, absolutely."

It’s unclear how the order will eventually impact federal funding for Indiana or other states. Congress would need to approve the elimination of the department or its key responsibilities.

Indiana's K-12 schools received $1.88 billion in federal funding, according to the Education Data Initiative. That's about $1,815 per student.

For higher education, more than $200 million goes to Pell grants for low-income Indiana students to attend colleges and universities.

Braun is backing Trump’s plan.

“Education is a state and local responsibility,” he posted on X. “I support President Trump’s bold action to return education to where it belongs and to put parents in the driver’s seat of their children’s education.”

Early Friday, Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner echoed Trump and Braun’s support for shifting more control of education to states and parents.

"Over the coming weeks and months, there will be a variety of rumors and myths that may spin up," she wrote in her department's weekly email. "It’s easy to get caught up in this if we aren’t careful, but my charge to myself and to all of us is to keep our eye on the mission at hand and focus our energy on our strategic priorities and continuous improvement for Indiana students."

‘Congratulations on your victory, Mike’

At Thursday’s order signing in the East Room of the White House, Trump recognized Braun and three other GOP governors, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Congratulations on your victory, Mike,” Trump said, likely referring to Braun’s November election win at 54.4% over two opponents. “That was a big one.”

Braun called education one of his top issues on the campaign trail. This legislative session, he is advocating for the expansion of private school vouchers to ensure all Indiana residents are elligible.

In the social media post, Braun touted Indiana’s improved standing for reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, which provides data for the Nation's Report Card. 

“Hoosiers know what our students need to succeed better than bureaucrats in D.C.,” Braun said in the X post.

Scores released in January show Indiana students’ performance in both math and reading ticked up by between 1 and 3 percentage points. The NAEP assessment is a congressionally mandated standardized test and the largest nationally representative measure of student learning.

The U.S. Education Department is already rapidly changing. In just a few weeks, staff levels are roughly half their previous size after mass layoffs following the Senate confirmation of Education Secretary Linda McMahon.

In a statement Thursday, McMahon said the order will allow her agency to eliminate bureaucracy, remove administrative burdens and send “education back to the states.”

McMahon has said two major sources of federal funding for K-12 education will remain in place: Title I, which supports students in low-income areas, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, which provides services for students with disabilities.

During her Senate confirmation hearing, she suggested that IDEA funds might be more effectively managed by the Department of Health and Human Services instead of the Education Department.

WFYI education editor Eric Weddle contributed to this story.

Rachel Fradette is WFYI's Statehouse education reporter. Contact Rachel at rfradette@wfyi.org.