Trump’s Education Department Leaves Mountain of Public Records Requests Unaddressed

The Education Department under the Trump administration faces a massive backlog of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests due to staff cuts. A FOIA group within the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education had all eight employees eliminated, contributing to only 3% of 4,900 requests being processed since February 2025. Responsibilities have been offloaded to other agencies, complicating access to records.