Teachers Unions Sue Trump Administration Over Push to Shut Education Dept.

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The Trump administration’s campaign to dismantle the Education Department drew a pair of court challenges on Monday, as opponents called the plan an attempt to evade congressional authority.

The first lawsuit was filed in federal court in Massachusetts by the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers union; the American Association of University Professors; and two public school districts in Massachusetts. Within hours the N.A.A.C.P., the National Education Association union and other critics had brought a case of their own in federal court in Maryland.

The challenges came four days after President Trump signed an executive order that directed the education secretary, Linda McMahon, to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the department.”

The day after the order, Mr. Trump announced that the Small Business Administration would assume control of the government’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio, and that the Health and Human Services Department would oversee nutrition programs and special education services.

The Education Department, created in 1979, cannot be closed without Congress’s consent. The Massachusetts lawsuit argues that the Trump administration’s moves since it came to power in January, including an effort to roughly halve the department’s work force, “will interfere with the department’s ability to carry out its statutorily required functions.”

Ilana Krepchin, chairwoman of the Somerville, Mass., school committee, which is a plaintiff in the Massachusetts case, said that the Education Department was a “cornerstone of equitable public education.”