“Everybody knows it’s right,” Trump said. “We have to get our children educated. We’re not doing well with the world of education in this country, and we haven’t for a long time.”

He said it’s “amazing how popular this is” regarding his executive order to begin dismantling the Education Department.

“After 45 years, the United States spends more money on education by far than any other country and spends, likewise, by far more money per pupil that any other country, but yet we rank at the bottom of the list in terms of success,” Trump said. “That’s where we are, like it or not.”

He said Pell Grants, Title I funding and funding for special-needs students will be “preserved in full” and redistributed to other agencies and departments.”

Denmark, Norway, Sweden and China are in the top 10 in education, Trump said, adding that China’s high ranking shows large nations are not especially burdened when providing education.

“We’re going to be returning education back to the states where it belongs,” Trump said. “They want it so badly. The want to take their children back and teach their children,” he added.

Trump also said, “We’re going to take care of our teachers” and “we’re going to love and cherish our teachers.”

Several school-age children and teens were seated at school desks next to Trump while he signed the executive order to abolish the Department of Education.

He said his administration will find another role for McMahon after she completes the Education Departments’ dismantling, which requires an act of Congress to finish.

The Education Department has spent more than $3 trillion since its founding by President Jimmy Carter and Congress in 1979 and has “virtually nothing to show for it,” a White House online post says.

“Despite per-pupil spending having increased by more than 245% over that period, there has been virtually no measurable improvement in student achievement,” White House officials said.

Math and reading scores for 13-year-olds have reached their lowest level in decades and 60% of fourth-graders and nearly 75% of eighth-graders are not proficient in math, according to the White House.

About 70% of fourth-and eighth-graders also are not proficient in reading, and 40% of fourth-grade students don’t meet basic reading levels, Trump said.

Standardized test scores have not improved for several decades, and the United States ranks 28th out of 37 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member nations, the White House says.

The Trump administration plans to return education to individual states “instead of maintaining the status quo that is failing American students” and says states are best positioned to “administer effective programs and services” that benefit their respective communities.

“Instead of a bloated federal system that burdens schools with regulations and paperwork, the Trump administration believes states should be empowered to expand education freedom and opportunity for all families,” White House officials said.

McMahon during her Senate confirmation hearing said Trump told her he wanted the Education Department dismantled and gone by the end of the second year of his second term in the White House.

Trump earlier said the agency, which was established by President Jimmy Carter and Congress in 1979, has failed in its mission to improve the quality of education in the United States.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., accused Trump of taking a “chainsaw to public education in America.”

“Shutting down the Department of Education will harm millions of children in our nation’s public schools, their families and hardworking teachers,” Jeffries said Thursday in a prepared statement.

“Class sizes will soar, educators will be fired, special education programs will be cut and college will get even more expensive,” Jeffries said.

He accused Trump and House Republicans of “crashing the economy in real time” while “giving massive tax breaks to billionaires” instead of “supporting our public school children.”

Jeffries said Congress created the the Education Department and only Congress can eliminate it.

“We will stop this malignant Republican scheme in the House of Representatives and in the courts,” he concluded.

Although Trump said “everybody” supports dismantling the Education Department, American Federation of Teachers union President Randi Weingarten strongly disagreed.

“See you in court,” Weingarten said Wednesday in a statement anticipating Trump’s executive order.

She said most people in the United States don’t want the department dismantled “because it will diminish opportunity for students.”