The Trump Administration’s ongoing effort to close or shrink the U.S. Department of Education is being met with opposition from Senator Ed Markey and Massachusetts teachers’ unions.

“This administration wants to strip away funding for public schools,” Markey said. “They want to make it harder for educators and every worker in schools to advocate for themselves and their students.”

President Trump had floated doing away with the Department during his campaign, but his ability to shut it down completely is limited by Congress. According to the Associated Press, a planned executive order would direct his education chief to begin ‘winding down’ the agency, while urging Congress to pass a measure abolishing it.

The Department of Education is responsible for dishing out billions of dollars across the country annually for schools and colleges, including an annual $720 million for Massachusetts.

Teachers’ unions and nonprofits are throwing their support behind efforts to challenge the Trump Administration’s plans, with many struggling to find any rationale behind the decisions.

Devin Morris, co-founder of The Teacher’s Lounge, spoke out during Sen. Markey’s Monday news conference on the issue. The Teacher’s Lounge is a nonprofit which works to ‘recruit, revitalize and retain educators of color throughout the greater Boston area and beyond.’

“This proposal offers no real solutions, only more chaos and more harm,” Morris said. “No matter who you voted for in this election, the executive orders from this administration are direct attacks on our babies and the dedicated educators who show up for them every single day.”

Federal funding accounts for roughly 14 percent of public school budgets, but Paul Haughey, superintendent of the Spencer-East Brookfield Regional School District, believes gutting the Department of Education would have wide-ranging impacts.

“I’m all for realizing inefficiencies and merging programs and services, but not at the detriment of special education,” Haughey said. “Not at the detriment of civil rights protections. Not at the detriment of student loan programs for higher education. That’s putting a lot at risk, and a lot of people in jeopardy.”

Haughey said he’s also deeply concerned about the Department of Government Efficiency gaining access to millions of borrowers’ personal information via federal student loan data. The Department’s ability to access this database is currently under review by a federal judge.

“There’s got to be steps taken to look and see what can and cannot be done here,” Haughey said. “Obviously, the courts are going to have to weigh in, and my overall thought is if they can realize inefficiency, you know, great. But this process has to be respected by law.”