President Donald Trump signed an executive order today to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, sparking criticism from Massachusetts’ Gov. Maura Healey, state officials and education activists.

“We know that shutting down the U.S. Department of Education is bad for students, teachers and schools,” Healey said in a statement. “This will mean bigger class sizes, cancelled after school programs and less support for our students, especially those who live in rural communities or have special needs.”

The president has long pledged to shutter the department , which would require congressional action. While the impact of the order is not fully clear, some experts echoed Healey’s concerns while others welcomed the change as a much-needed reduction in federal bureaucracy.

Healey said Massachusetts receives more than $2 billion in federal education funding annually, money that helps pay for teacher salaries and benefits, school counselors, social workers and many other services. Officials said state coffers will be unable to fill the void.

The executive order signed Thursday evening calls for the ”closing the Department of Education and returning authority to the states,” by ordering the top official at the agency, Secretary Linda McMahon, to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier in the day that the department will become ”much smaller“ while still serving ”critical functions,“ such as enforcing some laws and administering student loans.

The order also cited students’ standardized test scores, which have not returned to prepandemic levels.

”This year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that 70 percent of 8th graders were below proficient in reading, and 72 percent were below proficient in math. The Federal education bureaucracy is not working,“ it said.

Jeanne Allen, founder and CEO of the national Center for Education Reform, which advocates for charter schools and school choice, said she supported the changes.

“It’s really important to understand that cutting staff, cutting fat and waste — of which everyone knows every government agency has — it does not at all impact the delivery or service level of programs targeted to students most in need,” she said.

But officials in Massachusetts, citing the state’s high educational attainment standards, sounded the alarm. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell has joined 19 other states in a lawsuit  challenging the Trump administration and calling the Department of Education essential.

Nonprofits working to close persistent educational testing gaps by race and income in Massachusetts schools, called the move a blow to equity.

“Closing the department threatens to roll back decades of progress and risks worsening systemic discrimination and education. But it poses a direct threat. In Massachusetts in particular, it puts billions of dollars that go to educate students in Massachusetts at risk,” said Jennie Williamson, state director at the nonprofit EdTrust of Massachusetts.

State officials said low and middle class students also rely on federal funding to pay for college.

Chris Gabrieli, who chairs the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, said he worries that the changes — and the uncertainty surrounding them — is leaving college students anxious.

“I worry that they will be discouraged,” Gabrieli said. “This is not how change is ever done well. Nobody at any level has any idea where it’s going.”

The Department of Education serves as a “watchdog” for students of color, those with disabilities, English language learners, or low-income backgrounds, to ensure they all have equal access to quality education, according to Paul Reville, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

“The department administers major grants relating to low-income students and students with disabilities, and to a certain extent, multilingual learners,” Reville said.

Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union and mother of a child with special needs, said she’s worried about what will happen to pending DOE civil rights cases.

“There are thousands of cases in process from the Office of Civil Rights right now on the federal level from Massachusetts parents who [say they] have had their rights violated here in the commonwealth of Massachusetts,” Rodrigues said.

Rodrigues said there’s 15,000-case backlog of cases nationally.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has laid off at least 240 Department of Education Office of Civil Rights employees — most of them attorneys who investigate those complaints.

GBH reporter Kirk Carapezza contributed reporting.