The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to move ahead with plans to carry out mass layoffs at the Department of Education that were blocked by a federal judge, granting an emergency application from the administration that blocks the federal judge's ruling.

"The President must take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not set out to dismantle them," Sotomayor wrote.

The Supreme Court decision this week giving President Donald Trump the go-ahead to largely dismantle the Department of Education is just one development this summer in what has been a broad federal retreat from education.