State Department Forces Performance Score Revisions, Cementing Foreign Service Overhaul
State Department managers received orders to lower employee performance scores, confirming the Trump administration's sweeping overhaul of the diplomatic corps has moved from campaign promise to active implementation across the Foreign Service.
The State Department ordered managers around May 13 to lower the performance scores they had already submitted for their employees. The directive confirms the Trump administration's sweeping overhaul of the diplomatic corps has moved from campaign promise to active implementation. This represents a systematic dismantling of the bureaucratic apparatus career diplomats used to resist presidential policy direction.
Three current and one former Foreign Service officer confirmed to Federal News Network that State Department leadership is directing managers to submit lower evaluation scores. A second Foreign Service officer said the direction to reconsider scores has been "extremely common" and "no one's being revised up." The order arrives months after nearly 1,350 employees received reduction-in-force notices in July 2025. Nearly 250 Foreign Service officers and 30 civil service employees were officially separated on May 5 following 10 months on paid administrative leave.
President Trump's February 2025 executive order "One Voice for America's Foreign Relations" directed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to ensure "faithful and effective implementation of the President's foreign policy agenda." The order authorized comprehensive reforms to recruiting, performance, evaluation, and retention standards. The Foreign Service will shrink from more than 14,000 employees before the Trump administration to approximately 11,000 next year. Civil service positions will drop from nearly 13,000 to about 6,000.
The new evaluation system imposes the first numerical rating system in decades, using a 1-5 scale with a 3.25 average rating cap. Under Secretary for Management Jason Evans warned supervisors that "a pattern of continual grade inflation will have that noted in their own performance files." The system also restores "low-ranking," the process of recommending removal for employees who do not meet performance criteria.
"We're going to start doing that again so that we can identify our officers that aren't quite meeting the mark," Evans told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 18. "The first step is to work with that person to see if we can develop the skillsets they're lacking. If that person is just not right for the Foreign Service, then we'll make a different decision."
The hiring and testing overhaul eliminates DEI-related questions from the Foreign Service Officer Test. Personal narrative essays and situational judgment sections have been scrapped in favor of American history, foreign policy, and logical reasoning components. The Qualification Evaluation Panel, a weeks-long file review process, was replaced with a written examination.
The A-100 onboarding program replaced resilience exercises with lectures on "diplomatic history and America First foreign policy." Required readings now feature Washington, Adams, Monroe, the Federalist Papers, George Kennan, Samuel Huntington, and Angelo Codevilla.
"Secretary Rubio, under President Trump's leadership, is weeding out these abuses and distortions and restoring a system where talent, not affirmative action, drives opportunities," a senior State Department official told the Daily Caller in September 2025. "The new FSOT will be merit-driven, opening the door to patriots ready to serve no matter their race, religion, sex, or ethnicity."
The State Department unilaterally removed "Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility" from core precepts for evaluation and added "fidelity" to Trump administration policies. Mid-level officers must demonstrate they are "zealously executing" U.S. government policy. Senior officers must show they are "resolving uncertainty on the side of fidelity to one's chain of command."
"The Trump administration is modernizing the Foreign Service to prepare America's diplomats to advocate for our national interest on a dynamically changing world stage," Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott stated on April 1. "In this revamped program, Foreign Service Officers will be trained in crucial skills like public speaking and negotiation."
Criticism from the American Foreign Service Association and Democratic lawmakers has been undercut by operational evidence. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ruled the State Department's layoffs were legal and fell outside Congressional layoff protections in January. The department hired 100 Foreign Service officers in September 2025 and 160 in January 2026. It maintained crisis response capability during the Iran conflict, evacuating 4,000 personnel and more than 50,000 citizens from the Middle East.
AFSA President John Dinkelman called the reforms "poorly conceived, poorly communicated, and deeply disruptive" in a statement to Federal News Network. He told CNN that "it is not normal to inject what are so blatantly administration-specific agenda items into orientation." Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) argued the department is "hiring new Foreign Service officers and contractors to fill vacancies — positions that will require tens of thousands of dollars in training" while laying off experienced personnel.
The department plans no rehiring of laid-off officers. "I don't believe we have plans to do that at this point," Evans told Congress in March.
"Having been involved in supervising and evaluating personnel for many years in different contexts, I believe this change will restore accountability and ensure that evaluations reflect actual performance rather than inflated ratings designed to evade difficult conversations," Deputy Secretary Christopher Landau told ABC News this month.
The Foreign Service Act of 1980 is now under review by Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee for further modernization. The overhaul signals a fundamental reimagining of how America's diplomats serve on the world stage, one that could endure long after the current administration.