Yesterday, at a press event for which he was 45 minutes late, in front of children and some of the worst Governors in the country on education, President Trump signed an executive order entitled "Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities", which directs the Secretary of Education:
...to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.
I am going to point out again that closing the Department while at the same time "ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits" would be very difficult at best, and with a Department that was slashed in half without regards to programs, and in an administration that, at its most basic level, neither knows nor cares how things actually work, it isn't going to happen at all. And that's before you try to get that through Congress.
My response for those who have asked me what is going to happed at the federal level with education has become the repeated line from this Saturday Night Live skit:
"Nobody knows."
The Wall Street Journal (that's a gift link) has a good rundown of what we know at this time. In terms of immediate impact:
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that the department would still oversee major programs including student loans and major funding streams for schools. Trump said during the signing ceremony that many of the agency’s largest programs would be preserved.
This was followed today, of course, by Trump riffing in the Oval Office, at which he appeared to say that loans are moving to the Small Business Administration (which just cut its staff by 40%), and special education and school nutrition (which isn't in U.S. Ed) to Health and Human Services.
...and no, he doesn't have the power to assign those to other departments, either.
While the funding that flows through the Department has been so tightly linked to the Department itself in the popular mind that there are often seen as one and the same* they are not the same. There have been attempts at massive cuts of staff at the Department; the current year funding remains intact, and next year's funding will need to go through Congress.
NPR had a piece this morning postulating that the real coming danger to federal funding is through cuts that have already been made to the National Center for Education Statistics:
For Title I, NCES works with the U.S. Census Bureau to analyze school district boundaries, income levels and other characteristics that help the Department of Education determine grant eligibility.
But by the end of the day on Friday, all but three NCES staffers will be locked out of their computers and on administrative leave.
"The key issue is that – as things stand now -- the data needed to drive the next round of Title I, and grants to rural schools, and grants to other programs, isn't going to happen as a result of the cuts to NCES staff and contracts," said one former NCES employee.
Several employees told NPR that, after the layoffs, it is unlikely the REAP program will be able to get money to schools for the 2026-27 school year.
The same goes for Title I, with an added challenge: The Trump administration is poised to shrink the ranks of the Census Bureau. A reduction in its staff could further complicate the distribution of Title I funding.
That is something to watch closely, then.
The possible political consequences of any loss in federal funding were (amusingly) highlighted in Politico by conservative education commentary person Rick Hess:
“It seems very likely in races this fall that Democrats will cut ads with Elon Musk waving that chainsaw, and then you’ll see some mom talking about how her child with special needs can’t get the support they used to get,” he said.
Fall is a long way away, though.
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*Actual report this morning locally: “In his first two months since returning to office, Trump has ordered significant cuts to federal education funding”
This is simply not true at all.
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