So about that impounded federal funding

 The Office of Management and Budget, to which the Department of Education is directing all inquiries, were asked about the freeze on current year federal grant funds and they have quite an answer:

“Initial findings show that many of these grants programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical left-wing agenda,” the spokesman said in statement to RealClearPolitics.

Asked for specifics, OMB officials said it had found an example in New York in which public schools had used funds designated for English-language learning to promote “illegal immigrant advocacy organizations.” The agency, which oversees federal spending, also said funds had used the grants to steer illegal immigrants towards “scholarships intended for American students.” In an unspecified case, the school improvement funds were allegedly used for a seminar on “queer resistance in the arts.”

The AP also has picked this up. 

Who will actually be impacted? Mark Lieberman, who is not letting this story go (thankfully), has today's update:

Among the 9,000 districts New America researchers examined, those with more than 25% of students in poverty on average are losing 5.1 times more dollars per pupil from Titles II-A, III-A, IV-A, and IV-B—the largest K-12 funding sources the administration is holding back—than districts with fewer than 10% of students in poverty.

That gap is in part a product of the laws that govern these programs. Most federal funding programs for K-12 education aim to supplement budgets for districts likely to incur higher costs, including for serving high-need populations of students.

That's from the district-by-district accounting, using past funding, by New America, which ties it to Congressional representation, as well, finding:

Across these four programs, the average school district represented by a Republican stands to lose 1.6 times as much funding per pupil as the average school district represented by a Democrat. The 100 school districts that would see the worst losses per pupil are heavily concentrated in Republican-represented Congressional districts (91, compared with nine in Democrat-represented Congressional districts).

MassLive has the Massachusetts reaction to losing the funds. As the Wall Street Journal (that's a gift link above) reports: 

On Tuesday, the association of state education chiefs convened an emergency meeting, as their members tried to advise confused district leaders. Advocacy groups attacked the decision as illegal, and educators began contemplating how to plan for the coming school year.

And it is, of course, illegal for the grant funds to be withheld: 

The Trump administration has several possible next moves. It could ask Congress to approve the cancellation of these funds. It previously sought congressional approval for other withheld federal dollars. In a recent Senate hearing, OMB Director Russell Vought said further requests are “certainly an option.”

The administration could on its own not distribute the funds—which would set up a challenge to a federal law that bars the executive from unilaterally withholding congressionally approved dollars.

The administration could ultimately restore the grants, or some of them, after its review.

This is, as David Bernstein wrote over the weekend, a local story EVERYWHERE, and it warrants that sort of coverage. Don't be fobbed off with press releases* but GO TALK TO PEOPLE.

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*in general, can we just stop with them pro-forma "X said then Y said" press releases for schools? They never sound anything like the people involved, and they don't give us the actual perspectives need for school stories. Just let the reporters talk to actual people.