Because of their heavy reliance on state and federal funding, rural schools are disproportionately impacted by the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce federal funding for public education, according to an analysis from the Center for American Progress. In many states, rural public schools already receive less funding than non-rural ones…
On July 15, 2025, a letter signed by a dozen federal special education leaders from Republican and Democratic presidential administrations since the 1960s was sent to Congress urging legislators to reject any efforts to move oversight of special education services out of the U.S. Department of Education (USDE). The letter…
On July 15, 2025, it was announced that career and technical education (CTE) is among workforce development programs to be jointly administered by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and the U.S. Department of Education (USDE). According to the announcement, the management of key federal workforce development programs will begin…
On July 14th, 24 states and the District of Columbia sued President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) and the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for withholding over $6 billion in federal education funding for the upcoming school year. A statement by one of the…
In a July 14 statement, Peggy Carr, the former commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), said the nonpartisan education statistics agency cannot fulfill its statutory responsibilities in its current state. According to Carr, “It is impossible for three, five, or even a dozen people to fulfill the…
On July 14, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to proceed with laying off nearly half of the staff at the U.S. Department of Education (USDE). The decision in New York v. McMahon enables the USDE’s reduction in force (RIF) initiated in March as the original question…
The Trump administration is using agencies other than the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) to implement its agenda in schools, sometimes circumventing typical rulemaking procedures that would allow school districts months to give feedback on and prepare for policy changes before they occur. The use of other agencies to set…
On July 10, 2025, the Trump administration scaled back access to a number of federal programs based on immigration status. Those programs include education-related programs such as Head Start, tuition for dual enrollment, adult education, and career and technical education training(CTE) programs. The move is a result of Trump’s February…
On July 7, 2025, six medical groups and a pregnant physician sued Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his principal deputies over changes made to federal COVID-19 vaccine recommendations. Filed Monday, the lawsuit argues that Kennedy’s directive, which removed guidelines recommending COVID vaccination for pregnant people…
As a result of $6.2 billion in federal K-12 grant money that the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) is withholding from states and school districts, it is likely that they will be forced to cancel after-school programming, services for English learners and professional development. The funding that has already been…
