The Supreme Court is allowing Trump to cut U.S. Department of Education staff. What does it mean for Philly-area schools?

The U.S. Supreme Court issued an order Monday enabling President Donald Trump to make deep cuts to the U.S. Department of Education, allowing his administration to move ahead with changes announced in March.

The high court lifted a lower court’s order that had barred Trump from firing nearly 1,400 employees — a move seen as paving the way for Trump to carry out his promise to abolish the agency. But Congress would need to approve any move to fully close it.

Here’s what to know about the cuts, and what they could mean for schools:

The layoffs, first announced in March, affected close to half the department’s workforce, including staff responsible for administering federal student aid and investigating civil rights complaints.

Trump’s administration also fired the leader of the National Center for Education Statistics, which collects and reports data on education nationally.

Education groups and attorneys general in 21 states challenged the cuts, saying they would prevent the department from carrying out duties required by law; a federal judge ordered the employees reinstated in May. The Trump administration appealed, calling the argument from opponents speculative.

“The Department of Education has determined that it can carry out its statutorily mandated functions with a pared-down staff and that many discretionary functions are better left to the states,” the administration wrote in a court filing.

As of March 2025, the Department of Education had 94 employees in Pennsylvania and 32 in New Jersey, according to data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

As a result of the layoffs, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in Philadelphia was among seven targeted for closure nationally, out of a total of 12 civil rights offices.

About 30 people worked in the Philadelphia office, which enforced laws barring discrimination in schools based on sex and race, as well as shared ancestry, and those involving disabilities.

The department now lists its Atlanta office as the agency for Pennsylvania.

Founded in 1979, the Education Department administers billions of dollars in federal funding to schools, through a number of grant programs. While most school funding comes from local and state revenues, federal money accounts for about 10% of district budgets — often more in poorer communities, and less in richer ones. Local school leaders have expressed worries that slashing the department will affect the flow of funding.

The Trump administration has withheld some funding from schools — including $230 million that Pennsylvania school districts and other education providers had expected to be able to access on July 1. The administration has said the money, along with awards to states nationally, is being reviewed after being “grossly misused by schools to subsidize a radical left-wing agenda.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro joined more than 20 other states Monday in suing over the frozen funding.

Parents and advocates have also worried about the ability to bring antidiscrimination complaints against schools, given the Education Department’s diminished civil rights workforce. A lawsuit filed in March alleged the department had effectively halted investigations into sex-, race-, and disability-based discrimination; that case was put on hold while the Supreme Court took up the challenge to the department firings.

While the six justices in the Supreme Court’s conservative majority did not issue a written opinion Monday on the firings, the three liberal justices who dissented did, writing that allowing the government to proceed with dismantling the Education Department was “indefensible,” giving the executive branch power “to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out.”

The case now goes back to a lower appeals court.