President Trump is poised to issue an executive order ending the Department of Education. How are local districts bracing?
Federal funds represent about $500 million of the Philadelphia school district's $4.5 billion budget. Officials have warned an end to that funding would impact vulnerable students.
With President Donald Trump preparing to issue an executive order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, according to multiple news outlets, local educational institutions are bracing for potentially devastating impacts.
A White House official said no order would be signed Thursday, but one is still expected.
The Philadelphia School District, which educates 200,000 students in 300 traditional public and charter schools, could see the loss of “crucial” funding, Deputy Superintendent Jermaine Dawson said at a rally this week.
“Oh, my God,” said someone in the audience at Widener Memorial School in Olney, the only public school for children with disabilities in the state.
Direct and indirect federal funds represent about $500 million of the district’s $4.5 billion budget. Dawson said the school system relies heavily on Title I funds for schools that educate large numbers of children from economically disadvantaged families, Title II money for teacher training, and Title III for English learners.
“If the current proposal to cut these three programs is approved at the federal level, it could mean a total loss of over $70 million to the students of the School District of Philadelphia,” Dawson said at a news conference Tuesday where teachers, students, union officials, and state and local politicians sounded an alarm about the potential end of the Department of Education and other federal cuts that would affect vulnerable citizens.
Title I funds alone pay for the jobs of 1,450 district teachers.
Linda McMahon, the former president of WWE and Trump’s newly confirmed education secretary, told her employees in an email that they were preparing for the department’s “final mission.”
Dan Urevick-Acklesberg, a lawyer with the Public Interest Law Center, said a possible executive order to end the Education Department would be “legally meaningless” — ending the department requires an act of Congress.
“I think it’s important for us not to be accepting proclamations as if we have a king,” Urevick-Acklesberg said. “We do not. It’s up to all of us to make sure that the basic norms of the American system of government continue.”
Trump has said he wants states, and parents, to be in charge of education.
What do state officials say?
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said it was important to examine the executive order, once issued.
“I’m concerned, of course, any time the president talks about taking away money from our schoolchildren, particularly schoolchildren with special needs who rely on funding from the federal government, or schoolchildren in poorer school districts which disproportionately rely on funding from the federal government,” Shapiro said, adding that he would do “everything in my power,” possibly in conjunction with other governors, to halt the dismantling of the department.
While he is willing to have discussions “about how the state can play more of a role in our kids’ education,” Shapiro said, “we can’t do it by removing funding that is so critically important to helping our children.”
What do others say?
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, noted in a statement that the department is legally bound to allocate funds to students living in poverty, those with disabilities, and those who need financial aid to attend college or trade school, and said the union would fight its proposed closure.
“No one likes bureaucracy, and everyone’s in favor of more efficiency, so let’s find ways to accomplish that,” Weingarten said. “But don’t use a ‘war on woke’ to attack the children living in poverty and the children with disabilities, in order to pay for vouchers and tax cuts for billionaires.”