Welcome to Jefferson-Washington-Lincoln Elementary School, a fictional yet emblematic institution situated in the heart of Anytown, USA. This imagined public school mirrors countless educational environments scattered across the nation—places animated by the dedication of teachers deeply devoted to their craft, and by the vibrant presence of students whose diverse linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds shape classrooms full of unique academic challenges and possibilities. Within this microcosm of American public education, every hallway and classroom reflects the broader national story of striving toward equitable opportunity.
Consider Isabel, a student navigating her studies while simultaneously mastering English as her second language. For her, the bilingual program offered by the school serves as a crucial bridge—one that connects her developing language proficiency with the broader curriculum, ensuring she can thrive rather than simply survive in an English-dominant academic environment. Then there is Jack, whose difficulties in mathematics and reading require personalized support; the one-on-one attention he receives allows him to keep pace with his peers and strengthen foundational skills that will shape his academic future. And let us think of Sarah, whose parents’ late working hours make the school’s after-school program indispensable—a secure and nurturing space in which she can learn, play, and remain safe until her family reconvenes at day’s end. All three depend heavily on the professional and personal commitment of Ms. Smith, their teacher, who herself relies on a federal student-loan forgiveness initiative designed to support educators and nonprofit workers. This intricate network of interdependence—among students, teachers, programs, and policies—reflects the real scaffolding sustaining American education every day.
Yet, the continued existence of such programs and the professionals who depend on them faces unprecedented uncertainty. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed to eliminate the Department of Education altogether, a proposal that, while beyond the unilateral power of the executive branch, prompted immense concern. Although Congress would need to authorize the termination of the agency, a Supreme Court ruling in July granted the administration latitude to proceed with a dramatic restructuring plan, which included the authority to dismiss approximately half of the department’s staff. Subsequent months brought further turbulence: in October, another 466 employees were terminated amid a government shutdown, with the union representing department workers reporting that essential units—including those focusing on civil rights and special education—had been severely affected.
Over the course of the year, the administration undertook repeated budgetary reductions and programmatic overhauls within the agency. February saw multimillion-dollar cuts to research contracts vital to the systematic collection of educational data. Teachers, researchers, and policymakers warn that the absence of such data will obstruct efforts to assess student learning trends, identify struggling populations, and craft evidence-based policy responses. Education experts and several former secretaries of education agree that while rational reforms could streamline certain bureaucratic inefficiencies, slashing the department’s budget or dissolving it entirely would have far-reaching, deleterious consequences for American education. Such measures would jeopardize services for low-income families and students with disabilities, deprive states of consistent national data, and endanger the federal grants that millions rely upon to access higher education.
John King Jr., who served as education secretary under President Barack Obama and now leads the State University of New York system, underscores the stakes with urgency. If the federal structure that ensures equitable resources for disadvantaged and disabled students were dismantled, he argues, not only would educational fairness falter, but so too would the broader health of the U.S. economy and national security. America’s universities and community colleges—once considered a global exemplar of accessible, innovative education—risk losing their competitive edge if stripped of the federal funding mechanisms that sustain them. “It’s bad for everybody,” King concludes, highlighting the universal repercussions of such dismantling.
Meanwhile, educators and districts across the country find themselves trapped in a holding pattern of anxiety and waiting. Teachers like Eric Sosa, a high school history educator in Austin, describe a profession already used to improvisation, frequently “begging, borrowing, and stealing” to acquire classroom necessities. Now, with federal programs potentially on the chopping block, the uncertainty extends not just to supplies but to livelihoods. He and his colleagues wonder which grant or position might disappear next. In rural Ohio, social studies teacher Heather Stambaugh voices a parallel concern: her district’s stability hinges on federal assistance aimed at low-income families, and any interruption in funding would have immediate and painful consequences. “It feels a bit like we’re being thrown into a chaos loop,” she confesses—a sentiment capturing the unease spreading through America’s schools.
Since its establishment in 1979, the Department of Education has woven itself into the daily fabric of public education, administering programs that bolster both individual and institutional advancement. Proposals to outsource its functions to other agencies have met skepticism from experts who note that those agencies already shoulder substantial responsibilities and lack the infrastructure to manage the Department’s expansive web of grants, aid programs, and compliance requirements. Fragmenting these functions, they argue, could cripple essential support networks reaching millions of students.
Among the most pivotal of such initiatives is Title I, created in 1965 to provide targeted assistance to schools serving large numbers of low-income students. Its funds sustain after-school and summer enrichment programs, teacher professional development, and tutoring interventions—core elements of opportunity equity. In fiscal year 2024 alone, Title I allocations totaled more than $18 billion. While the Trump administration has expressed intent to maintain this level of funding through 2026, critics underscore that it still falls short of both Democratic proposals and the Biden administration’s requests for increased support. In an already volatile fiscal environment, even small discrepancies reverberate across districts.
The administration’s internal reallocation of nearly $7 billion in June, justified by claims of political misalignment among certain programs—including those supporting migrant education—illustrates the precariousness of the moment. Although the funds were later restored, the interruption triggered layoffs and the suspension of vital services in multiple states, such as Alaska, California, and Washington. As policy analyst Halley Potter observes, the damage from such temporary disruptions often lingers; staffing cannot be instantly reconstituted, and programs that once served as safety nets for vulnerable students may not recover swiftly enough to prevent long-term harm.
Even after reinstating these funds, new complications arose. The administration introduced ideological restrictions designed to ensure compliance with executive orders discouraging so-called “woke” or diversity-oriented educational initiatives. Such conditional funding, experts warn, creates a fog of uncertainty for budgeting officers and program directors. Districts might be forced into difficult financial triage—redirecting funds meant for summer learning to sustain ESL instruction or special education. As Potter candidly summarized, “They’re borrowing against the future, and against the other programs they need.” Moreover, the department’s September decision to divert money from certain training initiatives toward historical education and historically Black colleges and universities sparked additional controversy and charges from Democratic lawmakers that teacher training pipelines were being undermined.
In places like Phoenix, first-grade teacher Kira Severson experiences these budgetary tremors firsthand. Her Title I school, heavily affected by the state’s expanding voucher system—championed by Trump—has seen steep declines in material resources. Basic classroom supplies are scarcer, and the once-reliable after-school programs that supplemented both her income and her students’ well-being face an uncertain future. For many children, such programs are not luxuries but lifelines—the only places where they find consistent safety, supervision, and nourishment. The idea that these could vanish is, she says, “deeply concerning.”
Research and data collection, another cornerstone of the Department’s mandate, are likewise under threat. Returning to our earlier example of Jack, the struggling reader and math student, his progress is tracked not only through state assessments but also through national evaluations like the National Assessment of Educational Progress—the “Nation’s Report Card.” These tools enable policymakers to discern which educational strategies work best and to allocate resources accordingly. Yet with the Department’s research budget slashed by nearly $900 million, former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings warns that this evaluative infrastructure is in jeopardy. Without robust data collection, visibility into learning outcomes will diminish, erasing insights that guide policy at every level.
Already, the National Assessment Governing Board has responded to fiscal constraints by announcing cuts to future tests, including planned state-level assessments and subject-specific studies in science and writing. The ripple effects are profound: districts lose not only the data itself but also the means to substantiate grant applications and sustain competitive funding. As Potter notes, uncertainty about whether even basic educational statistics will remain available causes “instability” that weakens schools’ long-term planning capacity.
The reductions also undermine applied research initiatives run by the Institute of Education Sciences, the department’s nonpartisan analytics arm. These programs often operate at the classroom level—testing technology, curricula, or instructional methods. When such research ends prematurely, the direct beneficiaries are students like Jack, who lose access to enhanced educational tools and supports that might otherwise have accelerated their progress. Teachers like Severson, already constrained by limited means, express feelings of helplessness as they try to protect their students from the fallout of distant policy decisions.
Statements from Education Secretary Linda McMahon attempt to reassure the public that these changes simply represent “a leaner operation”—a reorientation rather than a demolition. However, specifics remain elusive. Testimony before Congress and discussions at think-tank panels indicate that the Department aims to devolve power to the states while exploring the transfer of certain responsibilities elsewhere in the federal bureaucracy. The underlying narrative is one of efficiency, yet the contours of this reorganization appear fragmented and ambiguous, leaving educators unsure whether the promised new model will function effectively.
Beyond the K–12 sphere, the Department of Education’s reach extends into the trillion-dollar domain of higher education finance. Staff reductions and legislation such as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act threaten to simplify in name but complicate in practice the nation’s student-loan repayment landscape. The consolidation of income-driven repayment options into fewer, less generous plans not only raises monthly costs for borrowers like Ms. Smith but also restricts their pathways toward forgiveness. Coupled with thinner departmental staffing, these changes mean longer wait times, unanswered calls, and increased borrower confusion—what policy expert Carolyn Fast calls the “most immediate impact” of departmental dismantling. New borrowing caps for graduate students further constrict opportunity, discouraging aspiring professionals from pursuing advanced degrees and pushing some toward high-interest private loans.
For educators such as Heather Stambaugh, who depend on stable federal support to maintain district operations, the broader implications are devastating. The sense of being “under attack,” as she describes it, captures both the emotional strain and institutional fragility faced by schools confronting these seismic shifts.
Not all observers, however, defend the status quo. Conservative economist Beth Akers acknowledges that the Department is overdue for substantial reform. She frames the administration’s philosophy as revolutionary rather than evolutionary: a belief that incremental adjustments have failed, and only by “blowing it up and rebuilding” can meaningful transformation occur. Nonetheless, she cautions that the current strategy—marked by abrupt layoffs and abrupt defunding—risks undermining rather than improving educational governance.
Kevin Huffman, former Tennessee education commissioner, articulates a similar tension from a pragmatic angle. While sympathetic to reducing bureaucracy, he argues that abolishing the Department contradicts the stated goal of fiscal efficiency. Dispersing its functions across multiple agencies would inevitably breed confusion, duplication, and administrative inertia. The centralized coordination of grants, oversight, and data is precisely what prevents waste, he contends, and removing that structure would make managing funds far more complex rather than less.
Debate continues over how, in practice, the Department’s remit would be divided. Early suggestions have included transferring student-loan management to the Small Business Administration and reassigning special-needs programs to Health and Human Services, while some responsibilities for financial aid might shift to the Treasury. Education historian Jonathan Zimmerman warns that such fragmentation would likely result in vulnerable populations “getting lost in the shuffle,” their needs dispersed among institutions ill equipped to serve them. From a state administrator’s perspective, Huffman adds, the fragmentation would also complicate communication: formerly, a single call to a known contact within the Department could clarify federal expectations. Managing separate bureaucracies, each with its own procedures, would be “daunting” and inefficient.
Ultimately, voices from every corner of the educational spectrum foresee a turbulent path ahead—a school year marked by delayed funding, incomplete staffing, and pervasive uncertainty. As Halley Potter summarizes, districts are scrambling to adjust budgets, preserve essential positions, and stabilize services, even as the policy environment shifts beneath their feet. For many on the ground, clarity and consistency, rather than radical overhaul, remain the most urgent needs.
Until that clarity arrives, educators like Stambaugh describe a collective paralysis—a “flight, fight, or freeze” response in which many feel immobilized. They continue showing up for their students, waiting for political decisions they cannot control to determine the future of their classrooms. In the meantime, the nation’s debate over the very architecture of public education continues, underscoring what may be the most important lesson of all: when the institutional pillars of learning are shaken, every learner, teacher, and community feels the tremor.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/education-department-funding-staff-cuts-students-schools-student-loans-trump-2025-9
