President Donald Trump’s choose to guide the U.S. Division of Training, Linda McMahon, confronted senators on Capitol Hill Thursday morning at her affirmation listening to. However the destiny of the division stays unclear as Trump and his staff have expressed their intent to dismantle the company, which employs hundreds of staffers. However what precisely does the division do and the way does it influence California?
Q: What’s the U.S. Division of Training?
A: The U.S. Division of Training is a federal company that oversees training coverage and gives funding for public faculties. The division was established in 1979 and signed into regulation by Jimmy Carter. As we speak, the division employs greater than 4,000 folks and has an annual finances of round $79 billion.
Q: What does the U.S. Division of Training do?
A: The U.S. Division of Training serves greater than 50 million pre-k by twelfth grade college students in about 100,000 public faculties and 32,000 non-public faculties. The division additionally helps greater than 12 million undergraduate faculty college students by grant, mortgage and work-study help. The company’s major accountability is to make sure that all college students have equal entry to training, but it surely additionally helps college students and faculties by offering funding, investigating allegations of discrimination by its civil rights division, the Workplace for Civil Rights, and amassing knowledge and analysis on faculties, together with measuring college students’ progress by the nationwide take a look at, the Nationwide Evaluation of Academic Progress.
Q: How a lot funding does the U.S. Division of Training ship faculties?
A: Whereas most college funding comes from state and native governments, the U.S. Division of Training disperses billions of {dollars} in funding to colleges throughout California. The division had an working finances of round $79 billion for the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years. That cash goes to assist a wide-range of packages and grants, together with grownup training and profession and technical education schemes, monetary help to rural districts, artwork education schemes and initiatives geared toward enhancing American historical past and civics training in faculties.
Funding additionally helps educator skilled growth and coaching, goals to enhance college security, backs college diet packages that present free and decreased lunch to tens of millions of scholars and early childhood training and preschool packages. A good portion of funding additionally goes to supporting underserved and deprived pupil populations, like minority college students, low-income college students, English language learners, homeless college students and particular training college students. Two of an important division funding streams to public faculties are the People with Disabilities Training Act (IDEA), which gives cash to highschool districts to assist faculties serve college students with disabilities, and Title I, which gives cash for faculties to serve low-income college students. The division allotted about $18 billion nationally for Title I funding and greater than $14 billion for IDEA funding for the 2024 fiscal yr. The U.S. Division of Training additionally points about $100 billion in pupil loans and offers out greater than $30 billion in Pell Grants to low-income college students.
Q: What can’t the U.S. Division of Training do?
A: States and native training businesses (college districts, college boards and county workplaces of training) oversee faculties and decide commencement necessities and what’s taught in school rooms, not the U.S. Division of Training. California has added a slew of recent commencement necessities for college students within the coming years, together with a private finance class and an expanded well being class on the hazards of fentanyl use. California college students will even be required to take an ethnic research course — a controversial topic that has sparked outrage in school rooms and communities throughout the state. And whereas the topic has instigated a number of civil rights complaints and lawsuits, the federal Division of Training has not been in a position to stop the state from requiring the course.
Q: How a lot cash does California obtain from the U.S. Division of Training?
A: California obtained about $8 billion in funding for Okay-12 training and about $7 billion in funding for greater training in 2024. These numbers don’t embrace federal Head Begin funds, which go immediately from the federal authorities to native instructional businesses to help low-income youngsters 0-5 years outdated and aren’t administered by the state, or federal Youngster Care and Improvement Block Grant funding, that are administered by the state’s Division of Social Companies. California obtained $1.5 billion in particular training funding from the federal authorities for the 2024-25 college yr. The state additionally obtained greater than $2.5 billion in Title 1 funds, $77 million for profession and technical education schemes and practically $6 million for diet companies for the 2024-25 fiscal yr.
Q: What is going to occur to funding and packages if Trump dismantles the division?
A: The Trump administration hasn’t stated what is going to occur to the division’s packages or employees as Trump eyes important cuts, however Trump has beforehand stated he wished McMahon “to put herself out of a job.” The Trump administration has already positioned dozens of U.S. Training Division employees members on paid administrative go away and is reportedly drafting an govt order to close packages not protected by regulation. However solely Congress can shut the U.S. Training Division down fully. McMahon acknowledged Thursday morning that shutting down the division would require “congressional action.” Two of the division’s greatest funding streams — Title I and IDEA — additionally require motion from Congress to be undone, as each had been voted into regulation in 1965 and 1975 respectively. California’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, has vowed to guard California college students if Trump decides to make good on his guarantees to focus on the U.S. Division of Training. Thurmond stated state leaders are ready to introduce laws that will backfill funding for particular education schemes and funding that immediately helps low-income college students.
