Understanding the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Role in Ensuring Fair and Equal Opportunity, from Pre-K through 12th Grade

There is growing concern that the U.S. Department of Education (ED) is being weakened and dismantled by the Trump administration. While fully abolishing ED is unlikely in the short-term since it would require an act of Congress, (something Linda McMahon agreed with during her confirmation hearing), an executive order is expected soon that would aim to limit federal involvement in education by shutting down agency functions that aren’t explicitly written into statute.

While most public school funding comes from local and state governments, the federal government provides between six and thirteen percent of annual funding for public schools. What would be the real-world impact on students of significantly curtailing ED’s role or even ending it altogether?

The Department of Education is responsible for the two largest federal funding streams for public schools: Title I and IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) programs. Title I refers to the first title of a landmark education law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which has taken on many names over the years as it has been altered, expanded, or amended by Congress. The most recent version is the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which received strong bipartisan support when passed in 2015. Title I’s purpose, explicitly stated, is “improving the academic achievement of the disadvantaged.”

Title I grants provide about $18 billion each year to states and districts to fund services for students from low-income families, including pre-K for about 1.5 million students. IDEA grants provide about $15 billion each year to states and districts to help them better serve students with disabilities starting at birth, such as funding the salaries of support staff that provide services required by a student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP).

As envisioned by Project 2025, revenue responsibility for Title I funding would pass to the states over a ten year period. Phasing out federal support and passing the responsibility of Title I and IDEA funding to the states would have devastating impacts on both the education received by some of the most vulnerable students and on the bottom lines of state and local governments.

At the recent confirmation hearing for Linda McMahon, there was no mention of phasing out funding over ten years, but instead a reference to granting the money directly to states. This type of block granting has a history of leading to funding declines over time. Because Title I funds are directed to districts on the basis of the number of economically disadvantaged children living in the district, the result of block granting those funds will be less support for some of our most under-resourced communities, including rural areas. In fact, the locales with the highest total Title I allocations per eligible student are large cities ($1,466 per student) and remote rural areas ($1,313 per student).

Take Ohio as an example. Ohio currently receives about $677 million in Title I funding and $558 million in IDEA funds. According to calculations made by New America’s Education Funding Equity Initiative using data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, the wealthiest ten percent of the state’s districts receive an average of about $185,000 in total Title I funding compared to an average of about $4.2 million for the poorest ten percent of districts. With state budgets expected to shrink substantially in the coming years, it’s unrealistic to expect that states will be able to provide the same level of support for children with disabilities and children from low-income families as the federal government.

ED is also responsible for distributing funding intended to support English learners, something you can learn about here. And you can learn more about the purpose and distribution of IDEA funds for students with disabilities here.

ED also plays an important role via its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in enforcing civil rights laws—for students in public schools and post-secondary education—that prohibit discrimination in federally funded educational institutions on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, and age. For example, last year OCR investigated allegations that school administrators in a California district failed to respond to sexual assaults of students at the hands of employees and other students. As a result of the investigation, the district agreed to overhaul its compliance process to improve how it handles allegations of sexual assault. Without a federal watchdog to enforce civil rights laws, the responsibility would fall on individual states and districts that might not be prepared to aggressively investigate alleged violations.

ED also has an integral role to play when it comes to data collection. The Institute of Education Sciences is responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating education data. These data allow for informed decision making when it comes to education issues. For example, it is thanks to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) that we’re able to understand just how far we still have to go in terms of recovering from pandemic-related learning loss. (Also see New America’s post on the department’s role in supporting research and data collection).

And while many important federal early learning programs are the responsibility of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service (HHS), ED plays an important role as a partner in administering those programs. For example, ED works with HHS to administer the Preschool Development Grant - Birth Through Five (PDG B-5) program, a competitive grant program that has sent tens of millions of dollars to individual states to aid them in improving access to high-quality child care and pre-K education while improving data collection. The program has been a bipartisan success, winning praise from governors of both parties. And a key goal of the program is promoting parent choice in selecting an early education program that best meets their needs. It also has funded activities focused on strengthening the early educator workforce and better serving dual language learners and children with disabilities in early education programs.

In recent years, ED has also made a concerted effort to improve the quality of kindergarten and the early elementary grades that follow through its Kindergarten Sturdy Bridge Learning Community. It also plays an important role in helping low-income college students access on-campus child care services through the Child Care Access Means Parents in Schools (CCAMPIS) program.

Republicans have been calling for the elimination of ED basically since it first came into existence. What’s different now is that, almost 50 years since its founding, the department’s very existence is under serious threat of either being shuttered entirely or dismantled piece by piece. It’s an idea that some might like in theory, but the reality would be devastating for the country’s children from their earliest years of learning through their graduation from high school and beyond.

To read more of New America’s Education & Work teams research, analyses, and commentary in support of the Department of Education, click here.