Republican Administration Starts the Destruction of the Department of Education

Update via CBS News:

Democratic states sue Trump administration over dismantling of Education Department

"This administration may claim to be stopping waste and fraud, but it is clear that their only mission is to take away the necessary services, resources, and funding that students and their families need," said New York Attorney General Letitia James in announcing the suit, which names Mr. Trump, McMahon and the Education Department as defendants.

James said the layoffs will harm in particular students from low-income families or who have disabilities.

"This outrageous effort to leave students behind and deprive them of a quality education is reckless and illegal," James said.

New York is joined in the suit by Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin, Vermont and the District of Columbia.

To note, only Congress can get rid of any given department. However, if an administration wants to dismantle it piece by piece, leaving only a rusting hulk behind as the facade of a department, they can do that. 

 end of update

Know what I laughed at the other day? Someone saying that all those people working in the Department of Education should just get back to their classrooms. Not all the people who work there are/were teachers. Just silly.

 

From former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich:

Why is Trump waging a war on the Department of Education? Because he knows that his biggest enemies are educators and younger generations of learners who are unafraid to speak truth to power. Attacks on education are central to the fascist playbook.

 

The 74 has been tracking this and so far:

- Education Dept. Cancels Over $600M in Grants for Teacher Pipeline Programs

Many of the efforts focused on increasing teacher diversity, which now, officials say 'is inconsistent' with the administration’s priorities.

The cancellations include a $3.38 million grant to Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, where McMahon serves on the Board of Trustees. The funds supported a program focused on recruiting special education teachers and strengthening instruction in STEM subjects. 

Both grant programs help lower the cost of becoming a teacher through scholarships and stipends that help defray housing expenses, especially for teacher education students completing their training in higher-priced urban areas. The universities and nonprofits often focus on recruiting teachers for math, special education and other hard-to-fill subject areas. The grants also pay for research staff who evaluate which aspects of preparation programs, like having a mentor, are more likely to keep novice teachers in the field.

- As I previously reported, they canceled the NAEP for 17-year olds. 

One of three long-term studies that has measured student performance in math and reading since the 1970s, the assessment was set to begin in March and run through May. Age 17 data, however, hasn’t been collected since 2012, creating a significant gap in understanding older students’ academic performance.

But Westat, a research organization handling the assessment for the National Center for Education Statistics, notified state officials Wednesday that the department had canceled the test.

 

 

- With Half of its Staff Cut, Many Wonder How Ed Dept. Will Function
The programs that took the biggest blows include student loans, the research arm that runs the ‘Nation’s Report Card’ and civil rights.

 

Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced the elimination of over 1,300 employees, meaning that, along with buyouts and early retirements, the department is roughly half the size it was when President Donald Trump took office just eight weeks ago.

They closed seven of the 12 regional civil rights offices. 

“The most important function of the staff in the civil rights office is to monitor and investigate issues of discrimination that kids and families experience at the local level,” said Jonathan Collins, an assistant professor of education and political science at Teachers College, Columbia University.“Now, it’s highly likely that any cry against injustice … sits in an unchecked inbox. And the cumulative effects of that are frightening.”

For example, the elimination of at least 243 OCR employees comes days after the office announced a comprehensive investigation into the District of Columbia Public Schools for having over 10,000 complaints from parents of children with disabilities. Officials said they also planned to prioritize a backlog of antisemitism complaints and restart other civil rights investigations that were temporarily on hold.  

 

The office of Federal Student Aid — the largest provider of student financial aid in the nation, which processes more than 17.6 million applications each year — was hardest hit, losing at least 326 of its approximately 1,400 employees. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency recommends replacing many of those staffers with artificial intelligence, according to The New York Times.