I wonder who decided the cuts made at the U.S. Department of Education and exactly how those decisions were made. Did the decisionmakers have any educational experience? Were decisions to keep a program or shuck it based on data? The whole process was just so, well – vague. But that’s kind of how our current president rolls these days, or for most of his business and political career. Don’t get me started on the bumpy ride he’s taken us down on the tariff road.
Last week EducationWeek’s Mark Lieberman and Matthew Stone listed the programs disappearing from the upcoming U.S. Department of Education budget. Here they are in an article Lieberman and Stone posted online in article form:
“President Donald Trump is proposing $12 billion in cuts to the U.S. Department of Education budget for the fiscal year that starts October 1st. The plan ‘reflects an agency that is responsibly winding down,’ the administration says in budget documents.”
“While the president’s budget proposal keeps topline funding steady for the Education Department’s two largest sources of funding for schools, Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, it asks Congress to eliminate nearly four dozen other grant programs that provide services for specific K-12 student populations, pay for teacher training and professional development, and fund education research and data collection, according to an Education Week analysis of the Trump budget.”
“The Trump administration proposes to consolidate 18 of those grant programs into a $2 billion ‘K-12 Simplified Funding Program’ that states and districts would have substantial flexibility to spend as they see fit – though with $4.5 billion less overall than what the individual programs it would replace currently provide. It proposes eliminating six special education grant programs and transferring the money allocated for them into the primary IDEA funding stream for states. And it proposes merging six different education research and data collection programs into a single account that would be $450 million smaller in total.”
“The budget would zero out more than a dozen other grant programs that, among other things, pay for services for K-12 English learners, efforts to help low-income students reach college, adult education, education for migrant students, teacher training, and the production of educational TV for young children.”
“Below is a guide to the Education Department programs slated for consolidation and elimination in the Trump administration’s fiscal 2026 budget, with brief descriptions of each program and the 2024 funding level.”
“The programs listed here are those that most directly affect K-12 students and school districts. Other categories of the Education Department budget that aren’t listed here, such as civil rights enforcement and department salaries and administration, are slated for reductions rather than elimination.”
“Programs slated for consolidation into the K-12 Simplified Funding Program:
(The budget proposes combining these 18 grant programs into a single K-12 Simplified Funding Program worth $2 billion. The programs as currently structured provide $6.5 billion in funding, so the consolidation would amount to a $4.5 billion cut. The vast majority of funds distributed to states through formula grants are passed onto school districts.)
Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants $2.19 billion
Student Support and Academic Enrichment $1.38 billion
21st Century Community Learning Centers $1.32 billion
State Assessments $380 million
Rural Education Achievement Programs $220 million
School Safety National Activities $216 million
Comprehensive Literacy State Development $194 million
Magnet School Assistance $139 million
Education for Homeless Children and Youth (McKinney-Vento) $129 million
Promise Neighborhoods $91 million
Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk (Title 1-D) $49.2 million
Native Hawaiian Education $45.9 million
Alaska Native Education, $45 million
Arts in Education National Program $36.5 million
Innovative Approaches to Literacy $30 million
American History and Civics Education $23 million
Statewide Family Engagement Centers $20 million
Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education $16.5 million
Special education grant programs slated to become part of IDEA grants to states:
(These six grant programs under Part D of IDEA fund “national activities” meant to improve special education services and help parents navigate the special education system. The budget proposes no funding cut for special education programs, but would instead distribute the money for these six programs to states as part of their primary IDEA state grants.)
Preschool Grants for Children with Disabilities $420 million
Personnel Preparation $115 million
Technical Assistance and Dissemination $39.4 million
State Personnel Development Grants $38.6 million
Parent Training and Information Centers $33.2 million
Educational Technology, Media, and Materials $31.4 million
Research and data collection programs slated for reductions and consolidation:
(After terminating scores of education research and data collection contracts throughout the winter and dismissing most Institute of Education Sciences staff, the Trump administration proposes cutting the Education Department research arm’s budget by two-thirds. That means reducing funding for specific IES programs and merging those programs into a smaller, general IES account. The reduction to these programs from 2024 levels works out to more than $450 million.)
(The Trump administration, meanwhile, says it’s in the process of ‘reimagining a more efficient, effective, and useful IES,’ and recently brought on a new advisor to focus on this effort.)
Research, Development, and Dissemination $245 million
Statistics $121.5 million
Institute of Education Sciences administration $73.5 million
Research in Special Education $64.2 million
Regional Education Laboratories $53.7 million
Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems $28.5 million
Special Education Studies and Evaluation $13.3 million
K-12 and related programs proposed for elimination:
(These programs, for which Congress allocated $4.4 billion in fiscal 2024, are those that most directly affect K-12 students and school districts that the Trump administration proposes to eliminate in its fiscal 2026 budget. The program eliminations are among the budget’s $12 billion in proposed cuts.)
TRIO (higher education access for disadvantaged students) $1.2 billion
English Language Acquisition State Grants $890 million
Adult Education $729.2 million
Migrant student education programs $427.7 million
Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) $388 million
Education Innovation and Research $259 million
Full-Service Community Schools $150 million
Supporting Effective Educator Development $90 million
Teacher Quality Partnership $70 million
Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program $60 million
Comprehensive Centers $50 million
Ready to Learn Programming $31 million
Hawkins Centers for Excellence $15 million
Equity Assistance Centers $6.6 million”
Three final thoughts:
First, some of these cuts probably needed to be made, whether it was a Republican or Democratic administration that did it.
Second, we need to be skeptical that money moved from specific federal grants to state block grants will end up the children who need help the most.
And third, these cuts will hurt the most vulnerable young learners in today’s traditional K-12 system, including pre-K.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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