The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building pictured in November 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A coalition suing to block President Donald Trump’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education expanded its lawsuit Tuesday to include objections to recent interagency agreements to shift the department’s responsibilities to other Cabinet-level agencies.

The alliance of unions and school districts also added a major disability rights advocacy group to its ranks in the amended complaint that detailed how the department’s Nov. 18 announcement of six interagency agreements could harm students.

The agreements to transfer several Education responsibilities to four other departments drew swift backlash from Democratic officials, labor unions and advocacy groups, who questioned the legality of the transfers and expressed concerns over the harms that would be imposed on students, families and schools as a result. 

“Scattering Department of Education programs among agencies with no expertise in education or lacking key agency infrastructure will reduce the efficiency and effectiveness of these programs and will prevent the type of synergy that Congress intended to achieve by consolidating federal education activities in one cabinet level agency,” the coalition, represented by the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward, wrote in the amended complaint. 

The expanded suit asks for declaratory and injunctive relief against what it describes as the administration’s “unlawful effort to dismantle the Department of Education,” pointing to the interagency agreements, mass layoffs at the department earlier this year and implementation of an executive order that called on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate the closure of her own department.  

The Education Department clarified in fact sheets related to the agreements  with the departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services and State that it would “maintain all statutory responsibilities and will continue its oversight of these programs.”

Axing the Education Department

Trump has sought to take an axe to the 46-year-old department, saying he wants to send education “back to the states.” Much of the funding and oversight of schools already occurs at the state and local levels.

The original lawsuit, filed in March in Massachusetts federal court, was brought by the American Federation of Teachers, its Massachusetts chapter, AFSCME Council 93, the American Association of University Professors, the Service Employees International Union and two school districts in Massachusetts. 

The Tuesday filing adds The Arc of the United States, an advocacy group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as a plaintiff. 

Earlier this year, the case was consolidated with another March lawsuit from Democratic attorneys general in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and Wisconsin.  

“It’s no surprise that blue states and unions care more about preserving the DC bureaucracy than about giving parents, students, and teachers more control over education and improving the efficient delivery of funds and services,” Madi Biedermann, a spokesperson for the department, said in a statement shared with States Newsroom.

Supreme Court temporarily greenlit Trump plan

In May, a federal judge in Massachusetts granted a preliminary injunction in the consolidated case, blocking the administration’s efforts, including a reduction in force effort at the agency that gutted more than 1,300 employees, Trump’s executive order calling on McMahon to facilitate the closure of her own department and a directive to transfer some services to other federal agencies.

A federal appeals court upheld that order in June, prompting the administration to ask the Supreme Court to intervene. 

The nation’s highest court in July temporarily suspended the lower courts’ orders, allowing the administration to proceed, for now, with those dismantling efforts.  

A U.S. Department of Education regulation slated to take effect in July 2026 would give the secretary broad discretion to decide which organizations qualify for a program to forgive student loans for borrowers that enter public service. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A new U.S. Department of Education regulation to narrow eligibility for a key student debt relief program for public service workers has drawn strong opposition from advocates who argue the regulation is an attempt to target organizations whose missions do not align with President Donald Trump’s agenda. 

Under a final rule slated to take effect in July, employers that participate in “unlawful activities such that they have a substantial illegal purpose” would be excluded from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which is meant to encourage college graduates to pursue careers in public service.

The language of the final rule, which focuses on issues such as gender-affirming care and illegal immigration, has also raised concerns it meant to enforce the Trump administration’s priorities.

At least three lawsuits from Democratic attorneys general, cities, labor unions and nonprofit advocacy groups argue that the regulation is overly vague and exceeds the department’s authority. 

The rule would hurt not only the institutions that benefit from the program, but the public service workers themselves, Winston Berkman-Breen, legal director at the advocacy group Protect Borrowers, told States Newsroom.

“It’s not just about the macro effect of whether these organizations, including governments, will be able to do the work they do,” he said. “It’s also the individual financial health and security of borrowers and their households that will be really, really detrimentally affected by this rule, and we’re already sort of seeing that happen.” 

The organization is representing a coalition of cities, nonprofit advocacy groups and labor unions in one of the lawsuits over the regulation. 

Here’s a closer look at the policy and what it would mean for borrowers and employers: 

What is Public Service Loan Forgiveness?

Congress created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, or PSLF, in 2007 via the College Cost Reduction and Access Act to incentivize people to take on public service careers. 

PSLF forgives the remaining student debt for borrowers after they make 120 qualifying monthly payments while working for an eligible employer. 

How will the regulation work? 

The department’s final rule — which stems from a March executive order — is only forward-looking, meaning workers would not lose any credit earned prior to the July 1, 2026, effective date. 

Under the policy, the Education secretary can determine “by a preponderance of the evidence” that an employer has taken part in “illegal activities such that the organization has a substantial illegal purpose.” 

Affected employers can either reapply to serve as a qualifying employer after 10 years or try to regain eligibility in a quicker timeframe if they enter into a “corrective action plan” that needs the secretary’s approval. 

The activities that could disqualify employers, according to the department, include: 

• “Aiding and abetting” illegal immigration or “illegal discrimination”
• Providing gender-affirming care
• Supporting terrorism or “engaging in violence for the purpose of obstructing or influencing” federal government policy
• Trafficking children across states “for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents”
• Violating state laws

What’s the debate about?

Though the administration has framed the rule as an effort to punish “criminal activity,” advocates and Democratic officials see it as a way to target organizations that are not aligned with the administration’s goals.

“The bases for the disqualification that are in the final rule for the secretary of Education are pretty clearly just proxies for being engaged in activities that this administration doesn’t agree with or that don’t align with its agenda,” Berkman-Breen said.

He pointed to supporting immigrant communities, gender-affirming care, transgender rights, diverse hiring, teaching an accurate portrayal of racial history in this country and the right to peaceful protest as examples. 

Berkman-Breen said these activities are “very clearly things that this administration in other parts of the government has already attacked in civil society and in the states and local communities, but they’re now bringing that sort of attack into the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.”

In response to a request for comment, the department shared a statement from Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent, who said “it is unconscionable that the plaintiffs are standing up for” what he describes as “criminal activity.” 

“This is a commonsense reform that will stop taxpayer dollars from subsidizing organizations involved in terrorism, child trafficking, and transgender procedures that are doing irreversible harm to children,” he said. “The final rule is crystal clear: the Department will enforce it neutrally, without consideration of the employer’s mission, ideology, or the population they serve.”

How will employers be affected? 

Michele Zampini, associate vice president for federal policy and advocacy at the Institute for College Access & Success, said the final rule will divert nonprofits’ ability to focus on their mission and impede their ability to keep staff on and attract new workers.

The final rule “will have the effect of putting a lot of nonprofits doing a lot of really important work in their communities in a defensive position, whether they’re being preemptively defensive to try and avoid running afoul of the administration, or whether they’re already kind of in a position where the administration has identified them as a target,” she said. 

Zampini, whose group aims to advance affordability, accountability and equity in higher education, added that the program was crucial in attracting talent to service-oriented work. 

“PSLF is a big part of what … enables people to take on what may be lower-paying jobs in exchange for being able to manage their debt over time,” she said. “If people don’t have that option, or even if they feel like they don’t have that option or are afraid they won’t have that option, it becomes a lot harder to kind of attract people to those roles.” 

What legal challenges have come out against the policy? 

The administration is already facing a handful of lawsuits over the final rule, with critics urging federal courts to vacate the policy and deem it “unlawful.”

The challengers include a slew of cities, labor unions and nonprofit advocacy groups who filed suit in a Massachusetts federal court Nov. 3. 

Another lawsuit was brought the same day in the same federal court from Democratic attorneys general in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and Wisconsin. 

Four nonprofit advocacy groups also filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Nov. 4 against the administration over the rule.

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building in Washington, D.C., pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration took major steps Tuesday in trying to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, announcing six interagency agreements signed with other departments that will transfer several of its responsibilities to those agencies. 

The announcement was immediately met with intense backlash from Democratic members of Congress, who questioned its legality, and labor unions. 

The agreements — with the departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services and State — come as Trump has sought to take an axe to the 46-year-old department in his quest to return education “back to the states.” 

The move further fulfills a pledge Trump heavily campaigned on and later tapped Education Secretary Linda McMahon to carry out. 

“The announcement really follows the plan that President Trump has had since Day One, and that is returning education to the states — he fully believes, as do I, the best education is that that’s closest to the child and not run from a bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.,” McMahon told Fox News on Tuesday following the announcement. 

The secretary likened the initiative to a “test run” and said her department wants to see “if what we think to be true is that they will function much more in a streamlined fashion and much more efficiently if we relocate those programs into other agencies.” 

McMahon added that the agency would “move it,” “see how it works” and deliver the “outcomes” to Congress. 

She said her department hopes Congress would then vote to codify the permanent move of those programs to those agencies. 

But any effort would face a difficult path in the Senate, which requires at least 60 senators to advance most legislation. Republicans hold just 53 Senate seats.

The announcement also came as the U.S. Supreme Court in July allowed the Trump administration to temporarily proceed with mass layoffs and a plan to dramatically downsize the Education Department ordered earlier this year.

That plan — outlined in a March executive order Trump signed — called on McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of her own department. 

How Education agreements will work 

The Education Department clarified in fact sheets it would “maintain all statutory responsibilities and will continue its oversight of these programs” regarding all six interagency agreements.

A senior department official could not yet say how many Education Department employees would be transitioning to these other agencies, and noted that there will be “a bit of a lag” between the signing and when the agreements are fully executed. 

The official said the department is “still exploring the best plan” for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Office for Civil Rights and Federal Student Aid.

The Department of Labor will take on a “growing role” in administering elementary and secondary education programs currently managed under the Education Department’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, per a fact sheet. 

The Education Department said that “with proper oversight by ED, DOL will manage competitions, provide technical assistance, and integrate ED’s programs with the suite of employment and training programs DOL already administers.”

In another agreement, the Labor Department will also take on a greater role in managing the Education Department’s higher education grant programs, such as TRIO and the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or GEAR UP.

This also includes the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need program and the Strengthening Historically Black Graduate Institutions program, among others. 

The Interior Department will also take on a “growing role” in administering the Education Department’s Indian Education programs, per a fact sheet. 

Under an agreement with HHS, that agency will oversee the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation’s work. 

HHS will also “manage existing competitions, provide technical assistance, and integrate” the Education Department’s Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program, the department said. 

That program, according to the Education Department, “supports the participation of low-income parents in postsecondary education through the provision of campus-based child care services.” 

The Education Department’s agreement with the State Department will let that agency “oversee all foreign education programs,” per a fact sheet. 

‘Outright illegal effort’

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, blasted the move as an “outright illegal effort to continue dismantling the Department of Education.” 

Murray said “it is students and families who will suffer the consequences as key programs that help students learn to read or that strengthen ties between schools and families are spun off to agencies with little to no relevant expertise and are gravely weakened — or even completely broken — in the process.” 

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the House Appropriations panel, said  “any attempt to unilaterally remove programs from the Department of Education will fundamentally alter their purpose,” in a Tuesday statement.

“This is not about efficiency — it is about creating so many needless bureaucratic hurdles that the Department of Education is rendered useless — a death by a thousand cuts. Imposing massive, chaotic, and abrupt changes on a whim will waste millions of dollars in duplicative administrative costs and impose wasteful burdens on the American education system,” the Connecticut Democrat said. 

Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, decried the move in a Tuesday statement and called on congressional Republicans to “work with Democrats to stop this assault.”

The Virginia Democrat said “the mass transfer of these programs is not only extremely inefficient and wasteful, but it will result in inconsistent enforcement of federal education policy.” 

He added that “instead of protecting the civil rights of students of color, students with disabilities, English as a Second Language (ESL) students, and low-income students, and closing achievement gaps, the Secretary of Education has spent her tenure dismantling ED.” 

Unions slam move

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, said “this latest ploy by the Trump Administration to dismantle the Congressionally created U.S. Department of Education is not only unlawful — it’s an insult to the tens of millions of students who rely on the agency to protect their access to a quality education.” 

She added that “students, educators and families depend on the Department’s comprehensive support for schools, from early learning through graduate programs” and “that national mission is weakened when its core functions are scattered across other federal or state agencies that are not equipped or positioned to provide the same support and services as ED staff.” 

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers unions in the country, said “spreading services across multiple departments will create more confusion, more mistakes and more barriers for people who are just trying to access the support they need.” 

Weingarten added that “it’s a deliberate diversion of funding streams that have helped generations of kids achieve their American dream” and “will undermine public schools as places where diverse voices come together and where pluralism, the bedrock of our democracy, is strengthened.”

“We are now watching the federal government shirk its responsibility to all kids. That is unacceptable,” she said, adding that “Congress must reclaim its authority over education during upcoming federal funding battles.” 

A father holds his son's hand during the Disability Pride Parade in New York City. Advocates fear changes made, or proposed, by the Trump administration will strip away crucial federal oversight and deny vulnerable children the educational services they’re guaranteed under law. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

In its quest to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, the Trump administration wants to let states police themselves when it comes to educating students with disabilities, a move many teachers and parents fear will strip away crucial federal oversight and deny vulnerable children the services they’re guaranteed under law.

In October, the Trump administration fired nearly all the employees in the U.S. Department of Education office that’s responsible for enforcing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the landmark federal civil rights law that guarantees students with disabilities the right to a free and quality public education. A federal judge blocked the layoffs a few days later, in response to a lawsuit filed by federal workers unions.

In addition to making sure states and school districts follow the law, the office distributes billions in federal funding to help states educate students with disabilities such as autism, deafness, developmental delays and dyslexia.

The court ruling halting the layoffs is likely just a temporary setback as Trump proceeds with his broader mission of closing the federal department. Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon have said their goals are to reduce bureaucracy and return more education responsibilities to the states.

Neither the Department of Education nor the White House, which are operating with fewer communications officers because of the government shutdown, responded to Stateline requests for comment.

Congress has never fully funded special education at 40% per-pupil costs promised to states under IDEA. Funding has fluctuated over the years; in 2024, it was about 10.9%. Federal IDEA funding is expected to continue, though without federal oversight from the Education Department.

Disability rights and education advocates worry that most states don’t have the resources — or, in some cases, the will — to adequately police and protect the rights of students with disabilities.

Some states in recent years have failed to provide adequate special education services, prompting investigation from the feds. Just 19 states meet the requirements for serving students with disabilities from ages 3 through 21, according to the most recent annual review from the Department of Education, released in June.

“Shifting all of that to the state and away from the feds is not something we’ve been able to wrap our heads around,” said Quinn Perry, the deputy director of the Idaho School Boards Association.

“Our state education department are excellent people, but that is a huge, drastic shift in workload they’d have to do on compliance,” she said, adding that Idaho is already facing a budget shortfall.

In Iowa, Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Konfrst, the former House minority leader, said she’s concerned that without federal oversight, the state would not hold schools accountable for providing special education services. She pointed to state lawmakers’ willingness to pass Iowa’s relatively new school choice program, which directs taxpayer funding to private school tuition but does not require private schools to provide services to students with disabilities.

“There are no provisions with private school vouchers that they have to provide special education,” she said. “Those kids are left at the public schools, which have been underfunded.”

Funding gaps

IDEA passed 50 years ago this month. Before then, education for children with disabilities depended entirely on where they lived.

They were often refused admission to public and private schools that lacked the resources or the will to properly educate them. Some had to forgo education entirely, while others were shut away in poorly equipped institutions that prioritized containment over learning.

In 2022-2023, about 7.5 million students — 15% of the kids in public schools — received special education services under IDEA, according to the most recent data available from the National Center for Education Statistics, the federal agency that collects education data.

The law requires public schools to provide a “free appropriate public education” in the least restrictive environment from birth through age 21 to children and youth with disabilities. That education includes services such as additional time to complete school work, assistive technology, or even a one-on-one aide.

Some supports, such as providing large-print materials or giving a student extra time to complete a task, are low-cost. But others can be expensive for schools to provide. For example, an American Sign Language interpreter might cost $50,000 a year, said Perry, of the Idaho school boards group.

And a recent Idaho state report noted that it costs upward of $100,000 per year to educate some special education students.

Educators there are already pushing for additional funding to help fill a gap — $82.2 million in 2023 — between available state and federal funding for special education and the amount that school districts actually spend.

The state report also found that, unlike the neighboring states of Oregon, Utah and Washington, Idaho doesn’t provide additional state funding for special education beyond the base per-pupil amount allocated by the state.

The federal government currently covers less than 12% of the costs of special education services nationwide, leaving state and local governments to foot the rest, according to the National Education Association, a labor union representing 3 million educators nationally. Without federal oversight, critics fear, nobody will hold states and school districts accountable for not spending enough.

In some states, limited state funding means a disproportionate financial burden lands on individual school districts. On average, local districts are responsible for $8,160 per special education student per year, according to a report released last year by education nonprofit Bellwether that studied funding across 24 states.

The situation is so dire in Idaho that the state superintendent made special education funding her key issue for the state’s upcoming legislative session. She requested $50 million to help close the special education funding gap.

It’s an issue affecting school districts across the nation, said Perry.

“Just because [the feds] are shifting responsibility to states does not alleviate the fact that we still have a federal mandate to provide services to these kids,” Perry said. “IDEA is still the law of the land and your school district is still mandated to meet this law, but with perhaps a sprinkling in of chaos and, in a state like ours, still a gap in funding.”

At times, that funding gap has prompted some states to cut corners.

Rationed services

After a 15-month probe, the U.S. Department of Education found in 2018 that Texas had effectively rationed its special education services, capping the share of public school students who could receive those services at 8.5% of a district’s population, regardless of need and in direct violation of IDEA.

The feds also found that some Texas school districts intentionally identified fewer children as eligible for special education services if the number of those students exceeded the 8.5% threshold.

Though Republican Gov. Greg Abbott subsequently released a statement criticizing local school districts, educators and advocates blamed state legislators for recommending the caps as a way to control special education costs.

“Texas had about 5-7% of students who needed special education but were unilaterally denied it because the state decided that was too expensive,” said Lisa Lightner, a special education advocate and the mother of a student with a disability.

“Without this federal oversight, who’s to stop them from doing that again?”

Just last year, the Department of Education released Virginia from an ongoing investigation it had been under since 2019 for repeatedly failing to resolve complaints by parents of special education students.

The feds found the state had no procedures to ensure a timely resolution process for the complaints, leaving parents with little recourse when their students weren’t receiving needed services.

The federal monitoring ended in December 2024 after Virginia’s education department took corrective measures, including creating its own monitoring division, requiring additional educator training, and changing how the state handles complaints.

This year, states including Indiana, Iowa, Kansas and Mississippi were cited by the Education Department for not having systems in place that are “reasonably designed” to identify districts not complying with IDEA.

“No state gets it perfect all the time, but some states are better at it than others,” Lightner said.

Her home state of Pennsylvania has robust state oversight of special education, she said, but added that parents in some other states are panicking.

“There’s a societal mindset in some places that kids who need special education are never going to amount to anything, that they’re a drain on resources. Some people even think [allocating additional funds for their education] is giving them an advantage over other kids,” she said. “It’s an old-fashioned mindset that still exists in a lot of state leaders.”

States take notice

Some state lawmakers, troubled or encouraged by the Trump administration’s stance toward public education, have already filed their own legislation.

Republicans haven’t talked much about special education oversight, but even those at the state level have embraced the larger goal of shrinking the kind of regulation embodied by the Department of Education.

In Texas, state Rep. Andy Hopper, a Republican, filed a bill in February to abolish the state’s education agency.

“President Trump has called upon every level of government to eliminate inefficiencies and waste,” Hopper said in a statement announcing the bill, which later died in committee. “Texans pour billions into this state agency with the expectation that it will somehow improve education, but have been consistently and profoundly disappointed in the results.”

Alabama state Rep. Barbara Drummond, a Democrat, filed a bill in March to study how the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education would affect public education in Alabama.

Alabama parents are among those who sued the federal agency earlier this year over cuts to its Office for Civil Rights, claiming that investigations into alleged civil rights abuses in schools against students with disabilities and English learners have halted since Trump took office. Drummond’s bill also died in committee.

Since August, McMahon has been on a “Returning Education to the States” tour of all 50 states. She began it in Louisiana, the only state whose recent fourth-grade reading scores showed a significant increase compared with pre-pandemic levels, according to a large, congressionally mandated survey of educational progress across the states.

“There’s no one-size-fits-all in education,” she told reporters during her stop at a Baton Rouge school in August. “What works in one state may not work in another state.”

Federal law already gives states and local districts exclusive control over their own curriculum and education standards; the U.S. Department of Education can’t tell states what to teach, nor how to teach it.

Louisiana U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Democrat, expressed concern that the dismantling of the Department of Education would remove the kind of federal oversight that has, in the past, protected students’ civil rights when state and local governments didn’t. On his podcast in August, he pointed to the need for federal intervention during the Jim Crow era when Southern states tried to maintain segregation in schools.

“We were protected to be able to have an education because of the federal government,” said Carter, who is Black. “When you start taking those protections away, that’s damning for our country and it’s a huge step in the wrong direction.”

Lightner, who has 182,000 followers on her Facebook page, said parents who comment on her posts often debate the merits of the Trump administration’s shift on special education.

But Lightner said she hasn’t seen evidence of a cohesive plan to improve special education.

“If you blow up a house, even if I gave you a few hundred thousand dollars to build a new one, that doesn’t happen overnight,” she said. “This destruction, it’s going to be years until we’re back to normal. And even ‘normal’ missed a lot of kids.”

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

A boy plays with a wooden numbers puzzle. Sensory exercises like this are often used in special education classrooms. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Proposed mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education have raised alarm among disability advocates and Democratic lawmakers over the potential impact on millions of students with disabilities. 

Advocates warn that the department cannot carry out its legally mandated functions for special education services and support at the staffing levels put forward by President Donald Trump’s proposed reduction in force, or RIF. 

The agency is also reportedly weighing a transfer of special education programs to a different department. 

“If we’ve learned anything this year, it’s that the fight is just beginning,” Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, told States Newsroom. “And we’re going to do everything we can to fight these illegal firings and the dismantling of the department, but it is just beginning.”

Trump’s administration took another axe to the department earlier this month amid the ongoing government shutdown, effectively gutting key units that serve students with disabilities. The affected offices administer $15 billion in formula and discretionary grant programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, provide guidance and support to families and states and investigate disability-based discrimination complaints, among other responsibilities. 

Though a federal judge has temporarily blocked the administration from carrying out the layoffs, the ruling provides only short-term relief as legal proceedings unfold. 

The administration moved to lay off 465 department employees, including 121 at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, or OSERS, 132 in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, or OESE, and 137 in the Office for Civil Rights, or OCR. 

The layoffs also hit the Office of the Secretary, Office of Communications and Office of Postsecondary Education. 

“You can’t look at any of this in a silo,” Gittleman said. “When you’re thinking about special education specifically, you also have to think about the fact that OESE, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, also saw an almost full RIF as well.” 

Gittleman called the civil rights office “the place that ensures families have a place to go for help when students are denied access for education based on their disability.”

“That was also almost entirely gutted,” she said. “So you’re debilitating these programs in multiple ways because … kids with disabilities benefit from OESE programs, OCR assistance and OSERS programs.” 

Those three units had already been hit with a separate set of department layoffs earlier this year. 

Parents as advocates

Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc of the United States, an advocacy group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, said that while IDEA has not been changed and the rights of children with disabilities continue, the government’s ability to enforce and implement those rights has deteriorated. 

OSERS is responsible for managing and supporting IDEA, which guarantees a free public education for students with disabilities and is in its 50th year. The umbrella unit OSERS includes the Office of the Assistant Secretary, Office of Special Education Programs and the Rehabilitation Services Administration.

“You take away the knowledge of the folks at the U.S. Department of Education at the Office of Special Education Programs — the law is complex, the combination of the federal law with state laws is complex — you need that trusted source of accurate information, and so, I think it’s going to make the implementation of this law that much more difficult,” Neas told States Newsroom. 

During the 2022-2023 school year, 7.5 million students in the United States received services through IDEA, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, a federal agency. 

Neas encouraged parents to “know your rights” and “understand what the law does and does not do for your child, and don’t take no for an answer.” 

She said parents “really have to be well-versed in what the law requires schools to provide to their child,” and “have to be the ones that insist that the law is implemented with fidelity, because they’re the ones that are going to be on the front lines trying to make that happen.” 

‘Flabbergasted’

Jacqueline Rodriguez, CEO at the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said the RIFs would make it “impossible” for the Office of Special Education Programs to “carry out its statutory requirements.” 

Rodriguez, whose organization advocates for people with learning and attention issues, said “we had hundreds of staff doing this type of work — the statutory requirements are monitoring, compliance, guidance, support — it’s not just pressing a button and issuing funding.” 

She also noted that advocacy groups, including hers, are “flabbergasted” regarding the sweeping layoffs of special education staff because of the contrast with previous assurances Education Secretary Linda McMahon has made to both Rodriguez and Congress about supporting students with disabilities. 

“I am not stunned that the administration would try to dismantle something that was legally required in place,” she said. “But I am flabbergasted that the secretary would sit and give congressional testimony at her confirmation hearing. She did it at the oversight hearing. She sat in front of me and said, ‘No, Jackie, this administration supports kids with special needs. We will always be good advocates. You don’t have to worry.’”

Just days after the layoff notices were sent out, McMahon took to social media to downplay the consequences of the shutdown on her department.   

Two weeks into the shutdown, “millions of American students are still going to school, teachers are getting paid, and schools are operating as normal,” McMahon wrote. 

The secretary added that “it confirms what the President has said: the federal Department of Education is unnecessary, and we should return education to the states.” 

McMahon also specified that “no education funding is impacted by the RIF, including funding for special education.” 

Rodriguez said McMahon’s post indicates the secretary believes the “status quo is perfectly reasonable — when we know that’s not the case — and she dismantles every opportunity for a kid with a disability to actually have his or her legally-entitled education.”

“I am beyond being polite and providing professional deference because there has been no consideration or deference to kids with disabilities for the last 10 months,” she added.

The groups that advocate for students with disabilities are united in their opposition, Rodriguez continued.

“Disability organizations across the country are united, we are all talking to one another,” she said. “We all work collaboratively, and we are in concert, lock and step.”

Congressional Dems fiercely oppose cuts 

Meanwhile, a slew of Democratic lawmakers expressed outrage and concern over the department RIFs in two separate letters to the administration this month. 

Reps. Lucy McBath of Georgia, Mark DeSaulnier and Lateefah Simon of California, led dozens of fellow House Democrats in an Oct. 17 letter voicing to McMahon and White House budget director Russ Vought their “deep opposition” to the layoffs and urging them to “immediately reverse course and rescind the termination notices that were sent to these workers.”

In another letter to McMahon, 31 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus wrote Monday that “punitive, reckless actions like these latest firings demonstrate how President Trump and …Vought are relishing the government shutdown they caused — and are treating students as political pawns,” adding: “That is outrageous — and flatly unacceptable.”

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, led the letter, along with: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York; Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; and Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, ranking member of the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing Education Department funding.

A sign on the entrance to the U.S. National Arboretum is seen as it is closed due to the federal government shut down on Oct. 1, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Wednesday, blocking the Trump administration from moving forward with the thousands of layoffs it initiated after the government shutdown began Oct. 1, as well as any others that officials might want to carry out.  

The hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California took place at the same time White House budget director Russ Vought appeared on the conservative Charlie Kirk podcast to preview his next steps.

Vought warned the initial Reductions in Force, the technical term for a layoff notice, were just “a snapshot” and that as many as 10,000 federal workers would lose their jobs if the shutdown drags on.

“We’re going to keep those RIFs rolling throughout this shutdown because we think it’s important to stay on offense for the American taxpayer and the American people,” Vought said. “We want to be very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy, not just the funding, but the bureaucracy.”

Judge Susan Illston said during the hearing that she granted the temporary restraining order because Trump administration officials had “taken advantage of the lapse in government spending, government functioning to assume that all bets are off, that the laws don’t apply to them anymore and that they can impose the structures that they like on the government situation that they don’t like.” 

Illston said laws and regulations still apply during a shutdown and that, by all appearances, the Trump administration’s actions in the case are politically motivated. 

“Things are being done before they’re thought through — very much ready, fire, aim,” Illston said.

The ruling will put the approximately 4,000 layoffs noticed during the shutdown on hold as the court case proceeds. 

DOJ unprepared to speak on merits of case

Elizabeth Hedges, a Justice Department attorney arguing the case on behalf of the Trump administration, said several times during the brief hearing she wasn’t prepared to speak about the merits of the case — a position that confounded the judge, who gave Hedges several chances to reverse course.  

“We may be able to address the merits at the next stage,” Hedges said, after telling Illston she would need to check with others before making any statements about why the administration believes its actions are legal. 

Danielle Leonard, an attorney representing the labor unions that brought the lawsuit, urged the judge to grant a temporary restraining order for all the departments and agencies that make up the executive branch, not just those that have announced RIFs.

Leonard said she believes Trump administration officials have decided how many additional federal employees to lay off during the shutdown, but have opted not to share that information with the court.

“The decision has been made, it’s just a question of implementation and timing,” Leonard said, around the same time Vought was giving his podcast interview. 

Illston, who was nominated by former President Bill Clinton, said at the end of the hearing she expected the attorneys to find a day in the coming weeks when they can attend a hearing on the next stage, which would be a preliminary injunction.

Senate deadlocks for ninth time

On the other side of the country, Republicans and Democrats continued to spar on Capitol Hill over the reasons for the shutdown, as the Senate failed for a ninth time to advance a short-term government spending bill. 

The 51-44 vote was nearly identical to the others that have taken place since mid-September, and neither side appeared inclined to make concessions or even try to negotiate. 

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, both Democrats, and Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with Republicans to advance the bill. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted no.

Democrats maintain there must be a bipartisan deal to extend the enhanced tax credits that are set to expire at the end of this year for people who get their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. 

GOP leaders said they are willing to begin negotiations on that issue, but only after Democrats vote to advance the stopgap bill that would fund government through Nov. 21. 

The House voted mostly along party lines to approve the legislation in mid-September, but it has remained stalled in the Senate ever since, unable to garner the 60 votes needed to advance toward final passage. Republicans control the chamber with 53 seats.

Congress needs to approve the stopgap bill since it, once again, failed to approve all 12 of the full-year government funding bills by the Oct. 1 start of the new fiscal year.

The only other way to end the funding lapse would be for both chambers to reach a broadly bipartisan consensus on all of those appropriations bills. 

Layoffs across agencies

The layoffs initiated by the Trump administration during the shutdown were detailed further on Tuesday in court filings from the labor unions’ attorneys as well as Trump administration officials.  

Stephen Billy, senior adviser at the Office of Management and Budget, wrote the number of layoff notices had changed since Friday when he outlined the Reductions in Force to the court.

The numbers have fluctuated significantly for some departments, but not for all. 

• Commerce: Approximately 600 employees, up from 315
• Education: Remained at 466 employees
• Health and Human Services: 982 employees, down from a range of 1,100 to 1,200
• Housing and Urban Development: Stayed at 442 employees
• Homeland Security: Decreased to 54 from 176 employees
• Treasury: Reduced somewhat to 1,377 employees, from 1,446 

Energy, EPA layoffs

Federal workers at those departments have 60 days between when the notice was sent and when they will no longer have jobs, though a different standard is in place at the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Energy officials, the document says, “issued a general RIF notice informing 179 employees that they may receive a specific notice in the future if it is determined they will be part of any RIF. If so, that notice would provide the relevant notice period.”

But a spokesperson for the Energy Department emailed States Newsroom on Tuesday evening to confirm officials had issued RIF notices to workers in the Offices of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Clean Energy Demonstrations, State and Community Energy Programs and Minority Economic Impact.

“All these offices played a major role in the Biden administration’s war on American Energy,” the spokesperson wrote. “They oversaw billions of dollars in wasteful spending and massive regulatory overreach, resulting in more expensive and less reliable energy. These offices are being realigned to reflect the Trump administration’s commitment to advancing affordable, reliable, and secure energy for the American people and a more responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars.”

Further confusing the situation at the Energy Department, a footnote in the court document filed by Billy said that particular agency isn’t actually experiencing a lapse in funding. 

The Billy court document said EPA officials sent 28 employees “intent to RIF” notices and will send formal RIF notices “to any affected employees at least 60 days prior to the effective date.” 

A separate document, filed by Thomas J. Nagy Jr., deputy assistant secretary for Human Resources at HHS, said “data discrepancies and processing errors” led to 1,760 employees receiving layoff notices instead of the intended 982.

“Employees have been working since October 10, 2025, to rescind the notices that had been issued in error,” Nagy wrote. 

At CDC, ‘eliminating entire offices’

Yolanda Jacobs, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883, wrote in a brief to the court that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “issued RIF notices to approximately 1,300 employees, eliminating entire offices at the agency. Then, within 24 hours, the CDC rescinded approximately 700 of those RIF notices.” 

Jacobs wrote the 600 CDC workers who received RIFs will officially lose their jobs on Dec. 8, even though they have already lost access to work email and computers. 

“Many Union members have told me that they are experiencing serious mental health problems and have found it very difficult to get their work done, given all of the turmoil that they have experienced this year,” Jacobs wrote, referencing previous RIF notices and reinstatements. “Members have told me that they worry on a day-to-day basis about whether they will have a job the next day. They said that they have felt like the Trump Administration has been using them as bargaining chips this year.”

Jacobs wrote that the Trump administration has decided to lay off many human resources workers, which had blocked other workers who received RIFs from being able to get information about how to roll over their health insurance coverage. 

During past RIFs, she wrote, workers had “access to the employment records, including paystubs and performance records, that they need for processing their separations,” but cannot since they are locked out of computer systems. 

Layoffs hit Department of Education

Rachel Gittleman, president of AFGE Local 252, which represents nearly 3,000 Education Department workers, wrote in a separate filing the layoffs will impact numerous programs, including civil rights, communications and outreach, elementary and secondary education, post secondary education, and special education and rehabilitative services.

“Receiving RIF notices has caused many employees enormous stress. A father of two young boys contacted me—he just moved into a new home and relies on his job to support his family,” Gittleman wrote. “He told me (he) doesn’t know what he will do next.”

Workers on maternity or disability leave also received layoff notices, “forcing them to job-hunt and face financial insecurity while managing newborns or health conditions,” she wrote. 

Following past RIF notices, the department provided “career transitioning and counseling, benefits and retirement training, and access to other human resources and employee assistance programs.” But Gittleman wrote that isn’t happening this time. 

‘Devastated’ HUD employees

Ashaki Robinson, regional vice president for AFGE Council 222, which represents nearly 5,000 HUD workers, said the layoff notices for that department will impact employees in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, Texas and Washington, D.C., who manage a variety of programs. 

“They are devastated that the RIF is happening and are very concerned about losing their incomes, health insurance coverage for themselves and dependents, and other employment benefits in 60 days, when they will be separated from employment,” Robinson wrote. 

The hundreds of HUD workers who have received RIF notices, she wrote, were “targeted for termination not because of anything they did themselves, but because of decisions made by elected officials that may have been driven by politics.”

Reading Time: 3 minutes

This story was originally published by ProPublica.

Following public outcry, the U.S. Department of Education has restored funding for students who have both hearing and vision loss, about a month after cutting it.

But rather than sending the money directly to the four programs that are part of a national network helping students who are deaf and blind, a condition known as deafblindness, the department has instead rerouted the grants to a different organization that will provide funding for those vulnerable students.

The Trump administration targeted the programs in its attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion; a department spokesperson had cited concerns about “divisive concepts” and “fairness” in explaining the decision to withhold the funding.

ProPublica and other news organizations reported last month on the canceled grants to agencies that serve these students in Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as in five states that are part of a New England consortium.

Programs then appealed to the Education Department to retain their funding, but the appeals were denied. Last week, the National Center on Deafblindness, the parent organization of the agencies that were denied, told the four programs that the Education Department had provided it with additional grant money and the center was passing it on to them.

“This will enable families, schools, and early intervention programs to continue to … meet the unique needs of children who are deafblind,” according to the letter from the organization to the agencies, which was provided to ProPublica. Education Department officials did not respond to questions from ProPublica; automatic email replies cited the government shutdown.

When the funding was canceled, the programs were in the middle of a five-year grant that was expected to continue through September 2028. The funding from the center is only for one year.

“We don’t know what will happen” in future years, said Lisa McConachie of the Oregon DeafBlind Project, which serves 114 students in the state. McConachie said that with uncertain funding, her agency had to cancel a retreat this fall that had been organized for parents to swap medical equipment, share resources and learn about services to help students when they get older. She hopes to reschedule it for the spring.

“It is still a disruption to families,’’ she said. “It creates this mistrust, that you are gone and back and gone and back.”

Oregon’s grant application for its deafblind program, submitted in 2023, included a statement about its commitment to address “inequities, racism, bias” and the marginalization of disability groups, language that was encouraged by the Biden administration. It also attached the strategic plan for Portland Public Schools, where the Oregon DeafBlind Project is headquartered, that mentioned the establishment of a Center for Black Student Excellence — which is unrelated to the deafblind project. The Education Department’s letter said that those initiatives were “in conflict with agency policy and priorities.”

An advocate for deafblind students said he was happy to see the funding restored but called the department’s decision-making “amateurish” and disruptive to students and families. “It is mean-spirited to do this to families and kids and school systems at the beginning of the year when all of these things should be so smooth,” said Maurice Belote, co-chair of the National DeafBlind Coalition, which advocates for legislation that supports deafblind children and young adults.

Grants to the four agencies total about $1 million a year. The department started funding state-level programs to help deafblind students more than 40 years ago in response to the rubella epidemic in the late 1960s. Nationally, there are about 10,000 children and young adults, from infants to 21-year-olds, who are deafblind and more than 1,000 in the eight affected states, according to the National Center on Deafblindness.

While the population is small, it is among the most complex to serve; educators rely on the deafblindness programs for support and training.

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Students with hearing and vision loss get funding back despite Trump’s anti-DEI campaign is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Analysis on upcoming TSD Conference education, National Association for Pupil Transportation election results, the Federal Brake for Kids Act and the Federal Communications Commission revoking E-Rate eligibility of school bus Wi-Fi.

Jeff Cassell, president of the School Bus Safety Company, discusses the need for safety leadership training, removing risk and reducing accidents in student transportation.

Glenna Wright-Gallo, vice president of policy at neurotechnology software company Everway, has worked at the state government level and served as the assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services. At the TSD Conference this November, she brings her perspective as a person with a disability on educating and empowering individuals with disabilities.

Read more about safety and special needs.

This episode is brought to you by Transfinder.

 

Conversation with School Bus Safety Co.

 

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The post (STN Podcast E277) Make the System Better: Safety Leadership Training & D.C. Insider on Disability Supports appeared first on School Transportation News.

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Alverno College, Herzing University, Gateway Technical College and Mount Mary University could lose millions of dollars in aid after the U.S. Department of Education announced plans to end grant programs it deemed unconstitutional.

• The grant programs offer federal aid to colleges and universities where designated shares of students are Black, Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Asian American or Pacific Islander. 

• The Wisconsin colleges that would see the greatest impact are Hispanic-serving institutions, which means at least 25% of their students are Hispanic, among other requirements. 

• Experts say the grant programs were meant to level the playing field, and colleges often created supports with the federal funding that affect students of all demographics. 

• In addition, several Wisconsin colleges that could soon become Hispanic-serving institutions told Wisconsin Watch they plan to continue to pursue the designation.

Wisconsin colleges and universities with significant Hispanic and Latino populations could lose millions after the U.S. Department of Education announced that it plans to end several long-standing grant programs it says violate the Constitution. 

In Wisconsin, the change would affect Alverno College, Herzing University, Gateway Technical College and Mount Mary University. 

The seven grant programs in question award money to minority-serving schools for things like tutoring, research opportunities, counseling or campus facilities. 

The funds are available only to schools where a designated share of students are Black, Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Asian American or Pacific Islander, though the money can be used for initiatives that serve students of all demographics at those schools. 

“Discrimination based upon race or ethnicity has no place in the United States,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “The Department looks forward to working with Congress to reenvision these programs to support institutions that serve underprepared or under-resourced students without relying on race quotas.”

The $350 million previously allocated for grants for the 2025-26 school year will be “reprogrammed” to programs that “advance Administration priorities,” the department said.

The department will also discontinue existing grants, meaning schools that were previously awarded multi-year funding will not receive any remaining payments. 

The largest share of the affected schools are Hispanic-serving institutions, including four in Wisconsin. More than 600 colleges hold that designation, which the Department of Education has awarded for about 30 years to colleges that meet several qualifications including having an undergraduate student body that’s at least 25% Hispanic.

The announcement does not affect funding for tribal colleges or historically Black colleges. The Department of Education announced $495 million in additional one-time funding for historically Black colleges and for tribal colleges.

It’s unclear how much funding Wisconsin’s schools stand to lose in total. The newest on the list, Gateway Technical College, applied for funding for the first time in July, seeking $2.8 million over five years, spokesperson Lee Colony said. The school was still waiting for a decision when the department announced it was canceling the program. 

Wisconsin’s other three Hispanic-serving institutions did not answer questions from Wisconsin Watch. 

When Herzing University became a Hispanic-serving institution last year, Wisconsin Public Radio reported that the Kenosha school had received a $2.7 million five-year grant.

The list also includes both of Wisconsin’s women-only schools, Mount Mary University and Alverno College, the latter of which has recently faced money troubles. Its board of directors declared a financial emergency in 2024. After cutting 14 majors, six graduate programs and dozens of staff and faculty, the school and its accreditor say it’s now in a stronger financial position, but the school did not respond to further questions.

The cuts could be especially consequential in Wisconsin because the state’s minority-serving institutions are smaller schools with smaller budgets, said Marybeth Gasman, executive director of the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions.

“If they lose funding, it will hurt students — especially low-income and first-generation college students,” Gasman said.

But the announcement doesn’t necessarily seal the fate of these grant programs. Gasman anticipates lawsuits over the funds that were already awarded to institutions, on the grounds that the administration can’t rescind funds that Congress has allotted. 

“My hope is that Congress will step in and support these important institutions,” Gasman said.

Meanwhile, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities released a statement calling the decision “an attack on equity in higher education” that “erases decades of progress and hurts millions of students.” 

The organization said it would “continue to fight alongside students and institutions to defend these essential programs and ensure that opportunity, equity and investment in higher education are not rolled back.”

The case for HSIs

More than two-thirds of all Latino undergrads attend a Hispanic-serving institution, according to the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. Proponents of the grant program say it helps a group of students who haven’t always been well supported in U.S. schools and colleges, and that, in turn, helps the economy.  

“There are communities that have been excluded from educational opportunity, and they deserve the right to a high-quality education. That’s what democracy looks like,” said Anthony Hernandez, an education policy researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies Hispanic-serving institutions.

“By concentrating these federal resources, we can help them gain momentum to get into white-collar pathways and imagine that they could become nurses, they can become doctors, captains of industry, they can become scientists,” he said.

Hernandez disputes the Department of Education’s claim that it’s discriminatory to set aside funds specifically for minority-serving institutions. 

“For most of U.S. history, minority students were either explicitly excluded from higher education or funneled into segregated, underfunded schools,” Hernandez said. 

Minority-serving institutions were created to level the playing field, which remains slanted by bias, economic inequality and disparities in funding across K-12 schools, he said.

“This policy change presents itself as a defense of fairness, but effectively punishes institutions that were created to repair unfairness,” Hernandez said. “It withdraws critical support from communities still facing barriers and undermines the very schools helping to expand opportunity and strengthen the economy.”

He argues the program should be grown, not dismantled. The number of Hispanic-serving institutions has soared, he said, and the available funds haven’t kept up. 

“They’ve constantly had to fight for funding,” Hernandez said. “They’ve never been adequately funded.”

If the Department of Education succeeds at cutting these grant programs, he anticipates that graduation and transfer rates at these schools will drop. 

The cuts so far don’t affect grants issued to minority-serving institutions by other departments, including the Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation. But Hernandez worries more cuts could be coming.

“We imagine that that is eventually going to encompass all of the different arteries of the federal government that dole out monies to the minority-serving institutions,” Hernandez said. “I don’t think it’s finished.”

Gasman agrees. “I think the Trump administration is challenging the entire MSI framework, which has had bipartisan support in Congress,” Gasman said.

Wisconsin colleges serve growing Hispanic population

Watching from the sidelines are eight other Wisconsin colleges that have spent years trying to become Hispanic-serving institutions. At those schools, designated by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities as “Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institutions,” at least 15% of full-time undergrad students are Hispanic. 

In the 2023-24 school year, there were 425 such schools in the U.S. In Wisconsin, the group includes a mix of private colleges, public universities and technical colleges.

They say they’ll keep up working to better serve Hispanic students even if the federal funds disappear.

The Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design joined the Emerging list in 2021, and its Hispanic enrollment has risen each year since, President Jeffrey Morin said. 

About 19% of the incoming freshman class is Hispanic, and the city of Milwaukee is 20% Hispanic.

“For us, it is a natural reflection of the community that we serve,” Morin said, though he notes that the school selects students based on their academic record and a portfolio of their work, not their demographics.

“We are not sculpting a freshman class. We are serving the people who want to join our community,” Morin said. “And when a … noticeable portion of our population comes from a particular background, we want to make sure that we meet the needs of that population.”

Being designated as an Emerging Hispanic-serving institution hasn’t brought new funds to the school, but it “puts us in a community with other regional higher ed institutions so that … we can discuss and discover best practices and trends,” Morin said.

Hispanic students are the fastest-growing group in higher education. As their numbers boom, more Emerging schools could meet the 25% benchmark and become full-fledged Hispanic-serving institutions.

That’s the plan at the institute, Morin said, adding that the funds would help non-Hispanic students too. For example, he said, many Hispanic students are also the first in their families to go to college. The grant funds could be used for programs that would support first-generation students, regardless of their race or ethnicity.

“A rising tide lifts all boats,” Morin said. “The funding support that would come in to help one population will help other populations as well.”

‘Emerging’ schools not deterred

Despite recent news, MIAD officials say the school isn’t changing its plans. Supporting Hispanic students is particularly important now, Morin said, as the national rhetoric around immigrants grows increasingly hostile.

“What changes is that we’ll lose particular opportunities to partner (with the federal government) in service to the Hispanic community,” Morin said. “What doesn’t change is our commitment to serving the Hispanic community. We will simply look for new partners in that work.”

Several other Emerging institutions expressed similar sentiments.

The mission of the federal program “aligns with our Catholic, Jesuit mission to keep a Marquette education accessible to all,” said Marquette University spokesperson Kevin Conway. The university announced in 2016 that it intended to become a Hispanic-serving institution. Since then, the Hispanic share of its student body has grown from 10% to about 16% in fall 2024.

“Like all colleges and universities, Marquette is monitoring changes in the higher education landscape and the resources available to help the students we ​serve,” Conway said. “One thing that will not change is Marquette’s commitment to its mission and supporting our community.”

A spokesperson for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where about 15% of students are Hispanic, said the school “remains steadfast in its access mission, ensuring higher education is attainable for all, regardless of background or income.”

Milwaukee Area Technical College, meanwhile, announced last year that it was “on the verge” of achieving full HSI status with 23.4% of its full-time students identifying as Hispanic.

“We’re very, very close,” MATC President Anthony Cruz said at the time.

Asked about the latest developments, spokesperson Darryll Fortune said the school “will continue to pursue HSI status regardless.”

Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success in Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.

This story was updated to include an announcement made by the Department of Education that the agency will award historically Black colleges and tribal colleges $495 million in one-time funding.

Wisconsin colleges vow to keep supporting Hispanic students despite federal funding cuts is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Glenna Wright-Gallo’s upcoming keynote at the Transporting Students with Disabilities and Special Needs (TSD) Conference will feature her expertise in inclusive disability policies and background in work with special needs students to guide student transporters through the world of federal and state requirements.

Wright-Gallo’s will present her keynote, “Staying Mission-Focused: Leading Through Policy Shifts with Clarity and Confidence,” Sunday, Nov. 9 in Frisco, Texas. She recently served as the assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Education in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), from May 2023 until February of this year. Her work there and most recently as vice president of policy at Everway, an educational software company, gives her unique insights into navigating accessible training programs, technology and updated policies regarding transportation services.

During her keynote, she looks to provide TSD Conference attendees with strategies to keep pace with implementing updated policies and ensure reliable and safe transportation services for students with disabilities, and infants and toddlers.

In addition to her keynote, Wright-Gallo is presenting a breakout session the afternoon of Nov. 9 on the importance and role of Dear Colleague Letters issued by the U.S. Department of Education.

Wright-Gallo received her bachelor’s degree master’s degree in special education and teaching as well as a master’s in business administration. She became a special education teacher in 1997 and then served as the state director of special education at the Utah State Department of Education from 2010-2017. She then became an assistant superintendent at the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction for five years before President Joe Biden nominated her her U.S. Department of Education post in 2023.

Her work in Washington, D.C., included development of national policy, best practices for students with disabilities, recruitment of diverse personnel in special education and furthering state compliance to advance inclusive practices. At Everway, she is leading the Policy Center of Excellence and looks to amplify the voices of individuals with disabilities and people who are neurodivergent. She is also utilizing her experience in systems improvement to use neurotechnology software in the support of those with disabilities and further accessibility in education and workplaces.

Save $100 on main conference registration with the Early Bird Discount, available through Oct. 3. The TSD Conference will be held Nov. 6 through Nov. 11 at Embassy Suites Dallas-Frisco Hotel and Convention Center. Visit tsdconference.com to register and view the conference agenda, which includes four keynotes and dozens of educational sessions all focused on transportation of students with special needs.

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Related: Mother of Sandy Hook Victim Brings Student Safety Message to TSD
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Related: Hands-on Training Opportunities for Student Transporters at TSD Conference

The post Former OSERS Leader, Advocate for People with Disabilities to Keynote TSD Conference appeared first on School Transportation News.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

A program at Marquette University that trains Milwaukee-area teachers to incorporate the city’s untold stories – particularly those of communities of color –  into their classrooms is losing federal funding.

The U.S. Department of Education sent a letter that stated it will not continue the grant, saying the program – called MKE Roots – reflects “the prior administration’s priorities and policy preferences and conflict with those of the current administration.” 

The decision means funding will end this fall, leading to staff cuts and scaling back of programming. 

It’s a loss for the teachers who participate – but one that will affect thousands of Milwaukee students, said Melissa Gibson, faculty director of MKE Roots.

“Students realize that their communities have this whole rich history of organizing and advocating, making our city not only what it is but also a better place,” Gibson said. “They feel more empowered to be their own community and civic leaders.”

‘A rich tapestry of cultural experiences’

MKE Roots is a professional development program for Milwaukee-area teachers that includes a weeklong summer training in which they visit local landmarks and meet with historians and community leaders. 

Places this summer included America’s Black Holocaust Museum and Sherman Phoenix Marketplace. 

Before the school year begins, teachers get help developing lesson plans that reflect what they’ve learned, then they meet at least four more times to collaborate. 

There is also an online map with lesson plans and primary sources tied to Milwaukee neighborhoods. 

“We are heralding the men and women – the legacies of our city’s past – so that our students understand that they are part of a rich tapestry of cultural experiences,” said Robert Smith, director of Marquette’s Center for Urban Research, Teaching & Outreach, which houses MKE Roots.

Milwaukee schools often teach local history through a curriculum that focuses largely on traditional narratives – such as beer barons and European immigrants, Gibson said. 

“Students don’t know that Black Milwaukeeans have been here since the 1800s” before Wisconsin was a state, she said. “They don’t know how and why Mexican migrants came to Milwaukee in the 1920s. They don’t know that Wisconsin was one of the first states to pass anti-LGBTQ discrimination laws.” 

“No matter where you are as a teacher, you do something like this, and it gives you perspectives that I think truly, as a teacher – especially today – you need,” said Jeffrey Gervais, a fifth-grade teacher at Hamlin Garland School who is participating in this year’s training. 

The letter 

In 2023, the Department of Education awarded MKE Roots a three-year grant for $1.27 million. However, on June 18, the department sent a letter to Gibson that stated it will not fund the program for the third year. 

The letter gave four possible reasons for the decision: The program violates the letter or purpose of federal civil rights law; conflicts with the department’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness and excellence in education; undermines the well-being of the students the program is intended to help; or constitutes an inappropriate use of federal funds. 

It did not specify which reason – or reasons – apply in this case. 

The Department of Education did not respond to questions about its decision, but Smith said he can only assume it is because of the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion, often known as DEI.

Within two weeks of his inauguration, Donald Trump issued an executive order specifically on DEI in K-12 education. 

It calls for eliminating federal funding that supports “gender ideology” or “discriminatory equity ideology” in K-12 curriculum, instruction, programs or activities, as well as teacher education, certification, licensing, employment or training. 

DEI or not DEI? 

Smith rejects the idea that MKE Roots is a DEI program. 

“The notion of DEI is fundamentally based on people having equal access to institutions,” he said. “What we are doing is actually attending to the various populations of students we serve.”

Smith also disputes the reasons listed in the letter from the Department of Education. 

“None of the reasons are accurate relative to what we do with MKE Roots,” he said. “This is civics education at its purest – making sure our teachers have the tools to engage in important conversations with their students about Milwaukee, Wisconsin, their neighborhoods and communities, and their role in shaping those neighborhoods and communities.”

Smith and Gibson said they are appealing the decision. 

Gibson said she is considering applying for a new Department of Education grant for civic education programs that develop “citizen competency and informed patriotism” especially among low-income students and underserved populations, according to the grant’s description. 

It would require redesigning aspects of MKE Roots to put “founding documents in conversation with local context,” Gibson said.  

“We would need to find a different funding stream to maintain what MKE Roots currently does,” she added. 

Regardless of the outcome, she said, the work will continue. 

“I was doing this work before I had funding, and I’ll do it after I have funding.” 

A program helps teachers tell Milwaukee’s untold stories. The Trump administration says it will no longer fund it. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.