The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
Education officials and Maine’s congressional delegation are concerned about the impact of President Donald Trump’s Thursday executive order dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, particularly on the state’s poorest students.
Loss of millions of dollars in federal support will harm vulnerable students, create financial strain on local schools, and undermine public education in Maine, several stakeholders told the Maine Morning Star.
The executive order directed U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.” It also “directs that programs or activities receiving any remaining Department of Education funds will not advance DEI or gender ideology,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Congress has the sole authority to shut down the department, and any bill to completely close the agency would face extreme difficulties getting through the narrowly GOP-controlled Senate, with at least 60 senators needed to advance past the filibuster.
However, it could be possible for the administration to take significant actions short of closure, such as moving some Education Department functions to other agencies.
Maine’s congressional delegation confirmed that they plan to oppose Trump’s executive order,
“Cutting the Department of Education could leave thousands of vulnerable children in the lurch by compromising federal support for our public schools. Our educators, students and parents are still getting their bearings after the chaos of the pandemic; this is no time to backslide and destabilize public education,” independent Sen. Angus King said in a statement.
Trump signs order directing Education secretary to shut down her own department
“While we don’t know exactly how this Executive Order will affect Maine’s students and public schools, you can rest assured that I will work with my colleagues to protect the vital institutions [that] are critical to a prosperous future for our children.”
Democratic Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden also spoke against the executive order.
“Let’s call this what it is: an attack on our kids, on parents, on communities, and on the very idea of public education,” Pingree said. “It will result in less support for education in Maine and very likely lead to higher local property taxes. All so that Republicans can give huge tax breaks to billionaires like Elon Musk.”
Sen. Susan Collins, the state’s sole congressional Republican, said while she supports “reducing wasteful spending and increasing government efficiency and oversight, I do not support dismantling the entire federal agency, nor do I think it is a realistic approach.”
Abolishing the department would cause severe disruptions to programs that are critical to communities in Maine, such as Title I, which supports low-income students and provides funding to 63% of Maine public schools, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which ensures rights for children with disabilities and provides more than $65 million in federal funding to Maine.
“I will work to ensure these programs are protected for Maine families and students across America,” Collins said.
It remains unclear how extensive the dismantling can be without congressional approval, what programs will be impacted and how much federal education funding is at stake. However, it could be possible for the administration to take significant actions short of closure that could undermine the effectiveness of the department.
The Education Department awarded $347 million to Maine entities in 2024, according to the Maine Center for Economic Policy, with funding mostly coming through the National School Lunch Program, Special Education Grants and Title I grants.
Maine stakeholders also expressed concern on the wide-ranging impact, even beyond federal programs. For example, 2,038 staff positions are supported by K-12 state formula-allocated Education Department programs in Maine, according to Jesse Hargrove, president of the Maine Education Association. The education association also raised similar concerns as the congressional delegation about Pell Grants, funding for Title I schools and students with disabilities.
“These are valuable and necessary programs that Maine students, educators, and schools rely on us to serve our most vulnerable students,” Hargrove said.
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“Potential cuts to any of these programs would limit opportunities for Mainers and have devastating consequences for our communities.”
Trump cited low scores as a reason to dismantle the DOE, pointing to low math and reading averages according to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Those scores show that the “the Federal education bureaucracy is not working,” he said in the executive order.
“Closing the Department of Education would provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them.”
Maine students scored lower last year on that national assessment in both reading and math than they had in the three decades prior, which Republicans have tried to attribute to a focus on DEI and social-emotional learning.
However, experts said that while poor performance can be attributed to a lot of factors, DEI and a focus on social-emotional learning are not among them. Rather, they highlighted several likely drivers including a failure to incentivize districts to use evidence-based literacy and math programs, a lack of state oversight of post-pandemic academic recovery, and a need for greater investment in schools.
Speaking to reporters Thursday morning, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said any “critical functions” of the agency, including on student loans, Pell Grants for lower-income college students, Title I, special education funding and enforcement of civil rights laws “will remain.”
Even if such programs continue to be disbursed, many have expressed concerns that those funds could be delayed, and there may be less technical assistance at the federal level to ensure funds are implemented in compliance with federal law, said Robbie Feinberg, spokesperson for the Maine School Boards Association. Those delays could put an additional administrative burden on local schools absent federal assistance, he said.
“Our larger concern is proposed cuts to education that are being discussed as part of a larger Budget Reconciliation bill in Congress,” he said, noting that proposals from the Republican majority “could result in a reduction in formula funds, potentially leading to fewer resources for reading interventionists, school counselors, math coaches, summer learning programs, and other important programming to help our most at-risk students.”
“This could exacerbate achievement gaps and lead to holes in local budgets, forcing schools to reduce programming or raise local property taxes to compensate.”
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