Connecticut’s Linda McMahon said the final mission of the U.S. Department of Education, which she now heads, is an overhaul.
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Lisa Hagen, who, along with her colleague Jessika Harkay, has done in-depth reporting on this. The conversation is part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short.
WSHU: Trump’s education secretary, Linda McMahon, took the helm at the department and immediately sent out an email to the staff saying their final mission would be an overhaul. The next day, half the staff was laid off, so she’s carrying out President Trump’s promise to disband the agency. Is that why you decided to look into this and what it means for Connecticut?
LH: Yeah, I was already actually looking into the story before the layoffs, and it kind of coincided as I and Jessica were reporting out the story because still, as we’re speaking right now, there’s a pending executive order that is aiming to dismantle the education department. As we talk about and as others have reported, Congress needs to be the one that ultimately ends any federal agency that is in federal statute. And so a lot of people are seeing the mass layoffs cutting about half of the staff as really the first step in trying to get to that executive order of, quote, dismantling the education department. And so we had been hearing a lot about what this could look like and mean. Now again, coinciding with our reporting, we have a better idea of what it will look like at the Education Department with, you know, at least at this point, half the staff cut, but obviously still a lot of unknown answers.
WSHU: What does the U.S. Department of Education do for Connecticut?
LH: One thing I want to start from the top is that, ultimately states and really local districts control education. So, it’s not prescribing certain curriculum, it’s not running the day to day operations of schools in Connecticut or really anywhere in the U.S., but it does provide a lot of federal funding. I think a lot of times, when you’re hearing about education funding at the federal level, it’s these Title One funds. It goes to school districts with higher concentrations of low-income students. You also hear about the special education law that fulfills IEPs. It ensures, and again, this is a legally binding thing, but it ensures that students with disabilities can have free and fair access to public education. We hear about that in terms of federal funding, but also, they have an office of Civil rights that deals with a lot of complaints and investigations at the federal level and looks into schools that get those federal dollars. It also does a lot of research and so I think those are some of the areas that can be most impacted without as much staff or without a federal education department.
WSHU: And the amount of money that school districts get varies, you know, the amount of federal aid that comes directly to school districts in Connecticut. What’s the difference? You have certain districts that get a lot more and certain districts that get a lot less. How does this work out?
LH: Exactly, it’s all through a formula, but I mean, when you start to dig into the data of Connecticut, and I’m not sure if this mirrors out in other places, but a lot of the biggest cities in Connecticut really get some of the most federal funding. Waterbury was a pretty, probably the most glaring example of this, where 22% of their education funding comes from the federal government, and again, this varies town by town, city by city, but at least for Waterbury, it is predominantly Title One funding. Again, that may track differently for different towns, but also, elsewhere, Hartford, Bridgeport, and New Haven are the places that get Anywhere from 15 to 20% of their education funding coming from the federal level. On average, in Connecticut, it’s around 7.4%. And so, you know, Connecticut gets about- at least in the past school year, $550 million from the federal level, but again, it’s pretty disproportionate depending on where you’re looking at the state, and you see those be really felt in the cities.
WSHU: And the cities are the are the school districts that can least afford to to have any cuts because taxes are pretty high in the cities and a lot of the education burden falls on local taxes.
LH: Exactly, and I think that’s the thing everyone’s kind of thinking about, you know, does the state or even localities need to step in at these federal dollars go away. And so again, I want to emphasize that when you’re looking at things like Title One or about special education law, these are things that are enshrined in law, these are things that Linda McMahon, the secretary of the Education Department has said will continue to be funded. These things will continue, at least for the time being, as long as they don’t go away, you know, by Congress. But Congress is the one that is appropriating all these federal dollars. Does that start to scale back?
WSHU: But if you don’t have the staff to implement the funding, how is the funding going to be implemented? Because there’s a lot of oversight over how this money is used on the local level, and a lot of that oversight comes from the U.S. Department of Education.
LH: Exactly, and I think that’s the fear, too; again, this money has been appropriated. Congress has to keep funding these programs, but If most of these officers of the staff are wiped away, if they’re even moved under other federal agencies, these might be disruptions. You might not see money being wiped away, but are you gonna be able to get this money promptly? Are you gonna be able to make sure there’s oversight so there’s no fraud or misuse of these funds? That’s where it really becomes a problem.
WSHU: So Lisa, what about parents who have special ed students? How do they deal with this now? Most of their interaction is with the local school districts, right?
LH: Yeah, and again, specifically when we’re looking at the special education law that’s underneath the Department of Education. This is something that Congress has mandated under federal law. These things will have to continue, but do these funds start to go away in future appropriation cycles if Congress wants to pull back funding? I mean, we’re seeing not just in education but across the board congressional Republicans want to cut funding, and so these cuts will have to come from somewhere. A lot of them are aimed at a lot of these domestic social services kind of programs and in in education as well. For the time being, these things will continue, but again, there’s a fear when you look at special education. This law funds social workers and paraprofessionals; these are the people who are in the schools with their students, helping them and creating these individualized education programs, also known as IEPs. These are legally binding doctrines. These are things that have to be implemented by law, but you do have to wonder, and I think there are fears of slowdowns or instructions on this front.
WSHU: Now, how’s the state dealing with this? How’s the state legislature dealing with it? Do we have more state funding than what’s being talked about right now?
LH: I think right now it’s feeling a little fluid. I mean, the governor, Connecticut’s own state education department, and other stakeholders who play a big role in this are all looking into this. I think they’re also wondering the same thing: where their federal dollars could stand, where the US Department of Education stands. They say that they’re prepared to fill in the gaps and to fill in, any holes that might emerge from all of this. I don’t know what that’s gonna particularly look like. I don’t know how much funding they’re gonna have. It’s a big deal if you’re potentially losing some of this federal funding or if it starts to be scaled back. How much is Connecticut going to have to make up? They’re paying attention to this; they’re thinking about this, but I don’t know if we know the specifics at this point. But it seems like the governor, the state agencies, and the state legislature will have to come together to address this if that’s how it’s going to shake out.
WSHU: And you quote Connecticut’s Education Commissioner Charlene Russell Tucker saying that shifting the responsibilities from the federal government to the states, especially without any specifics from the White House, would be a very significant undertaking. But it seems as if they’re trying to prepare for that.
LH: Exactly, and you know, others I spoke to on this front, they realize that within Connecticut itself, there’s already understaffing at the state agency level. So if Connecticut takes on this responsibility, do they have enough staff to do what’s already under their control, and then some? Whether it’s taking on more control of federal funding or if you’re having more civil rights violations and complaints. I’ve seen that being suggested as something that maybe Connecticut would take more responsibility for. Do you even have the staffing levels for it? And at this point, I don’t know if anyone knows, but that’s something that I think they’re trying to prepare for.
WSHU: Interesting, so, basically, it’s still a bit murky how things are gonna work out.