U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers who oversee budget-writing are endorsing President Donald Trump’s goal of slashing federal funding for K-12 schools in the next budget year—and they’re also proposing to cut more than $2 billion schools are expecting to receive next month.
Members of Congress have less than a month to agree on a federal budget—a feat they haven’t managed in recent years. The bill Republican House appropriators began circulating Monday is unlikely to pass in its current form—but it offers an opportunity to compare lawmakers’ priorities and the president’s.
Members of a House education subcommittee voted largely along party lines Tuesday evening to advance a fiscal 2026 federal budget bill that allocates $14.9 billion for the Title I formula grants for schools to support low-income students. That amounts to a $3.5 billion cut from current levels.
That’s not all the damage Title I could weather, though.
If President Trump signs the House version of the budget into law, the Education Department would cancel roughly 5 percent ($938 million) of the $18.4 billion in Title I funds Congress already approved in March.
By law, schools nationwide already received $8 billion of their Title I allocations on July 1, and have budgeted for the remainder of that money ($10 billion nationwide) to flow as normal on Oct. 1. The $938 million cut would come from the total expected to flow on Oct. 1.
A budget summary from Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who chairs the House appropriations committee, touts the Title I funding cut as part of the bill’s effort to “safeguard taxpayer dollars, eliminate out-of-touch progressive policies, and end the weaponization of government.”
“Despite outsized investment, America’s public schools continue to fail children and families,” the sheet says.
The bill also proposes to zero out funding for Title II-A grants for teacher training and professional development—both for next school year, and for the previously allocated $1.6 billion states are expecting to receive on Oct. 1 for the current school year.
Other education-related programs slated for elimination in the House budget include Title III funding for English-learner services ($890 million); Full-Service Community Schools ($150 million); Promise Neighborhoods ($91 million); and preschool development grants ($315 million). The bill does not propose pulling back previously approved funding for those programs.
Federal support for special education would drop slightly year over year in the House GOP budget, from $15.52 billion to $15.49 billion. Overall investment in Education Department programs would total $66.7 billion—roughly in line with President Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, and a 15 percent cut from current levels.
Democratic House members who work on appropriations said they are glad their Republican colleagues aren’t moving to completely defund the Department of Education.
Still, they strongly oppose the Republican budget bill. During Tuesday’s markup session, Rep. Steny Hoyer, R-Md., singled out the Community Schools program—which provides grants that let schools serve as community service hubs—among the proposed cuts that concern him.
He also said he’s worried the Trump administration will advance funding changes unilaterally, regardless of what lawmakers approve.
“The American people deserve better than ‘better than expected,’” Hoyer said.
House lawmakers match Trump in some areas and differ in others
The bill nods to Trump’s policy priorities by emphasizing that federal funding can’t be spent on enforcing Biden-era interpretations of Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in schools, and by proposing to rename the AmeriCorps community service program the “America First Corps” and the Workforce Pell grants “Trump Grants.” It also reduces annual funding for the Education Department’s office for civil rights from $140 million to $39 million—less than half the $91 million allocation Trump proposed.
It does not, however, incorporate Trump’s proposal to consolidate dozens of education funding streams into two block grants for states to spend as they please. It maintains funding for some programs Trump wants to eliminate, including $1.3 billion for before- and after-school programming and $269 million for library and museum services.
And it rejects Trump’s proposals to drastically cut investments in education research. The House bill allocates $740 million to the Institute of Education Sciences, the Education Department’s research arm—down from the current $793 million, but more than the $261 million the Trump administration proposed.
House Republicans are broadly aligned with Trump’s mission to scale back federal investment in education, said Sarah Abernathy, executive director of the Committee for Education Funding, a nonprofit advocacy coalition.
But, she said, “they’re proposing to do it in a different way, and maintaining funding for a lot of existing programs and structures in general.”
Only weeks remain as federal lawmakers spar over budget details
This version of the federal budget appears unlikely to pass, even as the Republicans who control the House are likely to remain in lockstep with Trump.
A similar proposal from House Republicans that also included retroactive cuts to current-year funding failed to advance out of committee last year.
Senate appropriators from both parties in July approved their own federal budget that increased education funding and maintained support for key programs the House wants to excise. Both chambers, narrowly controlled by Republicans, must agree before the budget reaches the president’s desk.
Last year, that day never came—instead, in order to avoid a government shutdown, Congress eventually passed a continuing resolution that broadly maintained government funding levels from the previous year.
The same thing could happen again this year, for some or all of the federal budget. The House’s full appropriations committee is expected to take up the education budget—which also includes funding for the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services—later this month.
No matter how quickly federal budget talks wrap up, though, Abernathy anticipates many schools will budget less for education than in previous years because of ongoing confusion over unilateral changes the Trump administration has implemented this year—including a slew of abrupt grant terminations, a weekslong freeze on billions in formula funding, and widespread delays for continuation awards current education grant recipients are expecting. Several of those moves have been deemed illegal by courts and nonpartisan watchdogs.
“The confusion and chaos for education funding is going to continue no matter what Congress provides,” Abernathy said.
2025-09-02 20:41:11
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