President Donald Trump’s first federal budget proposal of his second term last Friday kicked off a flurry of activity in the K-12 education landscape, as district leaders and policy watchers tried to make sense of sweeping cuts outlined in relatively scant detail.
Trump is proposing to Congress that the federal government pull back billions of dollars in K-12 education investments, consolidate more than a dozen disparate grant programs into a single state allocation, and potentially rejigger special education law for the first time since the early 2000s.
The administration plans to follow up on the “skinny budget” it shared Friday with more detailed descriptions of its budget plans in the coming weeks. Congress may consider all, some, or none of these proposals as it begins what will likely be a protracted process of shaping the federal budget for fiscal 2026.
Education Week is tracking the potential impacts of Trump’s proposals, and trying to make sense of what’s known and unknown. Here are answers to some of the key questions educators and districts are likely wondering.
When would the proposed changes take effect?
Federal fiscal 2026 starts Oct. 1. Most K-12 education funding from the federal government—including for Title I and IDEA—is “forward-funded,” which means states and schools receive money allocated in a one fiscal year to spend in the subsequent fiscal year.
Thus, most of the fiscal 2026 funding wouldn’t hit schools until July 1, 2026—in time to spend at the start of the next fiscal year in October 2026.
Is Trump proposing to cut Title I funding?
No—or at least it doesn’t appear so. The budget proposal documents mention “preserving full funding for Title I, the supplemental federal financial assistance to school districts for children from low-income families.” Flat funding would amount to more than $18 billion—though with inflation, those dollars likely won’t go quite as far as they did in previous years.
But there are a few caveats. The budget doesn’t entirely spare Title I money—it separately proposes to eliminate two grant programs for migrant students, totaling $428 million annually, that fall under the Title I law.
Two other lesser-known programs within Title I—one that supports education for children and adults in prison, and the other that funds state grants for comprehensive literacy instruction—don’t come up in the budget documents the Trump administration has published so far. It remains unclear whether the Trump administration is counting those programs as part of its pitch to “preserve” Title I funding.
Does Trump propose to cut funding for special education?
No—but his proposal, if enacted, could have that effect indirectly.
The White House budget document says IDEA should be funded at current levels, but with all of its separate grant programs consolidated into a single funding stream for states to distribute to schools.
The document does not specify, however, whether it’s proposing for funds in the consolidated grant program to flow to states and districts through the existing IDEA formula, or through a new and separate formula.
Changing the structure of grant programs that flow through the existing IDEA formula would require Congress to amend federal special education law, which it hasn’t done in more than two decades.
If lawmakers instead decide to create a new funding stream, states would have new revenue for special education that doesn’t tie them to the rules and regulations of the IDEA law, which turned 50 this year.
Some states could then decide to forgo federal IDEA funds, collect money from the new stream, and use those to offer special education programs according to their own rules and priorities.
They could, as Project 2025 suggests, allow federal special education funds to flow directly to parents for private educational expenses.
Unburdened from federal requirements, including to maintain consistent spending levels from year to year and to submit regular progress reports to federal agencies, states could also trim their own special education investments—and might be more compelled to do so if fears of a recession come true.
What’s going to happen to Head Start?
The $12 billion program for early childhood education isn’t mentioned in the Trump budget proposal. An anonymous administration official told reporters last week that Trump is proposing “no changes” for Head Start.
That doesn’t mean the administration is leaving the program alone, though. It closed five of the 10 regional offices whose employees for decades provided crucial support and oversight for Head Start providers. The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency has imposed new bureaucratic hurdles on routine applications for providers’ funding and reauthorization. Expected grants have been delayed, causing some providers to temporarily shut down and lay off staff. And last week, the administration inadvertently publicized a list of research projects up for termination that included several covering Head Start programs.
Several state Head Start associations and parent advocacy groups are suing the Trump administration and aiming to convince a court to halt these disruptions. The Health and Human Services Department, which oversees Head Start, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Which programs does Trump want to eliminate?
The budget proposal lists eight K-12 grant programs Trump wants to get rid of entirely.
It also proposes consolidating 18 existing programs into a single K-12 education block grant for states to spend as they please. But the U.S. Department of Education hasn’t specified which ones are included, which ones would stay as they are, and which will be cut entirely.
The biggest program explicitly slated for elimination is Title III, which supplies close to $900 million a year for support services for the nation’s more than 5 million students who are English learners.
Trump also wants to ax $428 million across two grant programs that help schools serve children of mobile farmworkers and fishermen who move from place to place depending on the season.
Preschool development grants, currently worth $315 million a year, would stop flowing if Congress enacted Trump’s plan. The same fate would befall a $187 million program from the Bureau of Indian Education, under the Department of Interior, that helps fund construction projects at schools on Native American tribal lands. Adult education grants, worth $729 million a year, would also cease to exist.
The $70 million Teacher Quality Partnership grant program is also on the chopping block in Trump’s plan. That program is one of three competitive initiatives for teacher preparation or professional development for which Trump has already moved to terminate existing grant awards, drawing ongoing court challenges.
The other two programs affected by those cancellations—the Teacher and School Leader Incentive and Seeking Effective Educator Development grants—aren’t mentioned in the Trump proposal. It’s not clear whether Trump also wants those programs gone.
Lastly, the Trump budget slashes the full $7 million annual appropriation for equity assistance centers, which provide training and professional development to assist with schools’ desegregation efforts. Those centers were signed into law as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Education Department didn’t answer questions Monday about the proposed cuts and changes. In response to questions, a spokesperson for the agency directed a reporter to the statement Education Secretary Linda McMahon shared on Friday when the budget proposal was released.
Which programs are in limbo until Trump specifies what he’s proposing to do with them?
A number of notable programs aren’t mentioned in the budget proposal, which could mean the Trump administration is proposing to maintain them, eliminate them, or consolidate them.
They include the $2.3 billion Title II program for instructional improvement and professional development; McKinney-Vento for schools supporting homeless students; Impact Aid for school districts with federal land; Community Learning Centers funds for after-school enrichment; Rural Education Achievement funds; and state grants for Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian education.
Grants that support instructional programs on American history, civics, and the arts; career and technical education; and school safety aren’t spelled out in the budget draft, either.
Until this year, the federal government has invested hundreds of millions of dollars a year in efforts led by the Institute of Education Sciences to research effective instructional practices; collect and display a massive trove of education statistics; and coordinate instructional improvement efforts across states and regions. The Trump administration gutted staffing for that office earlier this year; the draft budget doesn’t make any mention of IES.
Are there any K-12 programs for which Trump wants to increase funding?
Just one—the Charter School Programs grant, which helps fuel the creation of new charter schools, the replication of existing successful charter schools, and the construction and maintenance of existing charter school facilities.
Trump’s proposed increase wouldn’t be dramatic—$60 million on top of the $440 million in existing annual funding, for a total of $500 million annually. Democrats in recent years have suggested shuttering the program entirely.
Is Trump’s proposal more radical than what he proposed as president the first time?
Yes and no.
Between 2017 and 2020, Trump proposed each year to slash overall funding for the Department of Education by 8 to 13.5 percent. This time around, he wants to cut slightly more—15.5 percent of the department’s current $78 billion budget.
This time, Trump’s budget proposal is almost solely focused on cuts. Last time, he showed far more interest in new education-related investments. In 2020, he proposed adding $2 billion to annual funding for career and technical education. Several times, he pitched investing $5 billion a year in “education freedom scholarships” for private school choice nationwide. In 2019, he proposed $100 million in competitive grants for school safety.
On the other hand, Trump’s 2019 budget proposal included eliminating 29 grant programs totaling more than $6.7 billion—a bigger cut than he’s currently proposing. In 2018, he proposed cuts of 1 to 4 percent to Title I and IDEA—both programs his current administration says it wants to “preserve” with flat funding.
His 2020 annual budget proposal, meanwhile, included consolidating 29 education grant programs into a single state allocation, rather than the 18 Trump currently wants to jam together. That block grant would have wrapped in Title I and charter school grants—both of which appear in Trump’s current proposal to remain distinct from other programs.
What’s happening with higher ed. funding under Trump?
It’s a similar story to the K-12 proposal. Trump wants to eliminate a $1.5 billion set of grant programs that support low-income students, students with disabilities, and first-generation college students from middle school through their postsecondary careers. He wants to substantially reduce funding for the federal work-study program, which helps low-income students get part-time jobs to help pay for college. And he wants to cut nearly $1 billion of federal grants for college students with exceptional financial needs.
Meanwhile, several agencies that support research based out of postsecondary institutions would either shrink or disappear entirely under Trump’s plan. Those include the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Library and Museum Services, the National Institutes of Health, AmeriCorps, and the National Endowment for the Arts. All of those agencies fund research that touches K-12 schools as well.
Does Trump still plan to eliminate the Education Department?
Yes, but if it happens at all, it won’t happen immediately. Trump has said he wants the agency closed “as soon as possible.”
The budget proposal doesn’t explicitly propose to close the agency, or to move existing programs to different agencies, as Trump has said his administration will do. It also doesn’t zero out the operating budget for the agency—and in fact, proposes to reduce it by only a slightly higher percentage than he proposed to do at any point during his first term.
It does, however, propose to slash slightly more than one-third of $140 million in annual funding for the department’s office of civil rights, which experts say could further diminish the embattled office’s capacity to advocate on behalf of students.
The budget proposal also eliminates $127 million of $420 million in annual funding for Education Department program administration.
How does Trump explain the justification for his proposed cuts?
The White House budget document spells out repeatedly that Trump is aiming to shift the federal responsibility for education policy to states and local districts. Block-granting disparate federal education grants, for instance, would give states more leeway to allocate resources according to their policymakers’ priorities.
In some cases, the administration is clear about looking to cut off opportunities for children and their families who come from other countries. Title III for English learners, in the administration’s words, “de-emphasizes English primacy.” Grants for students from migrant families, the administration says, “encourage ineligible non-citizens to access U.S. [colleges and universities], stripping resources from American students.”
Some programs are slated for cuts because the Trump administration says they promote “woke” ideology or “DEI”—an acronym that stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion that the Trump White House has used to stand in broadly for efforts to elevate opportunities for people from historically marginalized groups. A list of buzzwords in the Teacher Quality Partnership grants that the Trump administration deems disqualifying includes: “critical race theory,” “DEI,” “social justice activism,” and instruction on white privilege and white supremacy.
What’s going on with fiscal 2025 federal funding?
The recent trend in Congress of passing “continuing resolutions” rather than full fiscal year budgets complicates the picture.
In March, Congress approved a continuing resolution covering part of federal fiscal 2025, which began Oct. 1, 2024. The K-12 money allocated in that bill is supposed to go out on July 1, per the typical schedule.
But in some cases, the abbreviated continuing resolution bill doesn’t spell out how the government should divide up money across broad categories into discrete grant programs—leaving schools uncertain the Trump administration will fund certain programs at all in the coming months.
The continuing resolution law required the Trump administration to spell out by April 29 how it plans to allocate resources in areas where Congress didn’t detail specific program-by-program requests. As of May 5, the administration has not circulated or published that spending plan.
Is this fiscal 2026 federal budget set in stone?
No. Every president each year proposes a federal budget that kicks off spending negotiations with Congress. Lawmakers, per the U.S. Constitution, have the power of the purse, and make final decisions about how federal money should be spent.
Congress doesn’t historically rubber-stamp White House budget proposals. But the Republican Party currently controls the executive branch and has majorities in both chambers of Congress, which means there may be more ideological alignment than under a partisan split. Republicans rejected most of Trump’s education proposals during his first term, but current GOP officials have shown little willingness thus far to buck the president’s agenda.
Trump has also asserted in recent months that the president has the authority to withhold congressionally approved spending at his own discretion, without approval from Congress. Numerous courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have weighed in skeptically or outright rejected this argument. But Trump and Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget and a primary author of Project 2025, have said they’ll continue to use that mechanism as they see fit.
2025-05-05 20:21:34
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