While Congress was voting for more tax breaks for the morbidly rich, the White House withheld education funds
This latest attack on public education is part of the grander plan to hand what’s left of our representative democracy over to corporate donors.
Amid all the wall-to-wall coverage of the republi-cons’ so-called Big Bullshit Bill that barely passed the Senate in the wee hours Tuesday and just made it through the House again for a final vote, something horribly vital may have bypassed your breaking news filter.
Authoritarian regimes always dismantle education because an uneducated populace is a subservient populace. So, naturally, in this regime’s mission to fulfill the dictates of Project 2025, education has always been one of the principal bogeymen.
The pretend president’s regime announced on Monday, with little explanation, that it is withholding from schools over $6 billion in previously approved federal education grants. To make the move even more cruel, the denial of funds came the day before the funds were to be distributed, just in time to screw up school districts’ planning for programs and services to be implemented this fall.
The U.S. Education Department (ED), under the misguided “leadership” of former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) promoter Linda McMahon, sent states’ education officials notice that "Given the change in Administrations, the Department is reviewing the FY 2025 funding for the [Title I-C, II-A, III-A, IV-A, IV-B] grant program(s), and decisions have not yet been made concerning submissions and awards for this upcoming year."
Tara Thomas, School Superintendents Association (AASA) government affairs manager, responded:
This is definitely unprecedented to my knowledge. Districts really need to be able to rely on stable funding so that they're able to responsibly plan and budget, and actions like this are incredibly disruptive to school districts across the country.
According to the Learning Policy Institute:
Typically, ED provides state educational agencies the formula program allocation tables and access to draw down those funds by July 1, providing states and districts the ability to plan, budget, and start to spend for the upcoming school year. The July 1 date is significant because these funds support, for example, summer programs and help districts prepare for the early school year start in many states. Any funds not allocated by ED to states and territories will expire and return to the U.S. Department of Treasury instead of being used to support students.
As of this posting, states have not received the allocation tables necessary for them to be able to draw down funds on July 1 for several education programs authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and available through the continuing resolution.
Upon first glance, some may be inclined to shrug and dismiss this as just bureaucratic minutiae until one understands the grants being revoked fund an array of programs, including migrant education ($375 million), before- and after- school programs ($1.4 billion), and services for English language learners ($890 million).
Oxnard, Calif. school superintendent Ana DeGenna explained:
Without this outreach, families who do not speak English could be cut off from schools and the support system they need.
(Hmmm…it almost makes one wonder if anti-immigrant racism has something to do it. Probably just coincidence.)
Another component to the grants is teacher training. You know, to keep producing better teachers. The most significant slice of grant money “under review” is the $2.2 billion for professional development.
The National Education Association (NEA) published a chart from the Education Dept. in October delineating each state’s allocation. You can find that here.
The estimated impact on states according to the most recent budget table for fiscal year 2024-26 can be found here.
The republi-cons—the party 100% in the pockets of the morbidly rich—just voted to strip healthcare from millions of Americans and impose cruel work requirements on Medicaid recipients. This latest attack on public education is part of the grander plan to hand what’s left of our representative democracy over to corporate donors. The plan is simple: Make anyone not wealthy enough to buy a politician so poor and uneducated they spend their existences ignorant and subservient. Ignorant and subservient people are easy to control.
Feed them a constant corporation-funded drip of lies and propaganda about how brown-skinned people are taking their jobs/homes/women/freedom, and they will gladly grovel before their oppressors.
This is America now. It’s on us.