On September 8th, Education Week‘s Matthew Stone and Brooke Schultz noticed that the Trump administration wasn’t any longer merely threatening school districts. The Department of Education had begun, “inserting itself more forcefully into state and local school affairs, particularly, to fight what it’s characterized as a leftward lurch in K-12 education…. It withheld nearly $7 billion from schools for weeks this summer in an effort to root out a ‘radical, left-wing agenda.’ And it’s continued to terminate dozens of education grants midstream with little notice because it claims the projects advance DEI. The administration has backed off some of these moves and others under public pressure and court orders. But local and state education leaders… have… been forced to keep the government top of mind when making decisions.  At any moment, the Office for Civil Rights could announce an investigation into a program the administration says promotes ‘DEI’ or ‘gender ideology extremism.’ A district could discover a previously awarded grant has suddenly been terminated. Or schools could learn they won’t receive long-expected federal funds….”

That same day, Education Week‘s Mark Lieberman reported the specifics of some of the cuts and the disruption they had caused just as the school year has begun: “Twenty-five ongoing projects related to special education got cancellation notices on Friday night (September 5th), imminently jeopardizing more than $30 million worth of federally funded efforts in 14 states to help educators better serve students with disabilities.” Some of the defunded programs served students who are deaf and blind; provided programs for parent outreach; paid for doctoral research and professional training for aspiring teachers; and supported data collection about the needs of disabled children.

A week later, Education Week‘s Mark Lieberman further examined the cuts to years-long, ongoing  grants: “The Trump administration’s education grant cancellation spree has accelerated in recent weeks, with millions of dollars abruptly cut off for several dozen ongoing projects promoting civics, arts, and literacy education, and preparing K-12 students for college. In the last few weeks, the U.S. Department of Education has quietly issued ‘non-continuation’ notices for at least nine federally funded projects helping middle and high schoolers prepare for college; at least nine arts education initiatives, close to 20 projects centered around American history; and at least two efforts to supply free books to schoolchildren from low-income families…. Canceled grants affecting K-12 schools funded 17 initiatives to train special education teachers; four statewide centers that help schools provide services for students who are both deaf and blind; three organizations that support parents of children with disabilities; three programs for racially desegregating public schools, and a technical assistance center that helps schools prepare for violent threats.”

Lieberman adds: “The Department has explained its actions this way: “The Education Department has sent non-continuation notices to these grant recipients, saying their projects no longer align with the administration’s education policy focus on ‘merit, fairness, and excellence’… Unlike with some of its earlier funding disruptions this year (exemplified by the $6.8 billion that was cut on July 1 and later awarded after widespread protest), the Education Department hasn’t publicized its most recent rounds of grant cancellation decisions, leaving observers to tabulate which programs have lost expected funding for the new fiscal year.”

Then on September 24, Lieberman listed the programs whose several-years-long, continuation grants have been canceled: “In the four months since the Trump administration released its budget proposal, the Education Department has discontinued more than 200 separate grants across at least 16 competitive programs the administration has proposed to eliminate altogether, according to an Education Week analysis. Those 16 programs cover a wide range of priorities:

• American History and Civics
• Assistance in Arts Education
• Augustus F. Hawkins Centers of Excellence
• College Assistance Migrant Program
• Fostering Diverse Schools
• GEAR UP
• High School Equivalency Program for migrant students
• IDEA Part D: Community parent resource centers
• IDEA Part D: Personnel preparation/research
• IDEA Part D: State personnel development
• IDEA Part D: State deaf-blind centers
• Innovative Approaches to Literacy
• Magnet Schools
• Statewide Family Engagement Centers
• Title III National Professional Development
• TRIO

Lieberman adds: “This year’s barrage of grant non-continuations is much bigger than ever before. The Department has the legal authority to discontinue ongoing grants that conflict with its priorities. But past administrations have exercised that authority only in extraordinary cases when a grant recipient is extraordinarily delinquent or otherwise unable to finish the project… In most of the non-continuation notices it’s issued this year, the department quotes from grant application materials it claims clash with administration priorities. Objectionable efforts… include hiring and admissions practices that prioritize racial and gender diversity, training sessions centered on ‘racial sensitivity’ and ‘DEI’… In some cases, the department has called out grantees for language in their applications that’s required by state or federal law, or that was listed among the grant priorities published by the Biden administration or the previous Trump administration when they made the initial awards.”

While federal funding for a relatively small, Biden-era, Fostering Diverse Schools program has been entirely eliminated, in most cases federal officials have cut federal funding for some school districts while continuing funding under the same grant program for others: “(T)he Trump administration has begun… making unprecedented use of a legal mechanism for mixing individual grants, while leaving other grants issued under the same program intact.  For instance, the department has discontinued a total of nine GEAR UP grants—including four in Ohio and one in New Hampshire—while issuing routine continuation awards for dozens of others, and soliciting new applicants this summer.” Lieberman reports that the Trump Department of Education plans to repurpose the funds from the rescinded grants according to its own priorities.

Finally, in his September 24th article, Lieberman announces: “On top of issuing non-continuation notices for some grants in… (the 16 programs listed above), the Trump administration last week alleged civil rights violations and threatened to revoke tens of millions in grant funds… from school districts in Chicago; Fairfax County, VA.; and New York City.”  The sudden funding cuts to penalize three large school districts based on the Department of Education’s allegation that they have violated students’ civil rights have been more widely publicized.

For the NY Times, Troy Closson reports:   The Trump administration said this week that it would withhold more than $65 million in federal grants from magnet schools in three school districts after they refused to overhaul their policies regarding transgender and nonbinary students or to change their diversity and equity programs… The Trump administration called for the nation’s biggest school system, in New York City, to overhaul guidelines that allow students to use bathrooms and to participate in physical education and athletic programs based on their gender identity.  In Fairfax county, the most populous suburb in the Washington region, federal officials requested similar changes to gender policies… And in Chicago, home to the fourth-largest U.S. school system, the administration demanded the elimination of the district’s Black Student Success Plan, accusing the city of unfairly distributing resources to a single group of students.  The threats from the federal Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights came as the Trump administration has opposed what it calls ‘illegal D.E.I’ initiatives. The department contends that the rights of girls are violated when school policies recognize transgender identities.”

Although Trump’s Office for Civil Rights had challenged “DEI” and transgender policies in these and other school districts, the threat to withhold federal dollars now with the school year already underway is sudden. Closson continues: “The Education Department sent notices to the three districts on Sept. 16 and gave them one week to meet the demands. If they refused they would forfeit funding from a federal effort known as the Magnet Schools Assistance Program, which was developed decades ago to promote desegregation by providing money to establish magnet schools with diverse student populations. By Thursday (September 25), the districts had declined to overhaul their policies, and the Trump administration announced that it would cancel the funding, which was expected to flow during the next three years… New York City’s education officials said that the funding cut could affect roughly 8,500 students, possibly leading to unfair rollbacks including canceled courses.”

The Chicago Sun-Times quotes Craig Trainor, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education alleging that, “the Chicago Public Schools’ new Black Student Success Plan was ‘textbook racial discrimination,’ and biased against white students and staff.”  Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has also refused, as the U.S. Department of Education demanded, to prevent trans students from using bathrooms that conform with their gender identity or to ban trans girls from women’s sports.  The Chicago Sun-Times quotes CPS attorney Elizabeth Barton criticizing the U.S. Department of Education, “for giving the school district 72 hours to make the changes and for threatening to pull funds without due process.” The Sun-Times reports Barton’s declaration that CPS policies “complied with state laws and were in the best interest of students.”