Dems have another chance on education - let's not screw it up

Author

Kay W.
July 12, 2025

In case you missed it, the Trump Administration decided this week to turn off funding to K-12 schools across the country, to the tune of $6.8 billion. The money, which was supposed to start flowing yesterday, is earmarked for migrant students, students who are still learning English, professional development for teachers, and an array of other programs that support public schools. Mark Lieberman of EdWeek has been doing a heroic job chronicling the ‘what’ of the cuts, including a breakdown of just how much schools in each state stand to lose. I want to focus on the ‘why’ behind Trump’s latest move.

The cuts are significant—every state stands to lose at least 10 percent of their federal K-12 funding overnight; Vermont and Washington DC stand to lose 20 percent. For some perspective on the amount of money we’re talking about, consider that in North Carolina, the $154 million that’s now in jeopardy, is enough to hire 1,960 new teachers or provide existing teachers with a 3 percent pay raise. And in typical fashion, news of the cuts arrived at the last minute via a bloodless missive. On the eve of the day before states were set to receive the funds, a ‘not gonna happen’ email went out, along with a request that ‘stakeholders’ direct any questions, not to the Department of Education but to the Office of Management and Budget, run by Trump’s budget-slasher-in-chief, and a contributor to Project 2025, Russell Vought.

Democrats have traditionally held an advantage on public education over Republicans. That advantage disappeared during covid, driven, I believe, by the bad decision to close public schools for at least a year. That bad decision wasn’t made exclusively by Democrats, BTW. Ohio was the first state to close public schools. Closing public schools was a disaster for kids, especially low-income kids. Having worked in the juvenile court system for 20 years and having four kids attend a public school system with 50% of students designated low income, I know that public schools are literally the only lifeline at-risk kids have. They need to be in school. Every day. If they are not in school they will slip thru the cracks and fail - I know this like I know my own name.

Closing schools was ok for wildly privileged kids like my youngest son (and even he suffered - he’s a completely social being and he missed track and marching band and his friends) but closing schools for low income or at-risk kids was a disaster.

But Democrats can come back from this error. They can come back because Republicans absolutely suck on public schools so all we have to do is be competent. In fact, the Democratic advantage in polling on public schools is back in two big new polls. Let’s see if we can hang onto it this time.

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