The Trump administration announced it would release billions of dollars of federal education grants to states this week – funding that usually flows to states on July 1 but was in limbo as the Department of Education reviewed the grant programs in question.
Mark Lieberman, who covers school finance for EdWeek, said there were seven education grant programs impacted by this funding delay.
“One for migrant education, one for English learner services, one for before and after school programs, and then two programs that go towards a variety of functions in school districts, one for professional development teacher training, the other for academic enrichment,” he said. “Schools use those for a wide variety of different things depending on their priorities. And then finally, there were two separate grant programs that serve adult education efforts to provide adults with literacy and civics instruction.”
The Trump administration has not said why they decided to release the funding now, Lieberman said.
“The administration has not said anything more than the review that they undertook in early July is complete,” he said. “They did not specify what happened during that review and if anything came out of it. And they do not appear to have made any changes to the allocations based on the review that they undertook earlier this month.”
» MORE: Adult education funding will be released to states after a month in limbo
These delays were the subject of two lawsuits, filed about a week apart, Lieberman said. One lawsuit was brought by about two dozen Democratic state attorneys general; the other was brought by a coalition of school districts and teachers unions.
“Both lawsuits were making the same case, or a similar case, that many Democratic lawmakers in Congress were making, which is essentially that the Trump administration had a legal obligation to transmit that funding to states because it was already appropriated by Congress in March,” he said. “So the legal argument against their decision was that the Trump administration was essentially seizing the power of the purse from Congress and making spending decisions unilaterally as the executive branch without consulting with Congress first.”
Even with just a month-long delay, Lieberman said school districts were struggling with what to do about the lack of expected funds.
“School district budgeting is a very lengthy process that starts many months before the school year,” Lieberman said. “Because the federal law allocating these resources was passed in March with similar spending levels to the previous year, districts made assumptions that they would receive a roughly equivalent amount of money from these federal programs as they did the previous year. And so all of a sudden on July 1st, with only weeks to go, they were told that they might not or certainly not on time, but might not at all receive some of that federal money.”
» GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE: Sign up for Texas Standard’s weekly newsletters
Lieberman said some districts he talked to were contemplating or even moving forward on plans to suspend services, lay off staff, or find new sources of revenue for programs and staff that they felt they couldn’t live without.
“[This] sent districts into a state of chaos where they both were worried they wouldn’t have the resources they expected,” he said. “They weren’t sure what to even make of each development that came out of the federal government. I think it’s a big relief for school districts to hear that they’re going to get the money that they were originally expecting.”
However, there are still questions about the future of these grant programs, since the Trump administration is advocating to eliminate them in the upcoming federal budget.
“The current federal budget talks on Capitol Hill are about federal fiscal years 2026, which means that the money that they’re talking about on Capitol Hill right now would go to schools starting in the 2026-27 school year,” Lieberman said. “Congress has to weigh in on that and decide whether or not they want to adopt [the Trump administration’s] proposal or not.
“Typically, Congress does not feel obligated to enact everything that any president tells them to enact, and so it remains to be seen what kind of appetite on Capitol Hill will be to extend these programs that have been disrupted in recent weeks.”
