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Secondary Effects of the DOE Dismantling

News broke today that two major responsibilities of the Department of Education are being shifted to different government agencies, one of which just had 40% of its staff reduced. One primary responsibility was overseeing 1.777 trillion dollars of student debt from 46.3 million Americans. The other is special education and nutrition, which is being moved to Health and Human Services, which already oversees the CDC, FDA, NIH, and several other critical public health agencies. Overall, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) accounted for about 15% of education funding for public schools, and the other 85% has been state-funded. 

Primary and Secondary American Public Schools must provide accommodations for students with special needs and food for all students, including meals for students with free or reduced lunch. One aspect of American public education that sets us apart from much of the world is we provide an appropriate education for all students and welcome those with special needs. Schools are also the one place where many students can rely on having food. I know schools where the first thing students are asked in the morning is when they last ate. The answer is frequently the lunch they were provided the day before.

Shifting complex and critical operations to unfamiliar skeleton crews is a recipe for delays and issues. Schools will need to cover the gap when funding for critical personnel and resources is slowed or inaccurate. Even with state and federal funding in place, schools are already strapped for any excess funds. Well-run districts will have reserves, but the idea is not to run through the savings if possible. States will be asked to cover more costs, which means increasing taxes and cutting other services. Ultimately, the taxpayer will be asked to pay more while receiving less. 

Even the best-run schools will minimize their resources to meet IEP and 504 accommodations and become more restrictive on new plans. This will result in students not having their needs met, which historically triggers an official complaint with the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights. However, this office was backlogged before the DOE was significantly reduced and had paused all investigations from January to the end of February. On February 20th, the acting director only lifted the disability-based discrimination pause. Race and gender discrimination complaint investigations were still paused (ProPublica). On March 12th, half the OCR employees were fired, and seven of the twelve OCR offices were closed.

This creates a major inflection point for public schools. The federal government can no longer be counted on, and grant funding is always subject to change. Schools need to get as ahead of these changes as possible by accruing as much funding as possible while it exists and analyzing all programs that rely on federal funding to ensure ongoing services for all that need it. The hardest decisions are always what to cut to save something else, and leaders are made through these times.


Source: (Hanson, Melanie). “Student Loan Debt Statistics” EducationData.org, March 16, 2025,
https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-statistics)

ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/department-education-civil-rights-investigations-disability-gender-race-discrimination
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