Before the sun rose Wednesday morning, dozens of students, parents and teachers rallied outside of the J. Graham Brown School in downtown Louisville. Holding signs reading “Protect our students and families,” protesters cheered as passing cars honked their support.
“It's no secret that the current federal administration is focused on dismantling the Department of Education,” said Jefferson County Teachers Association president Maddie Shepard.
President Donald Trump made dismantling the federal department, which administers billions in federal funding to school districts and runs the federal student aid program, an element of his presidential campaign. Newly confirmed Secretary Linda McMahon has already cut the department in half, laying off 1,300 federal workers.
“Every public school receives funding from the U.S. Department of Education. This funding pays for things like special education services, Title I services for our most under-resourced communities and the schools in them,” Shepard said at the rally.
The rally was part of nationwide actions planned by the National Education Association in response to Trump’s cuts to the education department and his support of programs that would spend public funds on private education.
Congress created the Department of Education, and therefore Trump cannot unilaterally eliminate it. The proposition to eliminate the federal education department has gained support from at least one member of Kentucky’s congressional delegation as well. U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky re-introduced a bill to abolish the U.S. Department of Education last month.
Federal education funding supplies more than $1 billion to Kentucky schools each year, according to the left-leaning Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. Of that sum, $546 million this year comes from Department of Education grants — the remainder being supplied via the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s school meal programs.
Jefferson County Public Schools alone received $96.68 million in Department of Education grants this fiscal year. While Trump has not said he intends to eliminate the grants themselves, advocates fear his cuts to the department would endanger the dissemination of those dollars.
Autumn Nagel, the president-elect of the Kentucky Parent-Teacher Association said her daughter attends the Brown School and said she is fearful of the future of her daughter’s Individualized Education Program.
“The federal government, through the Department of Education, guarantees that she gets that funding and that she's able to have those resources,” Nagel said. “I don't need her to struggle more. I need her to have the help she needs. I need every student to get what they need in the school system.”
When combined with school meal funding from the agriculture department, federal funding makes up a significant portion of many school district budgets, especially in the state’s rural areas. For example, in Owsley County in eastern Kentucky, the Center for Economic Policy analysis found 44% of their school budget came from federal funding.
State government and politics reporting is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
