SAN JOSE, Calif. – Education officials across the country and around the Bay Area are bracing for a likely executive order from President Donald Trump, targeting the U.S. Dept. of Education.
Local school districts and state colleges and universities rely on partial funding from the DOE for programs that ensure everyone has access to a quality education.
“We have defunded education. And that is harming our workforce,” said Rebecca Eisenberg, a Palo Alto-based education attorney.
Shortly after her swearing March 3, Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote to her department’s staffers, “My vision is aligned with the President’s: to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children.”
“The Department of Education’s role in this new era of accountability is to restore the rightful role of state oversight in education and to end the overreach from Washington.”
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Bay Area Impact
What they’re saying:
An education dean at Cal State East Bay discussed the impact on Thursday.
“The impact will be on African Americans, Latinx and special education in particular. Free and reduced lunches,” said Dr. Robert Williams, dean of the Cal State East Bay College of Education.
Many educators said the most vulnerable are bearing the blunt and burden of ordered cuts, and will suffer disproportionately if the DOE, established in the 1970s under President Jimmy Carter, becomes an historical footnote.
Upwards of 14% of California’s public education dollars come from the federal Education Department.
“We’re talking about every dollar being important. And going without these federal dollars that is gonna mean imagine having 14 percent less teachers?,” said Eisenberg.
California Teachers Association President David Goldberg called the move a war on students and educators.
“When they talk about killing a department or some bureaucrat, what they’re really talking about is a war on poor people,” Goldberg said. “And a war on students and a war on educators.”
Williams said “it’s not just about poor people, it’s about everyone.”
What’s next:
The Santa Clara County Office of Education posted a letter to staffers this week that warned of “difficult decisions” regarding staffing levels and layoffs due to reduced funding, starting March 15.
While school districts and college campuses brace for the harsh Trump-led bottom-line approach to public funding, experts say the Education Department was created by Congress and only that bifurcated body can dissolve it.
“It’s all subject to congressional legislation. So, the idea that the president can sign one of those orders with his big sharpie pen and make a big show of it will mean nothing,” said Prof. David Levin, a University of California, San Francisco law lecturer.
Those on the receiving end of a possible executive order say there’s already been an impact.
The Santa Clara County Office of Education will put layoff notices in the mail starting March 7.
The California Office of Education said, in a text to KTVU, that it is focused on “our all-important mission of moving the needle for student achievement.”
Trump could sign his executive order eliminating the Department of Education as soon as Friday.
Jesse Gary is a reporter based in the station’s South Bay bureau. Follow him on the Instagram platform, @jessegontv and on Facebook, @JesseKTVU.
The Source: Interviews with California Teachers Association President David Goldberg, the dean of Cal State East Bay’s College of Education, a University of California, San Francisco law lecturer.
