The possibility that President-elect Donald Trump may eliminate the federal Department of Education and impose other sweeping reforms once he takes office in January is raising concern among local leaders about the potential loss of federal funding and other impacts.
While campaigning, Trump often discussed making dramatic changes to the federal government, including eliminating its oversight of education.
“One other thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., and sending all education and education work and needs back to the States,” Trump said according to his campaign website.
Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) Superintendent Thomas Taylor says he has many concerns about Trump’s plans but is mainly worried about how such efforts would affect the school system, including the funding it receives from the federal government.
According to an MCPS report presented to the County Council on Nov. 12, the district has received about 3% of its budget from the federal government since 2015. In fiscal year 2025, which began July 1, the district is expected to receive 3.4% of its revenue from the federal government. With a fiscal year 2025 budget of $3.3 billion, roughly $112 million is expected to come in the form of federal funding.
Losing that funding “would be significant and catastrophic in terms of how we support our schools and how we differentiate support for some of our highest-need communities,” Taylor told MoCo360.
What are the Trump administration’s plans?
The Department of Education was created by Congress under President Jimmy Carter in 1979 with the mission to foster “educational excellence” and ensure equal access to education, according to its website. The department establishes policy, and administers and coordinates most federal assistance for education, according to its website.
The federal agency oversees student loans, enforces civil rights laws and provides grant funding for schools across the country. Two notable programs include those established under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Title I. IDEA “makes available a free appropriate public education for children with disabilities,” and ensures special education and services for those children, according to its website. Title I provides financial assistance to school districts for children from low-income families, according to the program’s website.
Project 2025, a presidential transition plan that outlines actions to be taken once a Republican president takes office, also called for abolishing the education department, transferring some programs to other federal agencies and eliminating others. Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, although many of its contributors include officials from Trump’s first administration, according to PolitiFact.
The education department has long been targeted – going back to President Ronald Reagan’s 1982 State of the Union address. But experts have said the possibility of abolishing federal agencies during Trump’s term is a long shot, according to ABC News.
Trump also has expressed plans to withhold federal funding from schools that don’t follow certain expectations.
Trump’s campaign website said he plans to cut federal funding for any schools “pushing Critical Race Theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.”
This fiscal year, MCPS is expected to receive $112 million in federal grant funding – $51.6 million of which comes from Title I, and $39.6 of which comes from IDEA, according to a Nov.12 County Council meeting. The rest comes from several other federal programs.
The president-elect’s campaign also plans to “implement funding preferences” for districts that abolish teacher tenure in schools serving kindergarten through grade 12, adopt “merit pay” for teachers and give “parents the right to vote for the principals who direct their children’s education.”
Trump is expected to target diversity, equity and inclusion within schools and focus on the exclusion of transgender students from Title IX, the federal law that outlaws sex discrimination in schools receiving federal funding, and activities such as sports, according to his website.
Aside from plans specifically targeting education, Trump also is proposing mass deportations of undocumented workers and an overhaul of the federal workforce. Both moves could impact students and county schools.
According to U.S. Census data, 34.7% of county residents are “foreign born,” meaning they weren’t born in the U.S. According to the MCPS district profile, Hispanic students make up the largest percentage of the student population at 34.6%, followed by white students (24.4%), Black students (21.7%) and Asian students (13.9%). Nearly 19% of MCPS students are Emergent Multilingual Learners, 43.8% participate in the FARMS program, a measure of poverty, and 12.6% are special education students.
According to the Maryland Department of Labor, there are about 96,000 federal government employees in Montgomery County.
What are local education leaders concerned about?
At the Nov. 12 council meeting, Taylor told councilmembers that getting the federal government to fully fund Title I and IDEA is a goal for many education advocates that hasn’t been achieved. Taylor said the idea of the two programs being in jeopardy is “really, really troubling.”
Brigid Howe, president of the Montgomery County Council of PTAs, and Diego Uriburu, executive director of Identity Inc. in Gaithersburg, an advocacy group for Latino youth, echoed concerns over the potential loss of funding.
Title I, IDEA and food and nutrition are “areas that are constantly concerned about funding, even in administrations that are historically more favorable toward those areas,” Howe told MoCo360. “If the Department of Education were to be abolished, that would include Title I and special education funding, which could be a real hole for the MCPS budget.”
Although the state and county provide far more annual funding for the district than the federal government, the federal money still plays an important role, Taylor said.
“Even though it’s the smallest part of our budget, financially, it does have a huge impact, and it is something that we have grown a reliance on,” Taylor told the council.
Esther Wells, an MCPS parent and the president of the Montgomery County Taxpayers League, said federal funding isn’t a lion’s share of the district’s funding, but it does go toward the most vulnerable students, like her son who has autism spectrum disorder and ADHD.
“Without that differentiated funding, it will make it a challenge for MCPS to adequately educate him and provide reasonable accommodations,” Wells told MoCo360.
Wells said it was important that the federal funding source is maintained for replaced to provide services for students.
County school board President Karla Silvestre told MoCo360 it’s difficult to react to changes that haven’t yet occurred.
“I think we have to stay focused on what we know how to do well, and that’s serving our kids in our community here in Montgomery County,” Silvestre told MoCo360. “Right now, it’s very speculative, and it is nerve wracking, but it’s hard to plan ahead or take positions when we don’t really know what’s going to happen.”
Other proposals also raise concerns
In addition to the impact on funding, local leaders say they are also concerned about potential Trump administration actions affecting immigrants and federal workers.
Uriburu said he’s concerned the incoming administration’s rhetoric is creating fear among families, for both immigrant and nonimmigrant families. And Howe said she is concerned about the impact of possible mass deportations on students and communities.
Uriburu noted that during Trump’s first term, from 2016 to 2020, some families didn’t send their children to school after his administration’s “aggressiveness” stoked fears among immigrants that they would be targeted for violence.
“It’s not just money, no. It’s also what the environment would be like, and if people feel fearful for the children leaving their homes,” Uriburu said.
Taylor also raised concerns about how potential cuts in the federal workforce could impact students and school communities. With 96,000 federal workers, local elected officials including County Executive Marc Elrich said the “restructuring” of federal agencies could result in job loss or other financial setbacks for county residents who work for the federal government.
“If there was an interruption or relocation of a large portion of the federal workforce in our community, that would be tremendously disruptive to the school system in terms of the quality of education that we could provide and the continuity of education that we can provide,” Taylor told the council.
What’s next?
While councilmember Gabe Albornoz told councilmembers Nov. 12 that the county needs to begin “preparing for the worst and hoping for the best,” Silvestre told MoCo360 it was “too early” for the school board to start planning for possible decreases in federal funding.
“We are in the budget development process, so I think it’s something we keep in the back of our minds,” she said. “But we’re moving forward with our current reality.”
For right now, Silvestre said she’s focused on what happens in the county.
“We are one community. We are here to support each other,” she said. “There’s a lot going on in the world and in the country, but we gotta stay focused on doing the best for each other here.”
