It’s hard to keep track of the scale of the destruction as President Donald Trump and Elon Mask slash and burn their way through the federal government, cutting staff, gutting programs and shuttering departments. Many essential services are on the chopping block, including consumer protections, support for veterans and emergency services here at home, and aid to children facing famine overseas.
Now, the administration has moved on to the Department of Education. This week, it cut close to half of the department’s staff — “effectively gutting the agency,” according to the New York Times. The administration has already slashed education research and other programs that strengthen schools and promote education equity. If Trump succeeds with his plan to eliminate the department altogether, the consequences will be even more far reaching.
We reached out to K-12 education experts, nonprofit leaders, philanthropy representatives and one anonymous Department of Education employee to explore the implications of Trump’s education cuts as they unfolded in the first weeks of his administration. Some of those we contacted were more willing to talk than others; many philanthropies are still formulating their strategies and deciding how best to respond. And it’s too early to say how many of the administration’s early efforts will succeed; there has already been pushback, including from a long list of Democratic lawmakers. Today, a coalition of 21 attorneys general sued the Trump administration over this week’s staff purge at the department, calling it “reckless and illegal.” But there was a consensus among most of those we spoke to — in and out of philanthropy — that Trump’s scorched-earth approach threatens the future of the nation’s public schools and that philanthropy can play a critical role in mitigating at least some of the damage.
John H. Jackson, president and CEO of the Schott Foundation for Public Education, acknowledged that the administration’s initial blitzkrieg has stunned some in philanthropy. Funders may also be concerned about potential repercussions if they oppose the administration’s actions.
“I think many foundation boards and leaders are still in shock, and organizational fear is a part of what the sector is experiencing,” he said. “But I also think that we are a sector that has the capacity and ability to take more risk than others can. And how hypocritical would it be for us to fund civil rights and social justice organizations for decades and ask them for progress and impact, and then run back to our endowments and places and spaces of safety at a time when we’re most needed?”
Scrapping the Department of Education — will they or won’t they?
Last week, rumors circulated that the Trump administration was about to drop an executive order that would end many Department of Education functions. At the last minute, the administration decided not to release the order; it offered no explanation for the reversal or information about when it might be released. But it’s likely just a temporary reprieve, as Politico reported: “‘I want to just do it,’ the president said in the Oval Office on Thursday after he was asked when he would sign the order. ‘We’re starting the process.’”
Closing the department down entirely would require an act of Congress, which many observers consider unlikely. But even without shutting the department’s doors, Trump, Musk and the DOGE team are causing enormous damage.
Trump’s ambitions have a long precedent in GOP circles. Since the Department of Education was established by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, Republican leaders have talked about abolishing it, and Trump seems particularly keen to do so. Shortly before Linda McMahon, his pick for ed secretary, sat for confirmation hearings, Trump said he wanted to see the department closed down and called it “a big con job,” according to the New York Times; he has also said he wants McMahon to put herself out of a job.
McMahon, who was confirmed last week, is a Trump friend and major donor. The billionaire cofounder of World Wrestling Entertainment, McMahon has little education experience, and she’s clearly willing to do the president’s bidding. “I’m really all for the president’s mission, which is to return education to the states,” she recently told lawmakers. “I believe, as he does, that the best education is closest to the child.”
Those with experience on the ground point out that many state governments already skimp on education, and are unlikely to provide sufficient support for schools if the federal government is out of the picture. Education experts also say that states can’t duplicate the Department of Education’s research role (more on that below); nor do they have the capacity to provide protections for at-risk students, a key if underappreciated role that the department plays.
Among its other functions, the department oversees Title 1 funding, which helps districts provide support for low-income students. It also provides funding for IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) programs, and support for the nearly 1.4 million students experiencing homelessness. University of Massachusetts Education Professor Jack Schneider, the co-author of “The Education Wars,” put it succinctly in a recent article for The Nation: “Today, the Department of Education is the site of our strongest national commitments to equal opportunity for school-age children.”
Last week, on a press call attended by New York Governor Kathy Hochul as well as EdTrust’s Denise Forte and other education advocates, John B. King Jr., SUNY chancellor and former secretary of education, described what it will mean to break that commitment. “If you eliminate Title 1, you’re talking about taking billions of dollars from the schools that serve low-income students,” he said. “That will mean teacher layoffs, that will mean larger class sizes… If you take away the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act funding that the department delivers to schools, you’re talking about longer waits for families to get services, to get students who are struggling to read the help they need to succeed. This is exactly the wrong direction for the country.”
Zoe Stemm-Calderon, senior director at the Raikes Foundation, pointed out the number of children who will be affected. “Twenty-six million students from low-income backgrounds rely on Title 1 funding to improve achievement, and 9.8 million students in rural schools rely on federal support to bridge funding gaps,” she told me. “This is a huge part of the fabric of American life. This is not just a line item in the budget; it’s the foundation of opportunity for millions of students.”
Schott’s John Jackson agreed. “We have not yet closed the gap on many of the losses we experienced during COVID,” he said. “From students who are impoverished to students with disabilities, these cuts are going to create tremendous challenges.”
For Jennifer Coco, senior director of strategy and impact at the Center for Learner Equity, a nonprofit which promotes quality education for students with disabilities, the attacks on the Department of Education represent a tremendous setback. “It feels like we’re rolling back 50 years of opportunity and progress for kids with disabilities — that’s at least 15% of students in our public schools,” she said. “We’re really concerned about what feels like an intent to dismantle services.”
An example of an initiative that has already been deep-sixed: a program exploring ways to support young adults with disabilities as they leave school and enter the workforce and independent living, a transition that Coco says can be particularly difficult. Chalkbeat reported on the program in an article headlined “Teens with disabilities were getting help with life after high school. Then DOGE started cutting.”
Coco says the chaos and confusion that Trump and Musk have triggered also have an impact. “There’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty. And uncertainty breeds fear,” she said. “It causes people to not move forward with projects, or to think they need to stop doing something for fear of some unknown consequences — loss of millions of dollars, or getting investigated by this administration. It’s a really scary time.”
“We want to put them in trauma”
Russell Vought, who now heads the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget, was one of the architects of Project 2025. In videos obtained by ProPublica and released last fall, Vought, who has long advocated for dramatic reductions in the federal workforce, discussed plans to demoralize government employees: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” he said. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains… We want to put them in trauma.”
These first weeks of the Trump administration have brought Vought’s dark vision to life across the government — including at the Department of Education. This week, over 1,300 employees were fired. About 63 probationary workers were let go in February, and 572 accepted buyout offers.
For one longtime Department of Education employee, the attacks on the institution where she’s spent most of her career are demoralizing, but their arbitrary nature and the destruction they’re creating have also made her angry. The employee, who asked that her name not be disclosed, lost her job this week when the regional office where she worked was closed, along with six other regional offices. Staff cuts at the remaining five offices will leave them decimated, she said.
According to the employee, this week’s cuts have effectively eliminated the department’s ability to investigate civil rights complaints brought by students and families. “They have successfully removed federal oversight regarding civil rights in education,” she said. “The public has not been put on notice that you can’t file complaints anymore for children in special education [or] college students who need accommodations.”
She pointed to Equity Assistance Centers as another example of a program that has been cut — presumably because the word “equity” is part of its name. “The [Equity Assistance] Centers have been around for decades, and the researchers there work to assist school districts and local departments of education with overcoming barriers to education, including poverty,” she said. “Of course, poverty comes in all races, so this is a perfect example of how they are cutting programs indiscriminately, and it will end up hurting a lot of disadvantaged kids.”
Soon after Trump took office, some Department of Education staffers were put on administrative leave because they participated in diversity training — during the first Trump administration. At the time, participation in the training was encouraged, but dozens of those who did so were placed on leave.
The department employee said that this week’s cuts have left her and her former colleagues in shock. “It’s devastating,” she said. “We were given maybe one hour and then our email was shut down. We couldn’t even give people courtesy calls or emails to cancel meetings or interviews. This was not an orderly shutdown.”
If traumatizing people was the goal, it may be succeeding — but at what cost? This employee and her colleagues could have earned far more money in the private sector but dedicated their lives to public service instead. “This is my life’s work,” she said. “I’m very proud of my career and my service, and have amazing colleagues who are incredibly dedicated to the work we do. And to attack these people — for what reason?”
Funding for education research slashed
The administration’s initial blows to the Department of Education began at its research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). IES tracks student progress and provides evidence-based information about what works and what doesn’t. The think tank New America, which is monitoring the impact of Trump 2.0 on the Department of Education, points out the critical role of IES “in elevating and funding scientific studies to examine why, when and under what conditions American students are able to perform well in school.”
Summarizing the contributions of IES since it was established in 2002, David J. Chard, dean emeritus and a professor of special education at Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, concluded recently, “By nearly every measure, IES has been successful at leading an evidence-based revolution in education in the United States. In fact, scholars from around the world point to IES as a model for evidence-based reform in government.”
Last month, the new administration canceled close to $900 million in contracts at IES. Then, this week, IES lost more than 100 staff members. Education experts say that the cuts at IES will undermine research and data collection, including the department’s capacity to administer the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) exam, according to The 74. The NAEP test, sometimes referred to as “the Nation’s Report Card,” assesses the progress of students at schools across the country, providing valuable information about academic strengths and deficits.
For Sara Schapiro, who heads the Alliance for Learning Innovation, these cuts make no sense, particularly given recent national test results showing that student achievement continues to be lackluster post-COVID.
“It’s concerning to see this administration move away from data and evidence,” she said. “These cuts feel counterintuitive; this is precisely the time I would argue for the federal government to play a critical role in investing in research and development — not pulling back from it. Without investing in research, the U.S. will absolutely lose our competitive edge in the world.”
If the point of the cuts is to reduce spending, then IES hardly seems like a worthy target, particularly given the valuable work it does. IES accounts for a tiny fraction of the Department of Education’s budget, and the department in turn accounts for just 1% of the 2025 federal budget.
Schapiro gave an example of a department effort that got whacked: the Regional Educational Laboratory program. The laboratories work with educators, districts and policymakers to boost education achievement. “It’s the arm that helps the federal government actually support locally what education leaders need,” she said. “For example, they help get practice guides — on math, on literacy, the science of reading — into the hands of teachers and district leaders. This local research footprint is such a huge function that just ended overnight.”
Frances Messano’s position as chief executive officer at NewSchools Venture Fund, a philanthropic intermediary that seeks to invest in education innovators, puts her in touch with many of those engaged in cutting-edge efforts to improve schools. The administration’s cuts in education research “are essentially crippling our nation’s ability to get our arms around learning loss, and the state of education in this country at this moment in time,” she said. “The innovators in our portfolio use federal government data if they’re developing, say, a math solution or a literacy solution. It helps them understand where deeper support is needed most. If we don’t have that essential data, it’s harder to identify and implement strategies to help our young people catch up to where they need to be. According to recent NAEP scores, just over 30% of our fourth and eighth graders are proficient in reading. This is not the time to make cuts.”
Schapiro emphasized that states won’t be able to replicate what the federal government does in terms of major research projects. “States have an important role in education, but one of the things that they can’t do on their own is run large-scale research studies,” she said. “It’s always been a bipartisan endeavor to say that this is what we can do to support states. I would never argue that the federal education R&D enterprise was perfect. There are lots that we could reform and improve upon, but to essentially cut it overnight is going to impact every student everywhere.”
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Cuts to teacher training
Teacher training also came under the chainsaw after Trump took office. Two Department of Education grant programs, Teacher Quality Partnerships and Supporting Effective Educator Development, were targeted for cuts, at least in part because the Trump administration believes they promote DEI. “Teacher prep programs should be prioritizing training that prepares youth with the fundamentals they need to succeed for the future, not wasting valuable training resources on divisive ideologies,” a department spokesperson told Chalkboard News in an emailed statement.
In fact, the training programs weren’t specifically DEI-focused, although many of the trainees represent diverse communities. That diversity focus is a good thing, and in line with the latest research, according to Josh Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University and the author of “The Privateers.”
“We know that children of color show meaningful positive outcomes, both in terms of test scores, graduation rates and lower absenteeism, when they are taught at least some of the day by teachers of color,” Cowen said. “So if you’re going to get rid of these programs because they use the word ‘equity,’ or they talk about the importance of having more Black teachers in the workforce, then what are we doing? We’re clearly making decisions based on ideology, not on the evidence or what’s best for students.”
Does Trump really have a mandate to scrap the department’s civil rights work and other services?
Another role the Department of Education plays, through its Office of Civil Rights, is ensuring compliance with laws prohibiting discrimination based on race, gender or ability in the nation’s schools. In mid-February, ProPublica reported that, after Trump’s inauguration, all of the office’s civil rights investigations were frozen. More recently, disability complaint investigations were allowed to go forward, but those concerning race or gender are still on hold.
“We are crushing efforts focused on ensuring that students who have been furthest from opportunity receive fair treatment in schools,” said NewSchools’ Messano.
A “Dear Colleague” letter recently sent to K-12 schools and postsecondary institutions by the department’s Office of Civil Rights gave school officials two weeks to comply with requirements to eliminate “race-based practices,” which it conflates with affirmative action measures and efforts to promote DEI. (The department later walked back some of the more extreme language in the guidance after it was challenged in court.) The department has also created an “End DEI” portal — which some have dubbed a “snitch line” — where people can submit complaints of discrimination — read “reverse discrimination” — in public schools.
The Office of Civil rights was particularly hard hit in this week’s cuts, with regional offices that address civil rights complaints shuttered and staff terminated. But this week’s bloodbath at the department she now oversees didn’t ruffle McMahon, who reiterated the president’s intention to eliminate the department altogether. “What we did today was to take the first step, eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat,” she said.
But it’s not clear that the administration has a mandate for its evisceration of the department and the services it provides. Recent polling by Data for Progress shows that, while many Americans aren’t happy with the education system, Trump’s plan to abolish the Department of Education altogether is broadly unpopular. And a majority of voters also think that a lack of funding and resources is more of a threat to education than “wokeness.”
Stemm-Calderon at the Raikes Foundation believes that the administration’s recent actions are out of step with what most Americans want from their schools. “We know that 87% of parents across political lines support teaching an honest history that prepares students for the real world,” she said. “And 93% of parents believe elected officials should provide adequate school funding to schools. Majorities of parents are supportive of their own public schools and the direction of our public schools. So I think the direction that [the administration] is driving in is counter to what we hear from students and parents and educators who believe in the promise of public education.”
Standing in the gap: funders’ role in protecting students and schools
The full scope of the Trump administration’s education cuts and their implications will become clearer — particularly if Trump pulls the trigger on an executive order to dismantle the department. But one thing is certain: The current situation presents many ways for philanthropy to engage and step up.
The experts we spoke to all had ideas for how philanthropy can help protect students and schools. Michigan State University’s Josh Cowen, who has relied on both federal and private funding to support his own education research over the years, is concerned that conservative funders with their own agendas will dominate the direction of research if the federal government no longer plays a role. But at the moment, he thinks there are more urgent ways philanthropy can deploy its resources.
“If philanthropy is going to move any of their dollars, yes, I would like to see research invested in, but right now, I would really like to see more philanthropies getting into the arena in court battles, getting into the arena when it comes to supporting communities and school districts and universities opposing nebulous orders, like Trump’s ‘Dear Colleague’ letter on DEI. My chief concern right now is that vulnerable communities are protected,” he said.
Jackson at the Schott Foundation acknowledged that philanthropy won’t match federal education spending. “Still, I think philanthropy is going to have to stand in the gap,” he said. “The Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education plays a huge role in ensuring equity in the administration of policies and practices, and I think philanthropy is going to be called to make deeper investments in civil rights and social justice organizations who can track the experiences of students experiencing inequities.”
But providing financial support is not the only way philanthropy can make a difference. Coco at the Center for Learner Equity would like to see funders work together on disability rights efforts. “The pool of donors that support disability-focused work is fairly small, and many of them limit what they do by geography or to very specific programs,” she said. “I work with incredible nonprofit leaders who are experts in complicated areas of policy and action, and how it impacts communities. It would be great for philanthropy to serve as a catalyst for coalition-building to bring together nonprofit communities to help educate people and speak up for the core values that we hold dear.”
Schapiro at the Alliance for Learner Innovation would like to see funders use their considerable platforms — something most have been hesitant to do so far. “One thing philanthropy can do is to sound the alarm, to use their bully pulpit and bring people together around the importance of research, data and evidence in education,” she said. “It’s hugely important to build demand among state leaders, state superintendents, large district leaders and folks in education that people on the Hill listen to — to tell the story of why this is important. How do we put data, research and evidence at the foundation of everything we do in education? Philanthropy has a great perch from which to convene people to talk about that.”
Stemm-Calderon at the Raikes Foundation suggested other ways that philanthropy can step up. “Funders can support organizations working to preserve and improve public education, they can fund research on effective educational practices, and they can use their voice to advocate for strong public schools,” she said. “More specifically right now, education funders need to be asking their partners if what they funded them to do last year — before we saw these destructive actions on the part of the federal government — is still relevant to the challenges young people and educators are facing today. What support do partners need? Do they need more flexibility in their grants? We saw funders do this really effectively after COVID. This is another moment for us as funders to stay focused on the goal of an education system that works for everyone, and to make sure we’re in conversation with our grantees about how they can best advance that goal.”
One thing Messano at NewSchools Venture Fund hopes funders won’t do is to pull back — a trend we’ve seen from some top K-12 funders in recent years. “What I want to say [to funders] is that this is the time to come back to K-12. Our students need champions to support them on their pathway to learning. Our schools need the support, our innovators need the support. This is a time when we need philanthropy to invest their dollars behind their values. We know that philanthropy can operate quickly in an emergency; we’ve seen this during natural disasters. This is an emergency.”
