How Trump's education agenda will harm New England students

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Alameda, CA (Prism)

Three federal judges temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing its anti-DEI policies in schools last week

LaTonia Monroe Naylor has been crunching the numbers, and she's concerned. The vice chair of the Springfield School Committee in western Massachusetts knows that the Trump administration's plans to end federal education as we know it would be difficult for her district.

"As we look through the budget, there's a lot of funds specifically that come from Title I," she told Prism, using the term for the federal funding stream that supports districts with a high percentage of low-income households.

"We are in a situation where we could lose a lot of that programming and those resources," she said, calling that possibility "really, really dire."

The prospect of these looming cuts isn't unique to Springfield. It's part of a bigger push by the Trump administration to essentially end federal support for schools across the country -- something that experts who spoke with Prism said would hurt a wide range of vulnerable students.

In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the dismantling of the Education Department. Soon after, he slashed that department's civil rights division in half. Earlier this month, he vowed to rescind Title I dollars from any state that kept diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in its schools. Three federal judges in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and New Hampshire ruled last week against Trump's threats to withhold that money based on DEI policies. Those decisions are only temporary while each case plays out in the courts.

"We really see [the anti-DEI push] not only as a direct attack on our most vulnerable students, but also a brazen act of hypocrisy," said Jennie Williamson, the state director for The Education Trust-Massachusetts. "The administration is saying he wants to dismantle the [Department of Education] in an effort to sort of, quote-unquote, "return the power of education to the states," while at the same time trying to coerce states and schools to abandon programs that support vulnerable students."

Before the trio of federal rulings, New Hampshire was the only state in New England going along with the White House's demands, having given school districts an April 17 deadline to certify compliance. The website that tracks compliance is still active, though it now has language at the top noting the federal ruling.

On April 10, the New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a budget that included an amendment targeting schools that use DEI practices.

"Our state House is actively trying to not just follow along with the Trump administration, but also add to it," said Louis Esposito, the executive director of ABLE NH, a disability justice advocacy organization in New Hampshire. "And they had to sneak it into the budget to get it passed."

"No one should be subject to discrimination in New Hampshire, including educators and students. The request from the U.S. Department of Education is consistent with recent actions taken by the New Hampshire House Finance Committee, and the New Hampshire Department of Education is in the process of assuring appropriate compliance," a spokesperson for the New Hampshire Department of Education said in an email to Prism regarding advocates' concerns about the removal of DEI policies from schools. (Republican critics of DEI have long characterized the approach as discriminatory.)

State Reps. Rich Nalevanko and Joe Sweeney introduced the amendment to the House budget. They did not respond to Prism's request for comment.

Some New Hampshire school districts have pushed back, joining the lawsuit ruled on last week by Judge Landya McCafferty, which had been filed by the National Education Association and the American Civil Liberties Union against the Trump administration for attacking schools that adhere to DEI.

But responding to the threats posed by a slash-and-burn education agenda also presents a catch-22 for advocates: wanting to acknowledge what's at stake, while reminding people that they still have rights.

"I have families that are calling and saying, "What does this mean for my child's individualized education program? Does this mean it's gonna go away?"" said Atlee Reilly, an attorney with Disability Rights Maine, referring to the Trump administration's plan to dismantle the Department of Education.

Reilly said he told families to remember that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) -- the federal law protecting the rights of disabled students -- can't be repealed by the president's pen.

"Perhaps they're gonna find a new place under the Department of Health and Human Services to operate it, but it's a congressionally enacted statute, it's been in existence since 1975, and it would take an act of Congress to do away with the IDEA," he explained.

The question of enforcement, however, looms large.

"With the potential of eliminating the Department of Education, we're hearing that IDEA won't be affected," said Esposito, the advocate from New Hampshire. "However, is it still going to be enforced?"

At the Education Department's Office of Civil Rights (OCR), which saw seven of its 12 regional offices closed last month, it's already clear what the loss of a federal enforcement mechanism means.

"I had a conversation with [some] parents who basically said that speaking with me was the first time that anyone had listened to them about the discrimination that their child had been facing," said Ariel Shepetovskiy, a former attorney with the OCR who was terminated when her office in Cleveland was closed as part of the Trump administration's plan. Shepetovskiy now resides in Massachusetts. She said that although her office was in Ohio, her experiences can shed light on the general function that OCR employees serve.

"Having someone take their concern seriously, they started crying on the phone," Shepetovskiy added.

Her work, like all OCR investigators, included investigating a wide range of cases in which families alleged discrimination or mistreatment of their child, from bullying and harassment based on race, ethnicity, or gender, to schools failing to adequately provide for the needs of a disabled student.

Slashing the watchdog office in half is expected to make things worse for families who need justice.

"We know that students of color face persistent inequalities in education," said Williams, of the EdTrust-Massachusetts. "They're usually disproportionately identified for special education and also subject to harsher disciplinary measures, and so the Office of Civil Rights really plays a critical role in addressing those systemic disparities."

Back in Springfield, Monroe Naylor faced down the prospect of this fallout.

"If the parents don't have that extra ability to advocate for their students and get another third-party in [the school], then there are going to be times where children are not getting the support that they need," she said.

This story is provided as a service of the Institute for Nonprofit News’ On the Ground news wire. The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) is a network of more than 475 independent, nonprofit newsrooms serving communities throughout the US, Canada, and globally. On the Ground is a service of INN, which aggregates the best of its members’ elections and political content, and provides it free for republication. Read more about INN here: https://inn.org/.

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