On March 20, President Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education.
If this order cannot be stopped, $119 billion, or 13.6% of federal aid, could be cut from the education of American students from grades K-12. The most important job of the Department of Education is funding low-income school districts and special education. Without this funding, schools will not be able to attain equal access to education for all students.
Ninety percent of U.S. students and 95% of students with disabilities learn in our public schools, and 63% of those schools benefit from federal funding that supports programs such as Title I, which provides resources to schools serving low-income students.
President Trump, however, maintains that the department is a “bloated and radical bureaucracy” and “a big con job.” He makes it sound like he’s dismantling a deviant bureaucracy, and that the Department of Education’s demise would be a big win for the American people. The real effect would be to decimate vital funding and crucial programs upon which students in every school district rely. It would abandon the department’s founding mission to level up opportunity in education.
For the students and families of Nevada, this means the inevitable deterioration of our state’s public-school system.
States and local districts are the major sources of funding for public schools, but the department is an essential secondary source. Title 1 is the largest funding program administered by the department. It provides money to states for their lower-income schools. This money is essential to ensure equal access to quality education for all students regardless of family income.
Nevada received $161 million in Title I funding in the 2021-2022 fiscal year, or 16.2% of the state’s funding for education. Every county in the state receives Title I funding; seven counties receive more than the 16.2% average.
Can the state of Nevada afford to potentially lose 16.2% of school funding? Can state and local funding make up the difference?
Any gap in funding will fall to the state and local budgets. It will cause confusion, and there will be no oversight as to where these funds are directed. School budgets are already stretched; a loss as large as $161 million will hurt many students in Nevada and will have a devastating impact on working- and middle-class families. Residents who think this isn’t a worry for them, think again. Cuts in funding will increase property taxes for every homeowner in Nevada.
IDEA—the Individuals with Disabilities Act—is another essential program. The Department of Education’s IDEA funding went to 13% of Nevada students in 2022-2023. Can Nevada afford to lose funding for 13% of students? If your child relies on special education services to succeed in school, are you willing to let that go, because the government doesn’t care?
Another essential function of the department is its support of higher education through student grants and loans for academic, career and technical degrees. Pell grants are a critical and widely used source of funding for students seeking a college or university education, and 41,130 Nevadans are eligible for Pell grants; they received $173 million in 2023. At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 33% of students received Pell grants, and at the University of Nevada, Reno, 28% of students did. The graduates of our state colleges and universities provide Nevada with a solid foundation for the future of the state with degrees in medicine, engineering, public health, vital research, education and the liberal arts. The removal of funding for higher education would deny Nevada’s students the opportunity to pursue degrees that are essential for their personal growth.
This is not a partisan issue. It is a question of personal and civic values. The citizens of Nevada cannot, financially or morally, support any attempt to deny the funding of public education for its children.
Kids can’t vote; they depend on adults to make decisions for them, and those decisions have a profound and lasting effect on their futures.
If you care, call your state and federal representatives and let them know. Rep. Mark Amodei, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Rep. Steven Horsford are all graduates of Nevada’s public schools and universities. Tell them that you want today’s students to have the same opportunity for future success that they had.
Paula Dolan is a retired schoolteacher currently residing in Reno after teaching at American schools in London, Qatar, and Chennai, India, for 25 years.
Well-said, Paula. Trump also proposes to let the Small Business Administration (which he’s in the process of dismantling) handle student loans. Makes perfect sense, huh?
Nevada has been at the bottom for fifty yrs, dep of education has only seen our ratings as a country fall. They are just another hoop to jump through.