Bobby Reyes fears what a whole elimination of the U.S. Department of Education may imply for his two daughters, ages 10 and 12.
They attend William J. Onahan Elementary School within the forty first Ward, the one neighborhood the place President-elect Donald J. Trump gained a majority of the vote in a really blue-leaning Chicago. A couple of blocks from their faculty, in a neighborhood the place Reyes says many cops and firefighters dwell, a gaggle lately offered Trump merchandise on the road nook.
“And it was welcomed,” Reyes mentioned.
Trump repeatedly promised on the marketing campaign path to dismantle the Department of Education and shift funding priorities towards personal faculties and different schooling spending, which worries Reyes. Like different mother and father and schooling advocates in Chicago, she mentioned she would do no matter it takes to “be certain that (her) youngsters obtain the right schooling they want from all realms and all voices.”
Education coverage specialists say the incoming forty seventh president’s plans to broaden schooling financial savings accounts (the place households get taxpayer cash to assist pay tuition for personal faculties), restrict and reshape packages of finding out American historical past and shifting budgetary priorities away from packages that profit low-income college students have the potential to create a tumultuous transition for Chicago college students.
While some teams in Illinois favor his imaginative and prescient, political specialists say that if he follows by way of together with his plans, there can be little alternative for communities and fogeys to defend their rights to a protected and welcoming faculty atmosphere.
Overall, there could be much less safety for Chicago college students, mentioned OiYan Poon, a senior analysis fellow on the Thurgood Marshall Institute. Poon’s daughter attends a CPS faculty that will be instantly affected by Trump’s crew’s proposed slicing of funding channels, she mentioned.
“(My daughter) is absolutely fearful about what’s going to occur, what Trump will do,” Poon mentioned.
What are the probabilities that Trump will have the ability to shut down the Department of Education?
Trump has repeatedly mentioned he needs to shut the Education Department and provides extra accountability to states, nevertheless it’s unclear how precisely he plans to undermine the federal governing physique. To accomplish that would require an act of Congress.
Most of what the Department of Education does is oversee congressional appropriations and distribute them to states and districts. Shutting it down fully would take a variety of work, mentioned Josh Cowen, a professor of schooling coverage at Michigan State University. He mentioned the Department of Education is extra more likely to train energy not by dissolving the Department of Education, however by shutting down particular funding streams to cities like Chicago.
“If there’s something that Chicago Public Schools is benefiting from with the phrase range, with the phrase fairness, with the phrase inclusion, any explicit program geared toward migrant college students, any grant gained by the district or town to help younger individuals LGBTQ. These are all candidates for focusing on and slicing,” Cowen mentioned.
U.S. authorities funding represents 16% of the district’s working income of $8.4 billion, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez mentioned in a latest assembly with town council. While the vast majority of CPS’ funds comes from native sources comparable to property taxes, federal cash is used to fund the state share of the funds and for meals aimed primarily at low-income college students, Martinez mentioned.
But federal funding has declined in comparison with earlier years as pandemic aid dries up. The district’s 2024 funds included greater than $670 million in federal aid funding, and its 2025 funds lower than half that quantity. In 2026, CPS will now not have any assist, Martinez mentioned.
And the district has been going through insurmountable funds deficits for months because the lecturers union works to barter a difficult new contract.
Any potential funding cuts on the federal degree may worsen an already slender funds hole, some CPS mother and father advised the Tribune.
“If (Trump’s insurance policies) took away public funding from public faculties … I’d be very involved,” mentioned Katherine Marin, who has three youngsters in Onahan.
Marin held the hand of her 4-year-old daughter Lily as she crossed the road.
“I’m actually pleased with the individuals right here. I do not wish to transfer my children,” Marin mentioned.
What would it not imply to shut the U.S. Department of Education?
The Department of Education has a number of key obligations. It administers Title I funding, a federal program that gives further cash to varsities with a excessive share of low-income college students. As of April, roughly 86% of district-operated faculties certified for discretionary Title I funding, in keeping with CPS.
It additionally helps guarantee equal entry to academic alternatives by way of Pell Grants, which assist college students pay for school. Nationally, 34% of school college students obtain a Pell Grant, in keeping with the Education Data Initiative. The common Pell Grant award is $4,491.
Each yr, the Department of Education receives and responds to hundreds of complaints of discrimination in faculties alleging gender, spiritual, and racial discrimination, in addition to different civil rights abuses. It works as a test on college students who may in any other case fall by the wayside, mentioned Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, a doctoral candidate at Harvard who researches inequality and schooling.
Eliminating this federal management measure could be bleak, Opoku-Agyeman mentioned.
“This will disproportionately have an effect on Black and Latino college students,” Opoku-Agyeman mentioned. “Now somebody may be discriminatory and get away with it.”
Opoku-Agyeman cited insurance policies in Project 2025, tons of of pages of detailed plans for Trump’s second time period, drawn up by the conservative suppose tank Heritage Foundation. Trump has sought to distance himself from the report, although it was written by 100 of his former staff.
In its prolonged part on schooling, Project 2025 blames the federal authorities’s “countless guidelines and laws” for gradual and ineffective scholar outcomes. He requires gutting the Department of Education and eliminating federal poverty subsidies for faculties, whereas making a voucher program to assist fund personal schooling.
Last yr, Illinois lawmakers let the tax credit score scholarship program for personal faculty college students expire. At the time, supporters of the tax credit score argued that it gave youngsters from low-income households an opportunity to get a greater schooling, whereas opponents argued that it did not adequately profit these youngsters and undermined public schooling . A shift in priorities away from public faculties may funnel extra money into packages like tax credit score scholarships, Michigan State’s Cowen mentioned.
To make certain, some teams in Illinois favor Trump’s strategy.
“I welcome President-elect Trump’s efforts to reform schooling, prioritize schooling over indoctrination for our youngsters, and put our households above particular curiosity teams just like the Chicago Teachers Union,” he mentioned Kathy Salvi, chairwoman of the Illinois Republican Party in a press release.
The Illinois Policy Institute mentioned any questions on how Project 2025 may impression public schooling in Chicago are exterior the scope of what they might touch upon concerning CPS.
What will the results be within the classroom?
The Department of Education doesn’t function public faculties or dictate the content material of the curriculum. This is left as much as the college board and state legislators.
Thus, Trump’s arguments that the Bible needs to be learn in class and his emphasis on educating patriotism will probably look totally different in Illinois than in Texas or Florida, which have handed totally different insurance policies to evaluation and ban books deemed controversial and towards use of gender pronouns. in faculties.
The CPS took a special strategy. The day after the election, Martinez despatched an e-mail to oldsters and employees with a transparent message: “Know that we’re right here to help you and that our priorities and core values won’t waver within the days forward,” he wrote . “Our core values of fairness, student-centered decision-making and neighborhood partnership will proceed to information us.”
“The district is dedicated to safeguarding our college students and households by permitting them to give attention to studying inside our faculties,” a CPS spokesperson mentioned in a press release to the Tribune. “To obtain this aim, CPS regularly works to make sure college students see themselves mirrored within the curriculum by incorporating LGBTQ+, disabled, Black, Indigenous, Latino, Asian and different historic figures into its classes.”
While Gov. J.B. Pritzker has vowed to guard academic freedom in Illinois, OiYan Poon of the Thurgood Marshall Institute cited Project 2025’s plans to retaliate towards districts or states that haven’t adopted an anti-trans, anti-equity agenda .
For instance, the federal authorities may threaten to not fund schooling if sure matters proceed to be taught in faculties, Poon mentioned.
Poon mentioned youngsters are “naturally curious in regards to the social world round them,” which extends to conversations about their very own identification. His daughter is Chinese and Thai.
“I admire Pritzker’s ease. But I’m actually curious to see how, when push involves shove, if (Trump’s schooling agenda) involves fruition, what’s going to our governor do?” he mentioned.
The Chicago Tribune’s Sarah Macaraeg contributed.
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