Updated: This page has been edited to include more up-to-date figures on U.S. Department of Education employee layoffs from a new court filing.
The U.S. Department of Education during the government shutdown has sent layoff notices to 465 staff members across six of the agency’s 17 primary offices. Affected workers include virtually the entire staff who work on certain key formula grant programs, including Title I for low-income students and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act grant programs.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said on Oct. 15 that future funding won’t be affected by the reduction-in-force effort, calling the department “unnecessary.”
But former and current staffers, some lawmakers, and advocates say the layoffs jeopardize the department’s ability to send out grant funds, answer questions from grant recipients, collect data on grant outcomes, and monitor compliance with laws and regulations.
On Oct. 15, a federal judge temporarily halted the layoff plan while she continues to consider the case challenging the shutdown-era staff reductions across the government. The Trump administration will likely keep fighting to carry them out.
If the original layoff plan persists, employees’ last day on the job will be Dec. 9. It’s not clear whether the department would allow them to return to work if the government shutdown ended before then—or if the department plans to transition these programs to other agencies instead. Most operate from offices that have been part of the department since it opened in 1980 and that Congress specifically included in the 1979 law that formed the agency.
President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating many of these programs through the budget process. By leaving almost no one to manage them, the layoffs could give him one route to effectively wind these programs down before Congress has a say.
Tracking the effect of staff cuts on programs serving students
Drawing from publicly available information about the workers and offices affected by the layoffs, Education Week has assembled a guide to the grant programs overseen by divisions where the vast majority of staff are poised to exit.
Three affected offices where workers also got RIF notices don’t administer grant programs. Those are the office for civil rights (137 layoffs), the office of communications and outreach (7), and the office of the secretary (4).
The grant program list includes more than 40 funding streams, collectively worth more than $50 billion a year, that support K-12 and higher education.
The programs are listed under the offices and sub-offices that manage them. Offices are denoted with blue text; sub-offices are denoted with bold black text; and micro-offices within the sub-offices are denoted with plain black text.
For each program, click on the information button to see a program description, the most recent amount Congress invested in the program, and the amount Trump has proposed for the fiscal year 2026 budget Congress is currently debating.
The number of laid-off staff members in each office comes from an Oct. 17 court filing by Jacqueline Clay, the Education Department’s chief human resources officer. The figures for the funding level Trump has proposed for each program come from the administration’s May budget proposal for fiscal year 2026.
In his budget, the president proposes to collapse some of individual grant programs listed below into a “K-12 Simplified Funding Program” that would be worth less overall than the individual programs are currently. And the Trump administration this year already terminated ongoing grants for a number of the programs listed below.
References
- Declaration of Jacqueline Clay in American Federation of Government Employees et al. v. U.S. Office of Management and Budget et al. (Oct. 17)
- Declaration of Rachel Gittleman in American Federation of Government Employees et al. v. U.S. Office of Management and Budget et al. (Oct. 14)
- OESE Programs and Offices (U.S. Department of Education)
- OSERS Programs and Offices (U.S. Department of Education)
- OPE Programs and Offices (U.S. Department of Education)
- U.S. Department of Education Reductions in Force (Sligo Law Group)
