For the first time in close to seven years, Congress failed to reach a budget agreement in time for the new fiscal year. As a result, the federal government has shut down, causing nationwide ripple effects with short- and long-term implications for schools.
Congress has struggled in recent years to meet self-imposed appropriations deadlines. The negotiations were particularly contentious this year in the wake of the Trump administration’s unprecedented push to unilaterally adjust federal spending decisions to align them with the president’s policy preferences.
House Republicans are pushing to extend current federal spending levels for a few weeks or months while Congress works out a full budget. But in the Senate, where the 53-member Republican majority needs seven Democrats to pass budget legislation, Democrats have refused to approve a budget that doesn’t include new protections against Republican-approved health-care cuts and President Donald Trump’s efforts to circumvent congressional spending decisions.
With no consensus on Capitol Hill for even a portion of the federal budget, agencies began implementing shutdown contingency plans on Oct. 1. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed, threatening the stability of a wide range of social services. On Oct. 10, the Trump administration announced “substantial” layoffs of federal workers during the shutdown, including at the U.S. Department of Education.
The current shutdown has become the longest in U.S. history, outlasting the shutdown in late 2018 and early 2019 during the first Trump administration that spanned 35 days. The last shutdown to start on Oct. 1 happened in 2013.
Education Week is tracking the effects of this year’s government shutdown on K-12 schools. Here’s the latest.
