President Donald Trump wasted little time in making his mark on the nation’s K-12 schools after taking the oath of office for his second term on Jan. 20. The 100 days since then have been unlike the start of any other presidential administration, due to the quantity and velocity of education-related policy shifts.
The timeline below documents the administration’s key education-related actions.
The Trump administration rescinds a 13-year internal policy that stated school grounds, churches, and other “sensitive locations” were generally protected from immigration enforcement activities, such as arrests and raids.
Trump issues an executive order to recognize only two sexes as a matter of U.S. policy and takes other actions ending the Biden administration’s efforts to extend Title IX sex-discrimination protections to transgender students.
Trump also issues an order to eradicate DEI programs from the federal government, carrying out a priority he promised on the campaign trail.
A federal funding pause causes mass confusion as schools and other federal funding recipients rush to determine whether their funds are subject to the freeze. Even after the Office of Management and Budget rescinds the memo ordering the indefinite freeze, confusion persists as the White House press secretary writes on social media that the order is still in effect. A federal judge halts the funding freeze minutes before it is set to take effect.
The Education Department launches an investigation into a Denver high school’s conversion of a girls’ restroom into an all-gender restroom, alleging a violation of Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination. The investigation offers an early sign of how the Education Department under Trump interprets Title IX and plans to use its power to investigate schools.
Trump signs two executive orders acting on education-related campaign pledges.
One aims to expand school choice on the federal level, but it is necessarily limited in the absence of broader legislation. The order directs the departments of Defense and Interior to develop plans to allow federal funds to go toward private schools from the school systems they run. The order also instructs the Department of Education to provide guidance on how states can use federal funds—such as Title I, which supports low-income students—to support private school choice.
The other aims to end what the president terms “radical indoctrination” in K-12 schools. Federal laws prevent the federal government from setting curriculum. But the order directs Cabinet secretaries to develop a plan that eliminates funding for schools that “directly or indirectly support or subsidize the instruction, advancement, or promotion of gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology.” The order also reinstates Trump’s 1776 Commission, which the president created in his first term to promote “patriotic education,” but the Biden administration disbanded.
On National Girls and Women in Sports Day, Trump signs an executive order threatening to withhold federal funds from schools that allow transgender students to compete on women’s teams. Under the order, the secretary of education is told to prioritize civil rights cases against schools and athletic associations that don’t comply.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency abruptly revokes hundreds of millions of dollars in Department of Education contracts that fund key data collection and research efforts largely overseen by the agency’s Institute of Education Sciences. The contract terminations are the first of a series that results in the cancellation of contracts and grants that support teacher-preparation programs and technical assistance provided to schools and state education departments through the regional education laboratory, comprehensive center, and equity assistance center programs.
Linda McMahon appears before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee as Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of education. She fields questions about Trump’s executive orders, DOGE’s cuts, and the president’s desire to eliminate the department she’s been nominated to run.
The Department of Education’s office for civil rights sends a Dear Colleague letter telling K-12 schools and universities they have two weeks to stop DEI programs and practices or risk losing federal funding. The letter leads to confusion, as the department doesn’t define DEI and appears to tell schools and colleges to eliminate any race-based programming.
At a White House event with governors, Trump calls out Maine’s Democratic governor and threatens to withhold federal funding from the state over policies allowing transgender girls to compete on girls’ athletic teams.
When Trump asks her if she’ll comply with his Feb. 5 executive order barring transgender girls from girls’ sports, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who is in the room, responds by saying the state is following state and federal laws. “We’ll see you in court,” she says.
The Education and Health and Human Services departments launch investigations into the state the same day and swiftly find Maine in violation of Title IX, asserting that Title IX excludes transgender athletes—a reading of the law that legal experts dispute.
The Maine situation becomes a test case for the Trump administration’s treatment of states that defy his administration’s orders. The state has two transgender athletes, according to the Maine Principals’ Association, which oversees high school athletic competitions in the state.
National Center for Education Statistics Commissioner Peggy Carr, who oversees the administration of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, is put on administrative leave as the Trump administration continues to downsize the Education Department. At least 120 Department of Education employees have been terminated or placed on administrative leave by this point.
The Department of Education launches a public portal—EndDEI.Ed.Gov—for parents, students, teachers, and others to report DEI practices in K-12 schools.
The Education Department releases a nine-page FAQ document as a follow-up to its Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter on DEI programs. The FAQ document clarifies that not all programs, classes, and events that focus on particular cultures break the law but it still doesn’t define DEI.
Three groups that represent recipients of teacher-preparation grants the Trump administration terminated in February—the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and its Maryland affiliate as well as the National Center for Teacher Residencies—file a lawsuit challenging the cuts to three grant programs that support preservice and in-service teacher training.
McMahon is confirmed in a 51-45, party-line vote in the Senate and sworn in as the 13th secretary of education. She pens an introductory note, “Our Department’s Final Mission.”
A draft of an executive order directing McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education” circulates in the press, with the Wall Street Journal reporting it first.
Eight Democratic attorneys general sue the Trump administration also seeking to restore the terminated federal teacher-training grants. On March 10, the federal judge overseeing the case orders the Trump administration to reinstate the grants in the eight states that sued.
The Education Department announces massive cuts to its workforce, bringing it to about 2,183 employees from 4,133 when Trump took office. The reductions account for employees who accepted earlier resignation and buyout offers. Virtually no part of the department is spared, but the agency’s civil rights enforcement and research arms are particularly hard hit.
The judge overseeing the AACTE lawsuit orders the Trump administration to restore funding to teacher-prep programs that saw their grant funds terminated. The order applies to funding recipients that belong to any of the organizations that challenged the terminations in court.
Trump signs the long-anticipated executive order telling McMahon to prepare for the Department of Education’s closure. The following day, the president says oversight of and funding for services for students with disabilities would transfer to the Department of Health and Human Services, and that student loan management would shift to the Small Business Administration. Oversight of those programs can’t change without congressional approval, according to legal experts, and McMahon said later that she would work on a strategic plan for shifting student loan oversight.
McMahon sends a letter to state education chiefs notifying them that the deadline to spend all remaining COVID relief funding has already passed. McMahon writes in the letter that she is revoking extensions the Education Department previously granted that allowed most states 14 extra months to spend pandemic relief money. The move leaves states and school districts unsure of how they’ll cover the cost of projects and programs to which they’ve already committed. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia later sue over the abrupt change.
The Education Department sends a letter to state education chiefs explaining that Title I allows some limited flexibility to spend the federal funds in a way that allows parents more of a say in customizing their child’s education. The document is expected to be the first of several the administration will release in its efforts to expand school choice.
The Education Department sends a letter giving state education chiefs 10 days to sign a certification that they’re complying with the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act as a condition of receiving federal funding. Title VI prohibits race-based discrimination in federally funded programs, but the Trump administration asserts it outlaws many programs that it labels “DEI.” The deadline is later pushed to April 24, and states start announcing how they plan to respond, with Democratic-led states more likely to reject the unusual move from the federal government, pointing out their schools have already certified that they comply with Title VI. Some Republican-led states don’t sign, either.
The Supreme Court grants the Trump administration’s request to overturn a federal judge’s March 10 order to reinstate more than 100 federal teacher-training grants that the administration abruptly terminated in February. The move allows the administration to keep the funds frozen while the underlying case challenging the grant terminations proceeds in court.
Citing the Supreme Court ruling, a federal appeals court grants the Trump administration’s request to keep grant funds frozen in the other lawsuit challenging teacher-preparation grant terminations.
In an unprecedented move, the Education Department says it’s starting the process of stripping the state of Maine of its federal education funding and also referring the matter to the U.S. Department of Justice for legal action, following findings from the Education and Health and Human Services departments that the state is violating Title IX by allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports.
The last time the Education Department withheld school funds over a civil rights violation was in 1990, when the agency cut funds to a Georgia school district.
The Department of Justice sues the Maine Department of Education, seeking to have a judge halt Maine’s policies that allow trans athletes to play on girls’ teams.
Budget documents obtained by the Associated Press show the Trump administration plans to propose eliminating funding for Head Start, the early-childhood education program for children in poverty, in its upcoming budget proposal. Head Start, which is under the Department of Health and Human Services, has been a frequent target of conservatives.
On the day states and schools face a deadline to certify they’re not using “illegal DEI practices,” three judges rule against the Trump administration’s anti-DEI efforts in schools, saying in separate opinions that the administration has been vague or hasn’t followed proper procedure. The orders significantly limit the administration’s ability to enforce its directives.
