A range of voices from across the field of education—from frontline teachers and administrators to major school associations—are urging the Trump administration to change or soften proposed regulations that would add new restrictions to federal grants.
The White House Office of Management and Budget received a torrent of comments—about 500,000—by the July 13 deadline, including submissions from national and state education groups and many individual educators.
The draft changes to the federal government’s “uniform grants guidance,” managed by the OMB, would add new restrictions on grant-funded efforts that clash with a president’s policy positions.
The proposal would also empower political appointees to intervene in ongoing awards, allow grants to be terminated early, and restrict grant-funded attendance at professional development conferences.
The proposed regulation, published May 29 in the Federal Register, would give politically appointed agency officials the power to review and approve—or reject—all discretionary, or nonformula, grants before they’re awarded.
School-focused organizations and individual administrators said the changes would undermine their work on many fronts, from limiting their ability to conduct research on whether education programs are effective to restricting staff members’ ability to travel to pick up expertise.
“The proposed rule, if finalized as written, would fundamentally undermine the conditions necessary for rigorous, independent education research in the United States,” says a comment by the American Educational Research Association and 19 other education and science groups.
The proposal would limit essential support for schools in a number of ways, the organizations wrote.
“[It] would impose substantive restrictions on what topics and activities federal funds may support, effectively prohibiting entire areas of legitimate education research and practice that the administration disfavors,” the organizations said.
In addition, the changes “would restructure grant-making procedures to give political appointees decisive control over which proposals receive funding and to allow termination of active awards without notice, explanation, or appeal.”
The 20 education and science groups said they urged the White House to withdraw the proposal “in its entirety.”
Administration says regulation targets ‘woke’ agenda
Currently, independent peer reviewers provide the final word on which grants are and aren’t awarded. Under the proposal, political appointees would also be empowered with much more leeway to cancel grants midway through their award period.
Federal grant recipients would also face other new restrictions. They would no longer be able to spend federal dollars on anything that the administration associates with discriminatory “diversity, equity, and inclusion;” that it believes allows minors to pursue gender-affirming care; facilitates “illegal immigration;” or promotes “anti-American values.” The proposed rules generally don’t define those terms or provide specific examples.
We are concerned that the proposed revisions … would significantly restrict the ability of scholars, educators, and professional associations to disseminate research and practice-based knowledge.
Recipients of federal funding would also have new obligations to justify individual expenses in writing. Spending federal grant funds on conference travel for professional development would only be allowed if conference were expressly approved by the grant-making agency and was included in the terms and conditions of the award.
“[R]estricting conference attendance and membership will be devastating to school organizations, leaders, and professionals who supervise federal programs as there are not colleagues (with vast experience) who do the work of school district federal programs administrators,” wrote a district official from a 30,000-student school system in Texas.
“Professional development opportunities are of vital importance for ensuring compliance, utilization of federal funding to increase student achievement, and for support.”
Trump administration officials have defended the proposed regulation, with OMB Director Russell Vought telling a congressional panel last month the new measures aren’t “anti-science” and disputing the idea that the new rules would lead to the federal government canceling grants en masse.
Instead, OMB would empower federal agencies to halt objectionable projects before they become damaging, he said.
“We are out for comment on our proposed rule,” Vought said at the June 30 hearing before a House Appropriations subcommittee. “Probably record numbers of comments have come in. We’re going to assess each one of those comments and make any changes that we need to.”
In the proposed rule itself, the administration says grants issued under President Joe Biden’s administration were often used “to promote a ‘woke’’ policy agenda that did not reflect the values of the vast majority of the American public.”
Concerns range from political influence to publication costs
Some of the concerns put forward by education organizations about the rule changes were focused on more granular changes that they said, nonetheless, would impose higher costs and limit the flow of information.
The National Association for Bilingual Education, for instance, questioned a provision that would disallow publication costs, including article processing charges and open access fees.
“We are concerned that the proposed revisions … would significantly restrict the ability of scholars, educators, and professional associations to disseminate research and practice-based knowledge,” the education organization said in its comment.
“Even where federal funds are not directly used for publishing expenses, these restrictions would create broader systemic barriers to scholarly communication, reduce access to peer-reviewed research, and limit knowledge dissemination in fields that rely on interdisciplinary collaboration and practitioner access.”
Meanwhile, the Association of Texas Professional Educators, a non-union independent professional group, raised concerns over the proposed role of political appointees in awarding grants and the possibility that such grants could be canceled mid-stream.
“Texas districts rely heavily on competitive, multiyear federal grants to fund critical innovations, such as school safety initiatives, mental health support, and career and technical education (CTE) pathways,” Shannon J. Holmes, the group’s executive director, said in her submission.
She also expressed concerns about the authority that federal officials would have to terminate grants if they did not align with the administration’s political priorities.
That change would have a significant downstream impact, Holmes said.
“Texas school boards cannot responsibly launch multiyear student programs or hire specialized personnel if the underlying federal funding can be arbitrarily canceled by a federal agency prior to the grant’s natural conclusion,” Holmes said.
If nothing else, more implementation time sought
The proposal says Oct. 1—the start of the federal 2027 fiscal year—would be the implementation date for the final version of the rule changes
Congressional Democrats, as well as Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, have also raised objections to the proposed changes, and some observers expect a legal challenge if the administration sticks with the changes.
“Conferences are not extras. They provide important compliance updates, technical guidance, and access to national and state expertise.
Large education groups weren’t the only ones to submit comments.
Many individual district administrators voiced concerns about theproposed regulation, including a district administrator who also addressed the rule’s restrictions on using federal funding for conferences.
“Conferences are not extras,” wrote Christine Harrell, the director of federal programs for the Searcy, Ark., school district. “They provide important compliance updates, technical guidance, and access to national and state expertise. They help federal programs directors and school leaders avoid mistakes, improve implementation, and bring stronger support back to students and staff.”
Conference expenses are already scrutinized at the local level and adding a layer of federal oversight “would slow down timely decision-making and reduce local control,” she said.
In his testimony before Congress last month, Vought noted the flood of public comments that have come in on the administration’s proposal, and said “we’re going to assess each one of those comments and make any changes we need to.”
The OMB director said the proposal was consistent with a Trump executive order and the administration’s overall expectations that agencies cut spending the administration sees as wasteful.
“We work with agencies to do that, policy official to policy official,” Vought said.
In another comment on the proposal, a Massachusetts administrator who did not include his full name in his submission raised a concern about the proposed limit on federal grants supporting “gender ideology,” which in his view would require the district to deny the existence of transgender students.
“This policy would require my district’s counselors and school psychologists to deny the mental health needs of our students, according to the guidance of their own professional bodies, or lose funding for those same students’ education,” the administrator said.
The proposal " would be nothing short of catastrophic to the mental health and education of every child in my school district and every other district that teaches trans kids and employs trans adults (which is to say, all of them, whether they know it or not),” the administrator added. “I urge OMB to withdraw it entirely.”
Robert Saul, the business administrator of the East Penn district in Emmaus, Pa., said in his comment that he supports accountability and “effective stewardship of federal funds,” but many requirements of the proposed regulation would be duplicative and would impose significant burdens on smaller districts.
He called for OMB to distinguish between formula grants that support students in special education, English learners, and others from competitive, discretionary grants.
He also said the proposed October implementation date for the new rule would disrupt planning in school systems.
“Local budgets, staffing plans, grant planning, and program implementation for the 2026-2027 school year will already be underway or completed,” he wrote. “OMB should provide a longer transition period.”
