The U.S. Department of Education released two new proposed priorities for competitive grant-making on Thursday, shedding more light on what initiatives the administration plans to champion—just as it cancels hundreds of ongoing grants.
The two prospective additions, published in the Federal Register on Thursday, would focus on supporting “meaningful learning opportunities” in what the agency describes as foundational subjects, and advancing career and technical education.
They would join the existing list, which includes evidence-based literacy, school choice, “returning education to the states,” artificial intelligence, and patriotic education.
These priorities only affect dollars distributed through competitive grant programs, a tiny slice of the total money the federal government sends to schools. (Most federal K-12 funding flows through formula grants, which automatically distribute money based on districts’ student population and poverty level, program needs, or other eligibility criteria.)
Still, the priorities the agency outlines signal its vision for what education should look like.
In recent months, the Education Department targeted what Secretary Linda McMahon has called “wasteful, divisive” projects, canceling more than 200 individual grants across at least 16 competitive programs. Most of the non-continuation notices the agency has issued claim that project efforts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion are at odds with the current administration’s priorities. (It has even canceled grants issued during Trump’s first administration.)
“Instead of focusing on improving student outcomes and providing meaningful learning opportunities for students, the Biden Administration wasted billions of dollars in discretionary grant funding on harmful ideological programming when our students needed academic support the most,” the notice of proposed priorities reads.
Falling scores on the nationwide tests of student skills “highlight the need for a renewed focus on academic rigor and achievement,” it continues.
Priorities for competitive grants under former President Joe Biden’s administration included diversifying the teaching pool, promoting equity in access to educational opportunities, and addressing the academic and social-emotional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students and educators.
Priorities call for explicit teaching, rejecting the ‘college for all narrative’
The Education Department’s proposed priority for “meaningful learning opportunities” identifies a host of efforts related to teaching and learning: strengthening core instruction, specifically in math; expanding interventions for struggling students and supports for accelerated students; providing career-connected learning; advancing innovative assessment models; and supporting parents in providing “meaningful at-home learning.”
The math instruction section is particularly detailed, highlighting teacher training, high-quality instructional materials, explicit and systematic teaching, and supporting states in “developing comprehensive statewide plans to raise mathematics achievement.”
It’s an “appropriate” focus, given the plummeting math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, said Elizabeth Huffaker, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Florida. “There are a lot of students who are really struggling to build up their math foundations, and need a lot of support,” she said.
The call for “explicit and systematic” instruction in math mirrors language used in the department’s literacy grant priority—language that has become a hallmark of the “science of reading” movement. Some researchers and advocates have started to make the case that a similar kind of explicit instruction in foundational skills is necessary in math, too.
Several states have recently passed legislation requiring math intervention and teacher training in best practices, with the goal of boosting students’ outcomes. Alabama, for instance, where 4th graders rose in the national rankings on NAEP this year, required schools to screen all elementary students for math difficulties and assigned at least one math coach to each public K-5 school.
At the same time, though, the federal Education Department has cut grants aimed at training effective math teachers—including some of the $600 million in teacher-training programs it eliminated in February. Some of the canceled projects, for example, sought to prepare STEM teachers in areas with shortages in Mississippi, and align teacher-preparation coursework with evidence-based practice in math and other subjects at a large public university in Maryland.
The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The second proposed priority focuses on career education: workforce-training programs aligned with state priorities, career advising, tools to help students and graduates find jobs, and “opportunities for students to use financial tools to compare the cost and benefits of the career options and educational pathways they are considering.”
“In principle, it’s exciting that the federal government is preparing to invest in career and technical education and workforce development,” said Walter Ecton, an assistant professor of education at the University of Michigan, who studies higher education and the workforce.
Students who concentrate in career and technical education in high school are disproportionately low-income, rural, and struggling academically. “If we care about economic mobility and well-being for those vulnerable populations, career and technical education classes are where those students are,” he said.
Still, he raised concerns about what he called “negative language” in the notice of proposed priorities about the decades-long push to ensure students are college ready. The document reads: “The dominant ‘college for all’ narrative has led to a narrow focus that often leaves students with degrees and debt but limited job prospects.”
In fact, American adults with bachelor’s degrees make almost 60% more than adults with a high school degree only. At the same time, though, more than a third of adults under 40 with a bachelor’s degree have outstanding student debt, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of federal data.
“Something that makes me nervous is an anti-college movement that is out there in the public discourse right now. College is still pretty clearly a good option for the large majority of people,” Ecton said, noting that many postsecondary institutions also offer associates degrees and shorter-term workforce certifications.
College and career education have been integrated in United States high schools for decades, an approach that can benefit students in a rapidly changing economy, he said.
“I think it’s fair to say that we don’t know what the workforce will look like in 10, 15, 20 years,” Ecton said. “Because of that, it’s really important for students to have a broad set of skills that allows them to be nimble, that allows them to change careers if they need to, that allows them to go back and get additional education if they need to.”
