Organizations that support teacher-preparation programs nationwide sued the Trump administration on Monday, arguing that recent cuts and terminations of federal Education Department grants were illegal and should be reversed.
If the cuts persist, the lawsuit says, hundreds of teachers in training will lose crucial funding to support their scholarships; schools in many states will lose valuable services provided by student teachers and their mentors; and several colleges and universities will no longer be able to manage teacher residency programs that put aspiring educators in K-12 classrooms.
The National Center for Teacher Residencies, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, and the Maryland Association of Colleges for Teacher Education filed the suit on March 3 in U.S. District Court in Maryland. Those groups, along with roughly 100 others representing educators and researchers, also this week petitioned federal lawmakers to order the secretary of education to undo the cuts.
The lawsuit mentions three sets of education grants: the Teacher Quality Partnership program, the Teacher and School Leader incentive program, and the Supporting Effective Educator Development program. Recipients of all three grants received letters from the Education Department in early and mid-February notifying them the government had terminated their contracts, effective immediately, saying the grant awards were “inconsistent with, and no longer effectuate, Department priorities.”
The administration has justified the cuts as necessary to ensure grant recipients are complying with President Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order cracking down on DEI programs.
The lawsuit, however, cites a Feb. 21 ruling from the same federal court in Maryland that blocks the Trump administration from implementing much of that order—specifically, the terminations of and changes to federal contracts the administration considers to be DEI-related. The teacher-prep programs argue that their grant awards are covered by that injunction, and that the cancellations should be reversed.
But even without that ruling, the plaintiffs contend, the Trump administration failed to follow federal rules requiring a formal and lengthy process for changing grant priorities. That process—including several rounds of official notice and public comment—happened for all three grant programs years ago, emphasizing expanding and diversifying the pipeline of educators.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education said the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
Cuts have big effects—even when the dollar amounts are small
The Department of Government Efficiency, an unofficial federal agency led by Trump’s billionaire associate Elon Musk, has touted the Education Department cuts as saving millions of taxpayer dollars. But several journalists and researchers have highlighted major errors in the DOGE calculations of savings in education and beyond.
Recipients have also already spent large chunks of the grant funds. The National Center for Teacher Residencies received $6.7 million from the department in 2022 for a three-year grant, but the lawsuit says the Feb. 10 termination would affect roughly $1.2 million.
The number of affected dollars might be smaller than the administration is saying, but plaintiffs in the lawsuit point to substantial ripple effects.
NCTR, for instance, planned to use roughly half a million dollars to support tuition relief for 128 college students currently working in K-12 classrooms, and another 190 whose teacher residency programs will start this summer.
Eight current students at American University who were preparing to teach at local charter schools may lose housing subsidies and tuition assistance, and 40 future students may lose the opportunity to participate in the same program, according to the lawsuit, which highlighted effects from the contract cancellations at a handful of universities.
More than 80 current K-12 teachers in Minnesota will lose stipends they had been promised for their efforts to mentor aspiring teachers currently in residency programs run by the University of St. Thomas, the lawsuit said.
Several judges have already ordered the Trump administration to continue sending out funding appropriated by Congress, including for medical research and international aid. Two judges ordered the administration to reverse its planned government-wide spending freeze, which threw the education world into chaos last month.
However, some recipients— including K-12 schools and organizations that support education—have continued to lack access to their federal money days or even weeks after the judge weighed in.
The teacher residency programs say they found themselves in a similar position as they tried to draw down grant funds for expenses they’d incurred before the terminations.
In the lawsuit, the programs said the federal government attached a new condition to their grants called “route pay,” which requires that the grantees get prior approval before they can receive their funds. Recipients have struggled in recent weeks to get in touch with federal officers and secure reimbursement for expenses they already incurred earlier this year.
Attaching that new condition—which is reserved for grantees and contractors that might not be financially stable or risk misspending the money—without notice runs afoul of federal regulations for contracts, the lawsuit argues.
In addition to asking a judge to reverse the grant terminations, the teacher prep programs also want to see their “route pay” condition reversed.
