As the U.S. Department of Education this week prepared to move swathes of its responsibilities to other agencies, among its flurry of calls was to the nation’s state education chiefs—whose experience working with the federal government was about to change dramatically.
In some ways, it wasn’t exactly a surprise.
Debbie Critchfield, Idaho’s state superintendent, said her team has been talking about and anticipating major changes for months as President Donald Trump directed Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to facilitate the closure of her agency, as the pair publicly floated where the agency’s portfolio could end up, and as the department shed nearly half its staff in layoffs and buyout deals.
Nonetheless, the department’s announcement of six interagency agreements on Tuesday moving core functions to four separate agencies represented one of the Trump administration’s most significant steps yet toward eliminating the education agency altogether. One of those moves is to shift administration of billions of dollars in funding for K-12 schools—including Title I, the Education Department’s largest funding stream—to the U.S. Department of Labor.
The Trump administration has said funding shouldn’t be disrupted. But states—which generally receive federal funds first before distributing them to local school districts and frequently communicate with the federal government on questions about policy, rules, and funding—could find themselves seeking guidance from as many as five different agencies depending on the program.
Some are ready to embrace the change while others retain their doubts.
“We don’t want the ‘sky is falling’ mentality,” Critchfield, a Republican, said. “What I want to portray is exactly the type of feel that I got in the conversation [Tuesday] from the federal level, which was, ‘We are still here to support, the funding is still there. We’re here to support the states and their role. It’s just going to look a little bit different.’”
Some state chiefs fear rocky road ahead
Already earlier this year, before Tuesday’s announcement, the Education Department signed an interagency agreement shifting administration of the $1.4 billion Perkins program that funds career and technical education to the Labor Department, along with adult education and other programs geared toward older students and adults.
That didn’t come without its challenges, said Mo Green, the state superintendent for North Carolina and a Democrat.
The state’s department of public instruction had to set up new accounts to draw down federal money, because the Labor Department uses a different system to disburse funding. While state staff were able to make the change, it was time-consuming and resulted in delays of funds. Now, the team has to manage two different grant systems with two different reporting systems from two different agencies.
Even now, months later, state education staff don’t know where to send questions—they often send them to both the Education and Labor departments, Green said.
“It certainly again raises that question about, how is this more efficient and less bureaucracy as the Trump administration has stated?” he said.
State chiefs across the country, particularly from Democratic-led states, echoed Green’s concerns this week.
“It is clearly less efficient for state departments of education and local school districts to work with four different federal agencies instead of one,” California state Superintendent Tony Thurmond said in a statement. “Experience also tells us that any time you move expertise and responsibilities, you disrupt services. There is no way to avoid negative impacts on our children and our classrooms with a change of this magnitude.”
JP O’Hare, a spokesperson for the New York state education department, called the effort a retreat from federal responsibility over education that would reduce accountability.
“It is especially ironic that an administration that claims to champion ‘government efficiency’ is advancing a proposal that will make government less efficient, less coordinated, and far more burdensome for states and districts,” he said in a statement. “Fragmenting federal education functions across multiple agencies will only create duplication, confusion, and unnecessary red tape.”
Other state chiefs argued it wouldn’t create much change.
“These partnerships will not impact funding or day-to-day operations of our schools,” Indiana Education Secretary Katie Jenner said in a statement. “Ultimately, our shared mission remains the same: we must keep our focus on providing high-quality education for all students.”
McMahon told Education Department staff Tuesday that if the agreements were successful, she would ask to Congress—which would have to sign off on permanent changes—to codify the interdepartmental moves.
Key programs and funds will move, splintering from other Education Department programs
As the department moves much of its K-12 programming from the office of elementary and secondary education to the Labor Department, it will place those programs under a different roof from other key K-12 functions—oversight of services for students with disabilities and civil rights investigations.
That seems like a dangerous shift, said Massachusetts Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler.
“This latest move weakens the Department of Education’s ability to act swiftly when students’ rights and futures are at stake,” he said in a statement.
A number of states were still reviewing the changes and what effect it could have for schools and didn’t immediately have comments this week. But others were enthusiastic to see the shift. Wyoming Superintendent Megan Degenfelder, a Republican, said the agreements provided a “long overdue mandate to optimize federal programs.”
Montana Superintendent Susie Hedalen, who said she’s been supportive of Trump’s effort to reduce the federal role in education, said her department is already accustomed to working with multiple federal agencies. Staff there “stand ready to take this on,” she said.
“I think there’s a lot of details to come, so I’m anxious to hear more and see how this is actually going to come into play,” she said. “Important components for me are just ensuring that the shift of federal responsibilities does not create new burdens for the states.”
In Idaho, Critchfield said the earlier interagency agreement with the Labor Department to manage CTE went smoothly. Though she initially worried about emails getting lost in the shuffle and delays in funding, it was “business as usual.” She anticipated it would be similar for the new agreements.
“We expect that many of our same contacts will still be in place. They will just be located in a different place,” she said.
One state education chief who stands to be directly affected by these moves is North Dakota state Superintendent Kirsten Baesler, who resigns Monday to be sworn in as assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education, overseeing a portfolio of programs that are shifting to the Labor Department.
Baesler told North Dakota school leaders in a statement that the shift was an “internal administrative change.”
“North Dakota schools should stay the course,” she said. “Your work continues uninterrupted, and nothing about this federal realignment changes the support or expectations you rely on today.”
