The federal budget resolution approved by Congress Friday to avert a government shutdown leaves the door open for continued disruption to federal funding for education, even as core funding streams remain largely untouched.
The approved law lacks an explicit requirement for the Trump administration to spend all of the money appropriated by Congress. And the structure of the document gives the executive branch more discretion over how to allocate resources than it would have if Congress had approved its full annual budget on schedule.
Some key grant programs don’t have their own separate line items in the budget document. Instead their funding totals are captured in broad categories like “innovation and improvement” and “special education.”
“I think it makes it easier for the administration to substitute their own priorities for funding when Congress doesn’t have a statement spelling out what it wants the administration to do,” said Sarah Abernathy, executive director of the Committee for Education Funding, a nonprofit advocacy group.
Congress still hasn’t agreed on a federal budget for the current fiscal year 2025, which is nearly half over. Instead, lawmakers have passed a series of continuing resolutions—less detailed budget documents that largely maintain current funding levels while both houses continue negotiations on broader changes.
That means widely discussed education-related proposals like cutting Title I investment and converting existing federal grant programs to lump-sum payments for states aren’t yet on the table for discussion. Republicans are likely to bring up those priorities when negotiations over the fiscal year 2026 budget begin.
Even so, the bill passed Friday night—which President Donald Trump signed into law—has some education advocates anxious about the potential for more of the chaos and confusion that’s dominated the education landscape since Trump took office for his second term.
If the administration continues its practice of withholding money appropriated by Congress, ensuing legal challenges could delay or disrupt the July 1 delivery date for most federal funding streams for states and districts to spend on K-12 schools, said Julia Martin, legislative director for the Bruman Group, a law firm that represents school districts.
The federal government supplies roughly 10 percent of the nation’s overall annual funding for K-12 education, including a wide range of programs for schools to support their neediest student populations.
Here’s what to know about Congress’ latest effort to keep the federal government open—for now.
1. Programs without detailed line items could be vulnerable to Trump’s and Elon Musk’s spending cuts.
Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown after 10 Democratic senators joined 52 Republicans to advance a “continuing resolution” on Friday evening. The measure then passed in the Senate with 54 votes. The agreement pushes Congress’ budget deadline through Sept. 30.
Lawmakers offer less detail on specific programs in continuing resolution bills than they do for a full budget. The line item allocating $15.5 billion for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, for instance, doesn’t break out the funding by typical sections like grants to states, grants for preschool, state personnel development, and Special Olympics.
Several key K-12 education grant programs aren’t mentioned by name at all, including:
- Title II grants to states (supporting instructional improvement and professional development)—$2.2 billion
- Charter schools grants (supporting the creation of new public charters)—$440 million
- Migrant education grants (supporting children of mobile farmworkers and fishermen)—$376 million
- Magnet schools grants (supporting desegregation efforts in school systems)—$139 million
- McKinney-Vento Homeless Act grants (supporting schools in serving students experiencing homelessness)—$129 million
The Trump administration has aggressively asserted it has the authority to cut funding for programs it doesn’t agree with or support, even when Congress has already put those spending allocations into law.
The administration would have an easier time defending cuts to some programs if they can point to an approved congressional spending bill that doesn’t name-check them, advocates say.
For budget items without explicit line items, “it’s possible the administration can make its best guess, or that it spends money on other programs [in the same category], or that it merely doesn’t spend the money at all and says that Congress didn’t tell it to,” Martin said.
A Nixon-era federal law places strict limits on executive branch efforts to withhold congressionally mandated funding, known as “impoundment.” But so far administration officials have continued to freeze funds and shutter agencies at their discretion, at times over the objections of federal judges.
“Their lawyers could theoretically argue that without a specific appropriation for those subparts Congress has instructed them to spend $0,” Martin said.
2. The events of the next few months could have big consequences for future education funding.
The Trump administration has terminated hundreds of millions of dollars in education spending, including for congressionally mandated initiatives like Regional Education Labs; comprehensive centers for technical assistance; and grant programs like Seeking Effective Educator Development (SEED), Teacher and School Leader Incentive (TSL), and the Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP).
Lawsuits challenging some of those spending cuts are still playing out in court. In the meantime, if the executive branch uses the vague wording of the continuing resolution to justify eliminating additional programs, that spending would face a steeper uphill battle to being included when Congress begins future budget negotiations.
“If a program is defunded in FY25, it’s going to be a real uphill battle to get it funded in FY26,” said Barbara Duffield, executive director of Schoolhouse Connection, a nonprofit that supports homeless students. “Right now is the staging ground for everything else.”
Some state lawmakers may also be reluctant to include expected federal funding in their budgets for fear of the administration unexpectedly slashing spending.
“Uncertainty in budgeting is never a good thing when you need to know you have enough for salaries and other essentials,” Abernathy said.
3. Public schools in the District of Columbia were spared at the last minute.
Congress controls the District of Columbia’s local budget under a federal law passed in 1973 that grants oversight of the city’s fiscal operations to the federal government in lieu of making the district a state.
As early as Friday morning, city officials were bracing for an imminent nosedive in funding available for education and other priorities, after the House approved a spending bill earlier in the week that slashed the district’s local budget by roughly $1 billion.
More than 50,000 K-12 students attend traditional public schools in the nation’s capital, and another 47,000 attend public charter schools, city data show. The House’s approved budget cuts would have cost those schools an estimated $350 million, forcing widespread teacher layoffs.
But that move drew the ire of city officials, residents, and ultimately a handful of U.S. senators. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, proposed a measure to keep the District of Columbia whole, and senators voted unanimously in agreement.
That bill, which is separate from the broader continuing resolution, still needs to pass the House when lawmakers return from recess later this month. Collins said Trump and a key House lawmaker have said they support the proposal.
