By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order intended to close the U.S. Department of Education to the “maximum extent appropriate.”
In the aftermath of the signing, the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy stated that Kentucky receives more than $1 billion annually in federal education funding, and major questions are being raised about the future of that funding after the executive order.
“Cuts to this funding, or difficulty accessing it and other resources that the U. S. Department of Education now provides, could lead to the loss of teachers, the end of vital support for our most disadvantaged kids, diminished mental health supports and reduced student success and well-being,” the statement reads. “Most of the federal education funding to Kentucky, $546 million this school year, comes from the Department of Education…and it supports the employment of approximately 4,546 teachers, counselors and other school employees across the commonwealth.”
The center stated the federal education department has provided Kentucky $274 million for low-income students, $182 million for special education, $42 million for teacher training and $35 million for “student support and academic enrichment.”
Federal funding accounted for 25 percent of Barren County Schools‘ budget in 2023, according to the center, 42 percent of Caverna Independent Schools‘ budget and 28 percent of the budget for the Glasgow Independent School District. Based on prior reporting, that amounts to roughly $34.3 million total in 2023.
Total elimination of the U.S. Department of Education would require an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979. Trump said he intends “to disperse the department’s core functions” to other parts of the government and “directs the Secretary of Education to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States,” according to the White House.
The federal education department primarily “is tasked with implementing a suite of laws that provide education funding to states and overseeing education-related aspects of civil rights laws.”
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