Various Resources to Frame Conversations About Funding and Department Elimination Proposals
February 13, 2025
Author
We’ve had a variety of good resources come across our desks as groups look to provide real-time information on what proposed policy changes—including funding cuts and gutting USED—will mean, and several of these provide state or local analysis.
- From Protect Public Education, a coalition of public education advocates, educators, beneficiaries of federal education funding, and former employees of the U.S. Department of Education, comes a rich set of resources. Federal education dollars pay teachers, buy books, reduce class sizes, and help make sure our schools are serving the needs of our kids. Eliminating federal education funding won’t improve our schools—it will demolish them. It will leave states scrambling, kids suffering, teachers out of work, and communities with fewer opportunities to succeed. We must fight back to protect public education, because when our schools fail, our entire nation pays the price.
- Specific Resources
- General Resources Page
- The Impact
- Title I and Rural Education
- Special Education/Students with Disabilities
- State Education Budgets
- Federal Revenue Tool (Same as Education Law Center Tool detailed below)
- Specific Resources
- Calculating the Impact of Federal Funding Cuts: Here are three different tools looking at how proposed tax and budget policies will impact specific states, congressional districts and districts: Give them all a quick look:
- Education Law Center – “How much federal education could your state lose?” It lets you see by state how much funding for Title I, IDEA, Impact Aid, and other programs would be lost under any percentage cut you specify.
- Democratic House Budget Committee tool to estimate impact of Republican cuts by congressional district – This online tool shows by congressional district the size of the proposed Republican tax cuts to the wealthiest and to businesses, as well as the cuts to health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act, to Medicaid, and to SNAP.
- University of Michigan Federal Education Funding Data Dashboard: The Federal Education Funding Data Dashboard shows the allocation of federal education funds to local school districts in each state and U.S. Congressional district for the 2020-21 academic year, which was the most recent data available when the data analysis was conducted. Totals are based on the sum of federal dollars allocated to school districts and do not include dollars allocated to each state’s department of education. The dashboard also shows the total number of public schools and students in each state or Congressional district, plus how many of those students are living in poverty and how many were identified as experiencing homelessness. Open the data dashboard in a new window.
- National Parents Union: Their rich resource talks through how the US Education Department supports state and local education agencies. Scroll down to the bottom for state-specific one pagers!
- Frequently Asked Questions About the U.S. Department of Education: The new Center for American Progress report highlights the importance of the Department of Education in ensuring all students have access to a quality education. Authors Paige Shoemaker DeMio and Tania Otero Martinez cover the history of the department and its present day responsibilities through five main questions:
- Why was the U.S. Department of Education established?
- What does the U.S. Department of Education do?
- What does the U.S. Department of Education not do?
- Can the U.S. Department of Education be eliminated through an Executive Order?
- Do most high-performing countries have national level agencies that oversee and support education?
