How Federal Education Cuts Will Hurt Wisconsin

Riverwest Elementary School, 2765 N. Fratney St. File photo by Dave Reid.

Last week Thursday President Donald Trump signed an executive order to shut down the federal Department of Education. This unprecedented act has already been challenged in court, with lawyers arguing it is illegal and only Congress has the power to do this.

Trump charged that the department was wasteful and responsible for spreading “woke” ideas such as programs to support diversity, equity and inclusion and protections for transgender students. But that reduces a lifeline for K-12 students across the nation to a catchy and misleading slogan.

Republicans across the country have other reasons in supporting the move, including Wisconsin’s U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, who told Fox Business news the department “hasn’t improved education whatsoever.”

Democrats have excoriated the order. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a former public school educator and state superintendent, has called the move “bullshit.”

“I know Wisconsin’s kids and our schools — this decision would be catastrophic for them,” he said in a post on X.

Wisconsin’s Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin has warned that “Donald Trump and Elon Musk are coming after your kids’ education so they can give tax breaks to rich guys like themselves and big corporations. Make no mistake: the goal here is to cut funding from our public schools and its Wisconsin families and students who will suffer.

A lot of money is at stake: The federal Department of Education spent $268 billion in fiscal year 2024. Though a sizable chunk for this goes for college student loans, which will be moved to the Small Business Administration, Trump has said.

But the bulk of the education department’s budget is made up of federal grant and loan programs, including the $18.4 billion Title I program that provides funding to high-poverty K-12 schools and the $15.5 billion program that helps cover the education costs for students with disabilities.

All told, about 13.7% or one in every seven dollars of public school funding during the 2021–22 school year came from federal funding. In Wisconsin the percent is somewhat lower: about 11.9 percent of all public school funding comes from the federal government. Evers has estimated that K-12 schools could lose $1.2 billion in federal funding.

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has listed some of the biggest programs, estimating that $841 million a year in federal funding comes to Wisconsin for students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged families, youth mental health programs, English language learners and efforts to reduce class sizes. DPI has created an interactive map showing how much federal funding public school districts across the state receive.

Milwaukee-based Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore wrote a column for The Nation noting that “the Department of Education serves 50 million students” with its funding and its “impact is felt in so-called red and blue states across the country… It also enforces civil rights laws to protect students from discrimination based on disability, race, or national origin.” She also praised the department’s TRIO programs for college students that provided help to her as a young woman, noting they “provide targeted resources to students, including tutoring, academic assistance, financial counseling, and mentorship programs. These services reach low-income students, first-generation students, and our veterans.”

Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Association, predicted dire results from closing the Department of Education in a post on Blue Sky. “It will drain resources from the most vulnerable, skyrocket class sizes… strip special ed services, and gut student civil rights protections,” she said.

The Trump-Musk administration had already cut half of the staff in the Department of Education some two weeks before the announcement that the department would be abolished. The federal government is also cutting federal grants to states that help schools and food banks purchase healthy foods from farmers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s $660 million Local Food For Schools program was cancelled for 2025.  The end result is less food and less healthy options for school lunches.

“We can’t be okay with this,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly. “This is a program that benefited local farmers, producers and students by providing locally grown products and school meals.”

The issue of eliminating the federal Department of Education has become an issue in the race for State Superintendent of Education in Wisconsin. Underly, the incumbent, has called the shutdown “a disaster for public education.”

Her challenger Brittany Kinser seemed less worried. Back in February, when asked about a shutdown Kinser said that so long as Wisconsin continues to receive the federal education funding it currently receives, she is open to changes.

But other than the money for student loans it appears that all other funding to Wisconsin, and all other states, will be lost.