The first three months of the second Trump administration have brought a dizzying cascade of threats to federal investment in K-12 schools, and even bigger existential battles loom in the near future.
The administration has already terminated hundreds of grants and contracts supporting teacher preparation and education research; frozen funding doled out by the Biden administration for electric school buses and other clean-energy improvements; and canceled approvals for districts and states to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in pandemic relief funds on projects and programs they’ve already committed to carry out.
The cuts and chaos are far from over. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has said it’s moving to block all federal funding from K-12 schools in Maine after the state declined to comply with the administration’s executive order banning transgender girls from women’s sports. President Donald Trump has threatened similar action for states and districts that don’t commit to ending “illegal DEI” initiatives and rolling back COVID-19 vaccination requirements for children attending public school.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans have been advancing budget resolutions that promise hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending cuts for education and other related priorities. The Trump administration has reportedly drafted a federal budget proposal that would eliminate the $12 billion Head Start program for early childhood education. Project 2025, the widely circulated conservative policy document the Trump administration has followed closely in its early months, calls for consolidating, phasing out, or altogether eliminating key federal funding streams for schools.
Court challenges have followed most of the Trump administration’s most significant moves to reduce education funding. That will likely continue as the administration aggressively pursues its policy agenda through executive action.
In the meantime, here’s what districts need to know about the biggest threats to federal funding for schools, what the administration can and can’t legally do, and how Congress might intervene—or not.
How much money do schools get from the federal government?
In 2022, the most recent year for which federal spending data are available, the federal government spent $119 billion on K-12 schools—roughly 13.6 percent of the overall investment.
During the pandemic years, the federal government’s pandemic relief aid boosted its share of K-12 funding. In a typical year, funding from federal agencies—including for core instructional programming, meals, early childhood programs, school improvement efforts, professional development, and career and technical education—makes up roughly 8 to 10 percent of nationwide investment in public K-12 education.
How important is federal funding for schools, compared with state and local funding?
State governments and local taxpayers supply much larger sums of money to schools than the federal government. In 2022, K-12 schools received $384 billion from state sources and $375 billion from local sources, totaling close to 87 percent of overall investment nationwide.
Even so, federal funding plays a vital role in school district budgets. It often pays for staff and programs districts otherwise wouldn’t have the resources to offer. And it provides key support for costly services districts are required by federal law to provide, regardless of how many students need them or how much they cost.
Virtually every district gets some money from the federal government. But some states and districts rely on federal funding far more than others, depending on a variety of factors such as the number and share of students who qualify for additional aid.
In 2022, six states—Alaska, Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, and South Dakota—got more than one-fifth of their K-12 funding from the federal government. Four other states—Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York—got less than 10 percent from federal sources.
What do schools use federal money for?
Title I funds are designated for students from low-income families. For some schools with a small number of those students, districts can only spend Title I funds on services for those specific students. Schools with higher percentages of students that qualify for Title I aid get more flexibility to use those funds for programs and services that serve all students.
The vast majority of schools’ annual operating budgets go to salaries and benefits for employees. Federal funds help cover those costs in many places.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina, for instance, uses 70 percent of its $50 million Title I allocation for salaries and benefits. Another 16 percent funds a pre-K program open to all 4-year-old children in the district.
Districts in Colorado use Title I funds to cover a wide range of expenses: salaries for teachers and instructional coaches, tutoring, field trips, family engagement and parent outreach programs, classroom supplies, and curriculum materials.
Funds from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) help pay for special education services that districts are required by law to offer regardless of how much funding support they get. Title III operates similarly for services for English learners.
Some federal funding programs go to schools based on their particular circumstances, like Impact Aid for school districts with non-taxable federal land within their boundaries. Others are competitive programs for which districts or states apply, like for civics education, charter schools, and education research.
When does the federal government deliver education funding to states?
Most federal funding streams for K-12 schools pass through state education departments. Each year on July 1, the federal government updates states’ federal award platforms with roughly 75 percent of allocations for most key programs, including Title I and IDEA. The remaining 25 percent goes out to states the same way on Oct. 1—the start of the new federal fiscal year.
How do districts access federal funding?
In almost every state, districts are notified by their state departments of education of the amount of money they’re getting from each federal funding stream. They use cash from their own accounts to make purchases according to the spending guidelines. Then they draw down that federal money from the state, which in turn draws that amount down from the federal government.
Some states reimburse districts once a month or every other week, while others do it on a less predictable cadence.
The federal government hasn’t yet approved a budget for the current fiscal year. What does that mean for schools?
Congress in March approved a “continuing resolution” that generally maintains current funding levels through Sept. 30. That means schools should expect the federal funding allocations they get on July 1 to look similar to last year’s.
But there’s a catch: Continuing resolutions aren’t as detailed as full budget bills. For some categories of federal education grants, Congress didn’t include specific amounts for each program—leaving wiggle room for the executive branch to cut programs that don’t align with its priorities. U.S. senators, including one Republican, have already raised concerns that the Trump administration is doing just that.
Programs that lack a designated line-item allocation and could be vulnerable to cuts include Title II grants for instructional improvement and professional development; charter school grants; and McKinney-Vento funds to support students experiencing homelessness.
Does the executive branch have the authority to withhold federal funding from schools?
Yes—but only under limited circumstances and after following certain procedures.
The federal rules for civil rights investigations of school districts outline a series of consequences that culminate in fiscal penalties. The federal government rarely imposes those penalties; the most recent case appears to have been more than three decades ago, when the department withheld funds—and later restored them—after the DeKalb district in Georgia declined to turn over requested materials for a special education investigation.
Those investigations typically play out over several years, but the Trump administration has accelerated the process, particularly in the case of Maine, even as it’s gutted the agency offices that carry out such investigations.
If the administration finds a district is violating civil rights law, it typically would send a letter urging compliance and laying out a list of remedies for the district to follow.
If the district doesn’t comply, the first fiscal penalty would be cuts to administrative funds that flow to states. Those funds aren’t as consequential as money that directly fuels classroom instruction. But the cuts are designed to get the attention of state lawmakers and officials.
“All of a sudden, if they want to keep functions going, they have to appropriate more funds from the state treasury,” said Julia Martin, director of policy and government affairs for the Bruman Group, an education law firm that represents school districts and states.
As a next step, the federal government can withhold funds from a specific program that benefits districts.
“Generally that’s reserved for grantees or subgrantees that are not appropriately carrying out a program, or that have knowingly engaged in significant violations of the terms of the program,” Martin said.
Alternatively, the federal government can require the state or district use other sources of funds to make up for funds that were allocated inappropriately. For instance, when states give money to charter schools that was meant for traditional public schools, the federal government allows the charter schools to keep the federal money, but requires the state to pay the traditional public schools the sum of money that should have been from federal sources.
The most extreme measure the federal government could take is to assert that a district or state violated the False Claims Act—meaning they drew down federal funds knowing they were using them for an illegal purpose. That law, passed in 1863 to crack down on defense contractor fraud during the Civil War, gives the federal government the authority not only to claw money back, but to impose monetary penalties.
The letter states received in early April demanding they certify schools aren’t using diversity, equity, and inclusion programs says the administration could invoke the False Claims Act for districts and states that don’t comply. As of April 24, 19 states had declined to sign the letter, according to Education Week’s tracker. Districts in Dayton, Ohio, and Fayette County, Ky., also declined to sign before the deadline.
Do districts have recourse if they believe the federal government is illegally withholding their money?
Yes. The General Education Provisions Act and other federal laws lay out processes for recipients of federal funding to appeal decisions to withhold or terminate funds. Courts often prefer to see that recipients have taken that step before they file a lawsuit claiming the withholding was illegal, Martin said.
Could the federal government decide on July 1 not to send out all the money states and districts are expecting?
That would be illegal. The Impoundment Control Act, passed by Congress in 1974 to rein in executive overreach by the Nixon administration, requires the federal government to secure approval from Congress before declining to appropriate funds according to the budget law Congress approved.
The federal government also can’t add new conditions to congressionally approved federal grants without going through a lengthy process of notice and public comment.
However, the DEI certification letter every state received April 3 offers a clue as to the Trump administration’s potential next step. The administration asserts in that letter that it’s merely asking states and districts to affirm that they’re following the administration’s interpretation of existing federal civil rights law—not imposing new regulations altogether.
The administration could try to argue that there’s nothing illegal about its effort to clarify existing regulations, Martin said. That argument might not pass muster with the court system, though. A Maryland federal judge appointed by Trump during his first term ruled on April 24 that the administration’s push for states and schools to eliminate DEI-related initiatives did constitute a significant policy change, and thus required notice and a lengthy comment period before taking effect.
Oklahoma’s education chief said he wants to withhold funding from districts that don’t sign the administration’s anti-DEI certification letter. Is that possible?
Yes, but only after following processes that could be time-consuming.
If State Superintendent Ryan Walters or other state education agencies in the coming weeks wanted to stop federal money from flowing to districts, they could ask the federal Education Department to open a civil rights investigation into districts that didn’t sign the DEI certification letter. Walters could then argue those districts shouldn’t receive their federal allocations until the case plays out. And that investigation could culminate in the fiscal penalties detailed above.
For federal funding that’s expected to roll out on July 1, the state could assert that districts that didn’t sign the certification letter are out of compliance with federal civil rights law.
“There are administrative appeals processes for those responses, but they’re processes, they take some time,” Martin said.
Those processes also depend on follow-through from Education Department employees, who may be stretched thin after sweeping staffing cuts.
Will Congress follow through on Trump’s promises to reduce federal funding for K-12 schools?
That remains to be seen. The White House hasn’t released its annual budget proposal yet, though some details have started to leak. In previous years, under Presidents Biden and Trump, that document—a starting point for negotiations over Congressional appropriations—emerged in late February or March.
Programs like Title I and IDEA have long maintained bipartisan support. Congress didn’t heed Trump’s proposals during his first term to dramatically reduce education funding.
But Republicans in Congress during the second Trump administration have shown a diminished desire to challenge the president or differ from his policy priorities. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has said the administration intends to maintain Title I and IDEA, but hasn’t specified how much she thinks should be invested.
