The U .S.
Department of Education this week
announced it would lay off 1
,300 employees,
effectively decimating its staffing.
Wisconsin is one of 20 states
that has joined a lawsuit
challenging the Trump administration
over this move and to, quote,
stop the dismantling of the agency.
To understand the impact, we're
joined by Suzanne Eckes, professor
of education law, policy, and
practice at the UW
-Madison School of Education.
Thanks very much for being here.
Thanks so much.
So as an education policy
expert, what is your reaction to
cutting nearly half of the staff at
the U .S. Department of Education?
Well, this is going to have quite an
impact on the U .S.
Department of Education as a whole
and then specific departments,
whether it's related to
the group that's working on
financial aid or the Office for
Civil Rights.
Over the years, Congress has
enacted many statutes,
federal laws, authorizing
additional functions
of the U .S.
Department of Education.
So for example,
the Individuals with Disabilities in
Education Act. But just more
broadly, the impact that
these cuts, these layoffs, rifts,
reduction in force may have, just
speaking very broadly,
is the U .S.
Department of Education administers
federal loans for college students
under Title IV, Pell
Grants, the FAFSA form for
financial aid.
They oversee Title I funds
that provide schools with
high numbers of low -income
students.
additional funding.
The U .S.
Department of Education enforces
FERPA, which protects educational
records from third parties, both
at the K -12 level and
in higher education.
It oversees crime statistics in
higher education, accreditation
in higher education to
prevent diploma mills,
vocational education programs,
special education and civil rights
enforcement. That's just to name a
few of the areas that.
will be affected by these
large numbers of
layoffs in this last week.
So what will those large number
of layoffs or possibly
shutting the Department of Education
down altogether mean in Wisconsin?
So, I'm going to...
give you just one example
of how this could play out in
Wisconsin. So, as
one example, there was
a press release that
said, you know, there were over 1
,300 layoffs in this
last week.
Out of those 1 ,300, 240
of those layoffs directly would
impact the Office for Civil Rights.
And seven of the
12 Office for civil rights,
regional offices have
in essence closed.
So what that means for Wisconsin is
our regional office is no longer
functional in Chicago.
And so when you are a
parent or a family that
feels that
you have a student in the public
school system
that maybe has experienced
harassment, bullying,
disability discrimination, race
discrimination, the Office
for Civil Rights was a way for
families Thank you for watching!
to file a complaint for
free, and then the Office for Civil
Rights, one of these regional
offices, usually Wisconsin would
work with the Chicago office, which
is now not
functional, would
perform an investigation to
ensure that the civil rights of
students were being protected
in a school setting.
So last year alone, there were
23 ,000 complaints
to the Office for Civil Rights,
complaints by families and parents.
Most of those 23 ,000
involve students with disabilities.
And that's an increase of 18
% from the previous year.
So there are still some functioning
offices for Office for Civil Rights,
but it's going to cause quite a
backlog and stall these
parents who are seeking advice
and assistance with
these pretty serious civil rights
matters.
So I know that the Trump
administration has said that they
would like to move some
of the functions or all of the
functions from the Department of
Education back to the states.
Can Wisconsin absorb that?
Well, that's interesting.
So they talk about moving
a lot of the
tasks to the states, but there's
also been a lot of discussion about
moving some of the functions of
the US Department of Education to
places like Health and Human
Services or the
US Department of Justice.
So for example, the Americans with
Disabilities Act is already out of
the Department of Justice.
The Head Start program is already
out of HHS.
But of course, one issue
that you have from.
shuttering the U .S.
Department of Education and whether
you're moving it to the
state level in Wisconsin
or you're moving it to HHS or
to let's say the Department of
Justice is
do these agencies
have the expertise
that the U .S.
Department of Education had?
I believe you're losing some a lot
of that expertise around for example
I've used the example previously are
on students with disabilities.
Presumably, people who work in the
US Department of Education in
that area have
an understanding of that very
complex area of law.
And if you move that, let's say,
to HHS, will
Robert Kennedy and those working
in HHS have that
knowledge, that expertise?
And also, you're losing the
institutional knowledge when you're
shuttering, or in fact,
closing, which is an act of
Congress, closing the entire
Department of Education.
the expertise.
I worry about that.
So the administration also asks
though why money should be poured
into these federal education
programs when student test
scores are so suffering.
Well, it's interesting.
So the US Department of Education,
in the grand scheme of things, when
you look at other departments
across the federal government,
has roughly 4 ,000 employees.
And when you look at the arm,
the IES is the Department of the
Research Division of the US
Department of Education.
So they have approximately 180
or so employees
who work to collect
research around
student literacy, or
students with disabilities.
Well, from what I've read this week,
that there've already been around
100 cuts out of the 186
people from that research arm.
So, many would argue that
that, the IES arm
of the U .S.
Department of Education was already
underemployed and underfunded.
And now, with 186,
you cut 100.
I worry that important
research that's taking place around
student achievement levels may
suffer even more drastically
when we don't
have research and research
being conducted across
the U .S.
on these pressing matters around
student achievement levels.
The multi -state lawsuit that
Josh Call signed on to over cuts to
the Department of Education asserts
that it takes an act of Congress
to dismantle
the agency.
But how much havoc do these
actions, lawsuits,
judicial, you know, temporary
injunctions and
rescissions, you know, wreak
on the people doing the work?
Well, that's a great question.
And I read over that complaint,
that lawsuit yesterday.
It just was filed yesterday by
20 states, including Wisconsin.
And the complaint in
this particular lawsuit asks for
declaratory injunctive relief,
saying stop the layoffs,
in essence.
It names the Secretary of Education,
Linda McMahon, in their official
capacity, the U .S.
Department of Education, and the
president.
And it really alleges that these
layoffs are incapacitating
the U .S. Department of Education to
function and these key statutory
mandated functions, whether it's
providing for students with
disabilities, federal
loans for college students,
all the things that I mentioned
earlier, this
is a severe
blow to the U .S.
Department of Education and it's
harming the 20
states.
and others, but there are 20 states
involved in this particular lawsuit,
it is severely harming these
20 states' education system.
So that is one of the main
arguments. But to be fair,
the U .S. Secretary of Education has
always been authorized to allocate,
reallocate functions among
the officers of the department
and to establish and alter
this organizational entity.
They have the right to manage
federal personnel.
But I think what this litigation or
this lawsuit is alleging
is whether these cuts,
pretty severe cuts, have
really exceeded the executive
powers when it comes to
the authority in the U .S.
Department of Education.
And I think this is going to
play out in litigation, much like
we've seen some of the other cuts.
Yes, indeed.
Professor Suzanne Ackes, thanks very
much. Thank you.
For more on this and other issues
facing Wisconsin, visit our website
at pbswisconsin .org
and then click on the news tab.
That's our program for tonight.
I'm Frederica Freiberg.
Have a good weekend.
Thank you.