Don’t let noise from D.C. interrupt class in Minnesota

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President Donald Trump said last week that he’d like to close the U.S. Department of Education and, in the meantime, it seems he will move to reduce its activities. We now know that this includes canceling at least some programs at the agency’s research and statistics arm, and it will probably include more than that soon. There’s now an active contest between the courts and the president over whether he has complied with a district court order to undo the funding freeze. That story will evolve quickly and probably end at the Supreme Court.

We can’t know how these legal battles will come out, but it is a good time to get a better handle on the federal role in education and the likely impact of these moves here in Minnesota.

I’ll try to answer at least some of the questions I’m hearing. But an old college friend reminded me there’s also one big answer for anyone involved in education: Keep up your great work, because noise from over there shouldn’t interfere with what you’re doing right here.

As for answers — let’s start with the big picture. First, Congress created the Department of Education, so nearly everyone agrees that it would take an act of Congress to un-create it. It seems the plan is to reduce any of the department’s activities that have not been specifically established by Congress, and then work with Congress to eliminate it.

Would Congress do that? Republicans have a wafer-thin majority, so more than a few Democrats would have to join in abolishing the agency in order to clear the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold. And in 2023, 60 House Republicans voted against abolishing the Education Department. So it seems unlikely that Congress would abolish the agency, but it’s 2025. Maybe anything is possible.

Would it matter? Perhaps. Education’s biggest programs were created in 1965 and administered by another agency until the Education Department came into existence in 1980. To end the federal role in education, Congress would have to end federal education programs. Reforming them is on the table, but ending them isn’t really. For example, Project 2025, the much-discussed but little-read blueprint for the second Trump administration, mainly proposed sending the department’s programs to different agencies.

So what exactly does the U.S. Department of Education do? If you’re a little fuzzy on this, don’t feel bad — it’s confusing. For starters, it doesn’t do education. There’s a section of the U.S. Code titled “Prohibition against federal control of education” that makes it illegal for the federal government to direct the “curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel” of any school or college. Since the department doesn’t do education, what it does instead is money and rules. Think of the secretary of education like the commissioner of a sports league — not a referee, not a coach, not a team owner and not a player. She’s setting and enforcing some of the league’s rules, managing money flows to level things out a bit, and doing it a long way from the field — or in this case, the whiteboard. (Right now the secretary is Denise Carter, by the way. She’s a star, and will serve until her successor is confirmed. That hearing is set for Thursday.)

As for money, how much is at stake? The U.S. spends $950 billion a year on K-12 schools. To put that into perspective, we spend $850 billion on the military — but unlike military spending, education spending is 90% state and local. The 10% federal share largely supports special education, students from lower-income families, and more targeted programs like English language acquisition and teacher training. If that money were shut off, state and local officials would need to do some all-terrain driving to figure out how to fill the gaps. But Congress appropriated money to those programs specifically, so Congress would have to shut that money back off. To give you a sense of how likely that is, when legislation was proposed in 2023 to return all federal K-12 funding to the states, 126 Republicans and every Democrat voted against it. And that didn’t reduce funding for schools; it just proposed sending the money back to the states.

Federal money is a bigger factor for colleges and universities, and it comes in two main forms: grants and loans for tuition (collectively known as federal student aid), and grants that fund research. Starting with federal student aid, 40% of Minnesota’s 425,000 college and graduate students pay for college in part with the help of federal student loans and Pell grants, and a typical college in Minnesota has perhaps 40% of its revenue tied to these sources. It’s pretty clear the Education Department has no intention of blocking student aid, even while other expenditures are under scrutiny. This recognizes a long-known political reality: any interruption to student aid immediately hurts students — and “student” is spelled “v-o-t-e-r” on Capitol Hill. Nearly everyone thinks federal student aid should be reformed; nobody is talking about killing it.

By contrast, federal research grants seem quite likely to be disrupted (though nobody is talking about terminating them either). Grant-making bodies like the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation have pretty wide discretion in how they spend their money, which means that a new administration has some flexibility to make changes. As in other arenas, this administration is pushing for maximum flexibility. Last Friday, the NIH changed its policies in a way that could reduce its annual grant spending by $4 billion. If this sticks, research universities can expect $4 billion less from the government starting soon. Other moves could tighten the screws even more, perhaps especially for universities with big endowments.

Locally, this is really only an issue for the University of Minnesota, which is ranked 21st in the nation for R&D with $1.3 billion in spending. Nearly all of that comes from federal research grants, so the problem could be real. But a place like Minnesota State Mankato has just $3 million in federal research grants, and a typical private college in Minnesota has around $1 million. That’s nothing to sneeze at, but losing it won’t break the bank.

Back to our league commissioner analogy — what rules are enforced by the Education Department? First, civil rights. That’s what got the federal government involved in education to begin with, starting with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Now, the Office for Civil Rights investigates complaints about discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability and age. Congress appropriates funds specifically to the Office for Civil Rights, so it is likely to keep operating. Civil rights in education are also enforced by the Educational Opportunities Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as the Department of Human Rights here in Minnesota. Private groups and individuals can enforce civil rights in court, too. In addition to federal civil rights, states can provide civil rights protections too, as Minnesota does.

Beyond civil rights, other rules govern the recognition of accreditors, eligibility for student aid, the proper use of federal grant money and so on. These rules and their enforcement are slow-moving. Did you see the sloth Super Bowl ad? Like that. And perhaps they should be, within reason. But it means that changes to the department will take a while — and potentially a very long while — to impact Minnesota’s schools.

Let me close with a note about executive orders since they have created a lot of noise lately. First, as we all learned in "Schoolhouse Rock," only Congress can make laws. This means the president can’t change the law, even with an executive order. Lawful executive orders can change how a law is enforced or direct the administration to start the process of revising regulations — a process that takes months or years. This administration is looking to push the limits of its discretion, but the other two branches have a say, and the first branch — Congress — will have the last word. That’s not a recipe for consensus or quick solutions, but it’s in the structure of the Constitution. As we round the corner on America’s 250th birthday, that’s a good thing to remember.

Also: Keep up your great work.

Dan Currell, a lawyer and consultant, was deputy undersecretary and senior adviser at the U.S. Department of Education from 2018 to 2021. He is a trustee of Gustavus Adolphus College and lives in St. Paul.