Dive Brief:
- Ten Republican senators on Wednesday urged the White House budget director to unfreeze over $6 billion in already appropriated federal education funds that the Trump administration has been withholding.
- Withholding the funds, which states were to receive July 1, “is contrary to President Trump’s goal of returning K-12 education to the states,” the GOP letter said.
- Their plea follows a similar request from the other side of the aisle, made in a July 10 letter from 32 Democratic senators to both the Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Department of Education.
Dive Insight:
In the Republican senators' letter to OMB Director Russell Vought, they said they want to work with him and U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to ensure all of the federal education dollars “help states and school districts provide students an excellent education.”
While they said they share concerns about using federal dollars to fund "radical left-wing programs,” they said they don’t believe that’s happening with these funds meant to support after-school and summer programming as well as adult learners.
The GOP senators emphasized the money had already won approval from Congress and President Donald Trump through the continuing resolution enacted earlier this year.
Other programs at risk — if the funds are not released — include English learner services, academic supports, migrant student assistance and professional development.
“We want to see students in our states and across the country thrive, whether they are adult learners, students who speak English as a second language, or students who need after-school care so that their parents can work,” the senators wrote to Vought. “We believe you share the same goal.”
The signees include Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Susan Collins (Maine), John Boozman (Ark.), Katie Boyd Britt (Ala.), Deb Fischer (Neb.), John Hoeven (N.D.), Jim Justice (W.Va.), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mike Rounds (S.D.).
Last week's letter from 32 Democratic senators charged that OMB and the Education Department are illegally withholding funds. “It is unacceptable that the administration is picking and choosing what parts of the appropriations law to follow, and you must immediately implement the entire law as Congress intended and as the oaths you swore require you to do,” the Democrats wrote to Vought and McMahon.
Additionally, 24 states and the District of Columbia on Monday sued Trump, the Education Department and OMB over the funding freeze. Students and schools are already beginning to feel the impacts of the freeze, which has disrupted student programs for summer services and supports for English learners, according to the lawsuit.
In a July 17 statement to K-12 Dive, an OMB spokesperson said no funding decisions had been made and that it was still reviewing education funding. The spokesperson added that its preliminary findings show the grant programs “have been grossly abused to promote a radical leftwing DEI agenda” and directly violate Trump’s executive orders.
The OMB spokesperson said it found examples of funds being used by schools to “promote illegal immigrant advocacy organizations” and “conduct a seminar on ‘queer resistance in the arts.’”
The bipartisan calls to unfreeze the funds come as public pushback mounts against the Trump administration over the situation.
On Thursday, 600 local, state and national organizations representing districts, teachers, families and students sent a letter to McMahon and Vought urging them to immediately disburse the funds. The “damage has already been done,” the groups said, as K-12 leaders have had to lay off staff, cancel programs, and terminate contracts "that will impact more than 95,000 schools, nearly 55 million K-12 students, and 1.2 million adult learners.”
