Dive Brief:
- Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia are suing President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Education and the White House's Office of Management and Budget for withholding over $6 billion in federal education funding for the upcoming school year.
- New York Attorney General Letitia James, in a Monday statement, called the withholding of funds "illegal" and "unjustified" and said it has "thrown schools nationwide into chaos." New York is one of the plaintiff states in the complaint.
- The states had expected to have access to the fiscal year 2025 funds, which were approved by Congress earlier this year, on July 1. States then planned to disburse the funds to local districts and subgrantees. Programs at risk from the funding hold include English learner services, academic supports, migrant student assistance, after-school programming, adult education and professional development.
Dive Insight:
The states' lawsuit said the "abrupt freeze is wreaking similar havoc on key teacher training programs as well as programs that make school more accessible to children with special learning needs, such as English language learners."
The Education Department and OMB's withholding of nearly $6.9 billion is "contrary to law, arbitrary and capricious, and unconstitutional," according to the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court for Rhode Island. U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon and OMB Director Russell Vought, along with Trump, are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
OMB told K-12 Dive in a Thursday statement that no funding decisions had been made and that it is conducting a “programmatic review of education funding.”
The office also said its initial findings "show that many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda.”
James, however, said in the Monday statement, “The federal government cannot use our children’s classrooms to advance its assault on immigrant and working families."
The Trump administration has said it wants to reduce the size and scope of the Education Department and give states more flexibility in education decision-making.
The states' lawsuit says that because of the funding delays, several programs for students who participate in summer services and English learner supports have already been disrupted. The lawsuit asks for a preliminary injunction covering all plaintiff states and compelling the Trump administration to distribute the funds.
In addition to New York's James, the Democratic attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, joined the lawsuit, as well as the Democratic governors of Pennsylvania and Kentucky.
