Ed Week

School districts, state leaders, and education experts continue to sound the alarm that the Trump administration’s hold on $6.8 billion in federal funds Congress already allocated for education will disproportionately harm students from low-income families, students with disabilities, and English learners. The Trump administration notified states last week that seven federal education programs are currently under “ongoing programmatic review” despite a July 1 disbursement date enshrined in federal law. The federal government distributes money for those programs using formulas that prioritize school districts with high concentrations of poverty. So if the administration doesn’t eventually release the $6.8 billion it withheld last week, school districts with high concentrations of students of color and students from low-income families stand to lose several times more dollars per pupil than districts with low concentrations of those student populations, according to an analysis of federal spending data for more than 9,000 districts across 46 states by the left-leaning think tank New America.

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