A planned reduction of the duties of the U.S. Department of Education by President Donald Trump has rattled teachers and administrators throughout the nation. But educators and state officials have differing views on how much the cuts could affect New Hampshire.
On March 11, the department laid off nearly 50 percent of its staff, following months of proposals by Trump to dismantle the federal department and allow states to distribute the money. Those staff members will be placed on leave March 21.
Some in New Hampshire, including state Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut, say they are open to a downsizing of the federal department — if it leads to block grant funding for states.
“As a department, we’ve been making plans for probably two months now, anticipating that it’s likely that federal funds would be block-granted down into the state,” Edelblut said in an interview March 12. “We’ve got a lot of mechanisms in place already to be able to receive these funds and to distribute them through to the schools, because we’re primarily a pass-through entity.”
Others are skeptical school districts will receive the same amount of funds if the federal grant programs are eliminated — especially if state lawmakers make changes.
“Education cuts are going to lead to larger class sizes, less support for students and educators, potentially not having special ed funding, things like that,” said Megan Tuttle, president of the National Education Association of New Hampshire. “It really could end up getting to the point of rural schools closing.”
Tuttle said the firing of employees would make the existing grant programs work less efficiently, even if the block grant system is never implemented. And she raised concerns about the staff cuts to the Office for Civil Rights, which she said could affect students of color and students with disabilities, and to departments overseeing data collection and student assessments.
New Hampshire — like all states — receives a number of regular federal education grants. In the year ending July 2024, it received $51.2 million from Title I, which is designed to support schools with low-income students to bridge achievement gaps, according to analysis by the Education Law Center, a nonprofit group, which used U.S. Department of Education data.
In the same time period, the state received $61.7 million in Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funds, which go toward special education services, as well as $26.9 million across a range of other grants. Those include the Supporting Effective Instruction program, which supports professional development programs to help teachers improve student outcomes; the Student Support and Academic Enrichment program; 21st Century Community Learning Centers; and a number of smaller grant programs designed to target rural school districts, according to the Education Law Center.
In general, the federal government supplies about 10 percent of education funding across the country; the other 90 percent is supplied by state and local governments – in New Hampshire primarily through property taxes.