As the US government shutdown looks likely to enter a third straight week, reports say nearly 750,000 federal employees have been furloughed. The Education Department is now facing another round of layoffs. According to the Associated Press, the department was already one of the hardest hit because of the previous mass firings, and these new cuts will further destabilise it. From special education to civil rights enforcement and after-school programs, students and schools across the country could feel the effects.
US education department lays off 20 percent staff
On Friday, the Trump administration began laying off 466 Education Department employees. These cuts reduce the workforce by nearly 20%. The agency will now operate with fewer than half the staff it had when President Trump took office in January 2021. The department had roughly 4,100 employees when Trump took office. Following the new layoffs, that number will drop below 2,000. Earlier layoffs in March had already halved the department’s size. Some employees were, however, rehired shortly after.
The administration is reportedly planning to dismantle the department and redistribute its functions to other agencies. Earlier, over the summer, adult education and workforce programs were transferred to the Department of Labor, and discussions are ongoing to move the department’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio to the Treasury Department.
Federal funding programs in jeopardy
The layoffs will also affect offices that manage grant funding to schools. Teams managing Title I funding for low-income schools and 21st Century Community Learning Centres, which provide federal support for after-school and summer programs, will face massive reductions.
Sasha Pudelski, director of advocacy at the American Association of School Administrators, warned that these layoffs could delay reimbursements to schools, including funds for teachers in high-poverty communities. “We’re talking about the people who worked on the beating heart of our federal public school programs,” she said.
Other programs facing uncertainty include TRIO, which supports low-income students pursuing college, and federal funding for historically Black colleges and universities.
Key offices decimated
Details about the layoffs have not been made public yet. Department officials have not provided information, and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 252, which represents over 2,700 employees, warned that the reductions will impact several offices.
The office responsible for implementing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), ensuring support for millions of students with disabilities, is losing almost all of its staff, with only a handful of top officials remaining. Meanwhile, an unknown number of employees are being let go from the Office for Civil Rights. The division investigates discrimination in schools and universities.
Union president Rachel Gittleman said the layoffs, combined with earlier cuts, “double down on the harm to K-12 students, students with disabilities, first-generation college students, low-income students, teachers and local education boards.”
Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc of the United States, noted that the special education office will shrink from around 200 staffers to just five. “Families rely on these teams to ensure states and schools follow complex disability laws,” she said, citing a previous intervention in Texas that helped tens of thousands of children access special education services.