Red-state leaders applaud end of Department of Education - even though it could cost them millions
Leaders in red states are welcoming the idea of shutting down the Department of Education despite the fact that it might cost them millions, and in some cases billions, in federal funding.
They're preparing plans for when the Trump administration brings about the removal of the department and are sharing their confidence that they will be able to step in and fill the void.
President Donald Trump has been arguing for the removal of the agency for years, and he's now reported to be looking at taking executive action to gut the department while pushing lawmakers to conduct the final execution. Trump cannot remove the department without an act of the legislative branch.
Education department heads in several states led by Republicans say that the possible move would bring opportunities to remove bureaucratic barriers regarding funding as well as cumbersome reporting requirements.
Republican New Hampshire Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut told The Hill that the Trump White House is 'providing states greater control over the education of the children in their states.'
He added that every state has 'different needs in order to serve our communities, to meet the educational objectives and needs of our children in our state.'
'We may have to do things differently,' he added. 'I think … the conversation around providing states greater control over education is a really important and a healthy one.'
Similarly, Wyoming Republican State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder said Trump possibly going through with the removal of the department 'aligns with my belief that education policy should be returned to the states, allowing for more localized and effective decision-making.'
'I really anticipate having more flexibility to use federal funding to best meet the needs of Wyoming students and so without the red tape and bureaucracy from D.C., but receiving that funding in more of a block grant method,' she told The Hill. 'Then we can more effectively use those funds in ways that we know is going to work best in our state.'
Following reports on Trump's plans to gut the department, Democrats were shut out of its headquarters as they demanded a meeting with the acting secretary. Trump's choice for education secretary, former WWE boss Linda McMahon, is set to appear for her confirmation hearing on Thursday.
The federal Department of Education provides about 10 percent of K-12 school funding, and it also operates a number of programs working with the states.
Democrats are concerned about Republican plans for the department, which may include cuts to programs such as Title 1, which works to improve disadvantaged schools, the Individuals with Disabilities Act, and its Office of Civil Rights.
Meanwhile, Edelblut argued that Title 1 is not being used properly in New Hampshire and that the state would do a better job allocating those funds.
Trump is reported to be looking at cutting education programs that are not written into law and significantly decreasing the number of staff at the department.
North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction Maurice Green, a Democrat, told The Hill that 'A productive partnership with and continued funding from the federal government are essential for North Carolina's students and schools.'
'About $1.2 billion for North Carolina public schools comes from the U.S. Department of Education annually,' said Green. Most of that funding goes to Title 1 and IDEA efforts.
'The complete loss of this funding would be detrimental to students and result in the loss of thousands of educator jobs,' Green added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Axios
23 minutes ago
- Axios
Scoop: Trump pressed to take hard line with Iran after Israel strikes
A group of pro-Israel members of Congress is urging President Trump to ensure "zero enrichment, zero pathway to a nuclear weapon" in negotiations with Iran, Axios has learned. Why it matters: The lawmakers — including a Republican, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) — said Israel's strikes against Iranian nuclear sites and other military targets has created a "renewed sense of urgency" on the issue. "This decisive action comes after two months of unsuccessful diplomatic attempts and represents a critical chance to stop the Iranian regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon," they wrote in a letter to Trump first obtained by Axios. The White House did not immediately respond to Axios' Saturday afternoon request for comment on the letter. Driving the news: The letter is led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), a staunchly pro- Israel centrist Democrat, and signed by seven other House Democrats, in addition to Bacon. The nine lawmakers noted that the two-month deadline which Trump set in March for reaching a nuclear deal arrived on Thursday — the day Israel launched its strike. They urged him to add "crushing diplomatic pressure ... to Israel's military pressure" by working with European countries to impose "Snapback" sanctions on Iran for being out of compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal. What they're saying: Trump told Axios' Barak Ravid on Friday that he believes Israel's strike improved the chance of reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran. "I couldn't get them to a deal in 60 days. They were close, they should have done it. Maybe now it will happen," he said. But Iran's foreign minister said that nuclear talks planned for Sunday have been cancelled, and Trump said Saturday that the war between Israel and Iran "should end."
Politico
23 minutes ago
- Politico
Death toll grows as Israel and Iran trade attacks for third day
The death toll grew Sunday as Israel and Iran exchanged missile attacks for a third consecutive day, with Israel warning that worse is to come. Israel targeted Iran's Defense Ministry headquarters in Tehran and sites it alleged were associated with Iran's nuclear program, while Iranian missiles evaded Israeli air defenses and slammed into buildings deep inside Israel. In Israel, at least 10 people were killed in Iranian strikes overnight and into Sunday, according to Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service, bringing the country's total death toll to 13. The country's main international airport and airspace remained closed for a third day. There was no update to an Iranian death toll released the day before by Iran's U.N. ambassador, who said 78 people had been killed and more than 320 wounded. The region braced for a drawn-out conflict after Israel's strikes hit nuclear and military facilities, killing several senior generals and top nuclear scientists. President Donald Trump said the U.S. had 'nothing to do with the attack on Iran' and warned Tehran to expect 'the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces' if it retaliates against the United States. The powerful Iran-linked Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah on Sunday warned it will target U.S. interests and bases in the region if Washington intervenes in the hostilities between Israel and Iran. The group said in a statement that it is 'closely monitoring the movements of the American enemy's military in the region' and 'should the United States intervene in the war (between Israel and Iran), we will directly target its interests and bases spread throughout the region without hesitation.' The statement was the first explicit and direct threat issued by an Iraqi militia to target U.S. forces and interests in the region since the outbreak of the Iran-Israel conflict. Iraqi militias have previously targeted U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria, but have largely remained quiet since Israel launched a barrage of strikes on Iran and Tehran retaliated. Three drones launched at the Ain al Assad base housing U.S. troops in western Iraq on Friday were shot down, and no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Iran said an Israeli strike that killed the head of the Revolutionary Guard's missile program also took out seven of his trusted deputies, seriously disrupting its command. Iran previously acknowledged the death of Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guard's aerospace division in Friday's strike. Also killed were Gen. Mahmoud Bagheri, Gen. Davoud Sheikhian, Gen. Mohammad Bagher Taherpour, Gen. Mansour Safarpour, Gen. Masoud Tayyeb, Gen. Khosro Hasani and Gen. Javad Jarsara, the Guard said Sunday. The Guard did not elaborate on why the men had gathered in one place.
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Political violence is threaded through recent US history. The motives and justifications vary
The assassination of one Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband, and the shooting of another lawmaker and his wife at their homes, is just the latest addition to a long and unsettling roll call of political violence in the United States. The list, in the past two months alone: the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C. The firebombing of a Colorado march calling for the release of Israeli hostages, and the firebombing of the official residence of Pennsylvania's governor — on a Jewish holiday while he and his family were inside. And here's just a sampling of some other disturbing attacks before that — the assassination of a health care executive on the streets of New York City late last year, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in small-town Pennsylvania during his presidential campaign last year, the 2022 attack on the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by a believer in right-wing conspiracy theories, and the 2017 shooting by a liberal gunman at a GOP practice for the congressional softball game. 'We've entered into this especially scary time in the country where it feels the sort of norms and rhetoric and rules that would tamp down on violence have been lifted,' said Matt Dallek, a political scientist at Georgetown University who studies extremism. 'A lot of people are receiving signals from the culture.' Politics behind both individual shootings and massacres Politics have also driven large-scale massacres. Gunmen who killed 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, 23 shoppers at a heavily Latino Walmart in El Paso in 2019 and 10 Black people at a Buffalo grocery store in 2022 each cited the conspiracy theory that a secret cabal of Jews were trying to replace white people with people of color. That has become a staple on parts of the right that support Trump's push to limit immigration. The Anti-Defamation League found that from 2022 through 2024, all of the 61 political killings in the United States were committed by right-wing extremists. That changed on the first day of 2025, when a Texas man flying the flag of the Islamic State group killed 14 people by driving his truck through a crowded New Orleans street before being fatally shot by police. 'You're seeing acts of violence from all different ideologies,' said Jacob Ware, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who researches terrorism. 'It feels more random and chaotic and more frequent.' The United States has a long and grim history of political violence, from presidential assassinations dating back to the killing of President Abraham Lincoln to lynchings and violence aimed at Black people in the South to the 1954 shooting inside Congress by four Puerto Rican nationalists. Experts say the past few years, however, have likely reached a level not seen since the tumultuous days of the 1960s and 1970s, when icons like Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. Ware noted that the most recent surge comes after the new Trump administration has shuttered units that focus on investigating white supremacist extremism and pushed federal law enforcement to spend less time on anti-terrorism and more on detaining people who are in the country illegally. 'We're at the point, after these six weeks, where we have to ask about how effectively the Trump administration is combating terrorism,' Ware said. Of course, one of Trump's first acts in office was to pardon those involved in the largest act of domestic political violence this century — the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol, intended to prevent Congress from certifying Trump's 2020 election loss. Those pardons broadcast a signal to would-be extremists on either side of the political debate, Dallek said: 'They sent a very strong message that violence, as long as you're a Trump supporter, will be permitted and may be rewarded." Ideologies aren't always aligned — or coherent Often, those who engage in political violence don't have clearly defined ideologies that easily map onto the country's partisan divides. A man who died after he detonated a car bomb outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic last month left writings urging people not to procreate and expressed what the FBI called 'nihilistic ideations.' But, like clockwork, each political attack seems to inspire partisans to find evidence the attacker is on the other side. Little was known about the man police identified as a suspect in the Minnesota attacks, 57-year-old Vance Boelter. Authorities say they found a list of other apparent targets that included other Democratic officials, abortion clinics and abortion rights advocates, as well as fliers for the day's anti-Trump parades. Conservatives online seized on the fliers — and the fact that Boetler had apparently once been appointed to a state workforce development board by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz — to claim the suspect must be a liberal. 'The far left is murderously violent,' billionaire Elon Musk posted on his social media site, X. It was reminiscent of the fallout from the attack on Paul Pelosi, the former House speaker's then-82-year-old husband, who was seriously injured by a man wielding a hammer. Right-wing figures theorized the assailant was a secret lover rather than what authorities said he was: a believer in pro-Trump conspiracy theories who broke into the Pelosi home echoing Jan. 6 rioters who broke into the Capitol by saying: 'Where is Nancy?!' On Saturday, Nancy Pelosi posted a statement on X decrying the Minnesota attack. 'All of us must remember that it's not only the act of violence, but also the reaction to it, that can normalize it,' she wrote. Trump had mocked the Pelosis after the 2022 attack, but on Saturday he joined in the official bipartisan condemnation of the Minnesota shootings, calling them 'horrific violence.' The president has, however, consistently broken new ground with his bellicose rhetoric towards his political opponents, who he routinely calls 'sick' and 'evil,' and has talked repeatedly about how violence is needed to quell protests. The Minnesota attack occurred after Trump took the extraordinary step of mobilizing the military to try to control protests against his administration's immigration operations in Los Angeles during the past week, when he pledged to 'HIT' disrespectful protesters and warned of a 'migrant invasion' of the city. Dallek said Trump has been 'both a victim and an accelerant' of the charged, dehumanizing political rhetoric that is flooding the country. 'It feels as if the extremists are in the saddle," he said, 'and the extremists are the ones driving our rhetoric and politics.'
