California sues over school funding freeze as SCOTUS OKs killing Education Department
The freeze — announced June 30, a day before states were scheduled to receive their first round of funding — 'has threatened the existence of programs that provide critical after-school and summer learning opportunities, that teach English to students, and that provide educational technology to our classrooms,' state Attorney General Rob Bonta said in announcing the suit by 24 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia.
'Only Congress can decide how our tax money is spent,' said Attorney General Peter Neronha of Rhode Island, where the suit was filed in federal court. Education is being defunded, he told reporters, to pay for 'the tax cuts (Trump) wants to give to rich Americans.'
Hours after the suit was filed, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a separate case, reinstated an order by President Donald Trump's secretary of education, Linda McMahon, to fire more than half of the department's 4,100 employees as a step toward abolishing the department.
The court's conservative majority did not state reasons for its 6-3 decision, which set aside an order by a federal judge in Massachusetts blocking the dismissals. But the court's action could signal deference to Trump's decision to abolish the Department of Education, created by federal law in 1979.
In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the court's other two Democratic appointees, Justices Elena Kagan and Kentanji Brown Jackson, spoke much like Bonta and his state-level colleagues: 'Congress created the Department, and only Congress can abolish it.'
The department's roles include providing federal funds for schools serving low-income students, administering federal aid for higher education and managing programs for students with disabilities.
Declaring that education management should be sent 'back to the states,' Trump has ordered McMahon to 'take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure' of the federal department. In addition to the firings, those steps have included the $6.8 billion funding freeze on June 30.
Bonta said California would lose nearly $940 million from the cutoff. It's not clear how much California could restore from its own funds, after having to fill a $12 billion deficit in its budget for the fiscal year that started July 1.
'After-school, tutoring, teacher training, some programs have already been shuttered, including summer programs,' the attorney general said. He said the state's 5.8 million public school students 'stand in the crosshairs.'
The affected programs include funds for teacher training and English learning; a six-decade-old program for the children of migrants; drug and violence prevention; community learning centers and tutorial programs in low-income neighborhoods, and education and career guidance for adults who lack high school diplomas and for inmates in prisons and jails.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said at Monday's press briefing that school districts in her state had already approved their budgets for the upcoming year when they were notified of the funding cutoff 'in a three-sentence email.'
The Trump administration 'has proven yet again that it doesn't care about the well-being of our kids or our educators,' Campbell said.
Said Bonta: 'President Trump can shout, 'America first! ' all he wants. His anti-education agenda will only ensure we come in dead last.'
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