Here’s what you need to know about the Education Department funding cuts and what they mean for Philadelphia

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!

The U.S. Department of Education announced last night that it was firing more than 1,300 employees,  leaving the agency at 50% of its former staffing levels.

The cuts come after about 600 employees accepted separation packages from the Trump administration in recent months. The department began the year with 4,133 employees; it now has about 2,183.

In a statement describing the terminations, the department stated that impacted employees would be placed on administrative leave beginning Friday, March 21 and will receive full pay and benefits until June 9.

“I appreciate the work of the dedicated public servants and their contributions to the Department,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in the statement. “This is a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system.”

What does this mean for the U.S.?

The Education Department has myriad responsibilities. Its Civil Rights Office enforces non-discrimination policies in schools and investigates claims of violations; its Title I program provides federal dollars for high-poverty schools. Through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the department provides funding for schools to educate students with disabilities. The FAFSA, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and Pell grants are also under the department’s purview, as are national data-gathering programs to assess student performance.

In its statement on Tuesday, the department said it would “continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking.”

But Rachel Perera, who researches education policy and inequality at the Brookings Center, said that the cuts will devastate the department’s ability to effectively operate those programs.

“I see this as the Trump administration trying to get around the fact that only Congress can abolish the Department of Education,” Perera said. “It’s hard to imagine that these staffing cuts won’t have the effect of curtailing the department’s ability to carry out their core functions.”

The White House has already slashed $600 million in teacher training grants and $900 million in research contracts from the department. Last night’s cuts impacted the vast majority of staff working for the Institute of Education Sciences, the Education Department’s research arm, raising questions about whether national testing and evaluation programs will continue.

How will the DOE funding cuts impact Philly’s School District?

In a statement, Superintendent Tony Watlington said that the school district of Philadelphia currently receives about 10% of its funding from the federal government.

“We have worked closely with the Department of Education through the years and have not been informed of any potential cuts having an adverse affect on our budget,” Watlington said in the statement. “We have been good stewards of the federal funding that we have received during and since the pandemic and will continue to reach out to our legislators in Congress affirming how strategic use of this funding has enabled us to meet the unique needs of our students.”

One stark change for the Philadelphia region will be the shuttering of a regional outpost for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. The civil rights division was among the most impacted by layoffs, according to ProPublica: it previously operated 12 regional offices, and now only five will remain.

“The immediate impact will be people with ongoing claims of discrimination or whatever, nobody knows how they’re going to be handled,” Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg said at a press conference. “Is there a mechanism in place for it? What is going to happen to our kids?”

Philadelphia receives about $178 million in Title I funding and $56 million in special education funds, according to the PFT — money that could be at stake if the Education Department takes an axe to those funding streams in the future. Steinberg told members of the press that 1,449 jobs in the city are “totally funded by Title I and the IDEA.”

Education professionals in Philadelphia said their teams were concerned about the impact of staffing cuts, and the department completely shutting down.

“Everybody knows that we are the poorest largest city in America,” Robin Cooper, president of Philadelphia’s school administrators union, said. “We’re not playing around with federal dollars. We’re not mismanaging federal dollars. We need them.”

Cooper said she instructed her union members to pay close attention to their upcoming budgets and not waver on their commitment to providing equal opportunity to students. But principals are unnerved, she said.

“Our principals, they’re worried because every year we were already dealing with inequitable funding,” Cooper said. “We were already doing more with less.”

Steinberg said he worried that the widespread uncertainty among educators about the future of their schools could negatively impact Philadelphia students.

“This continuing chaos will stop kids from learning,” Steinberg said.

Billy Penn’s Violet Comber-Wilen contributed reporting.