Education
‘A Tsunami Coming From Washington’: Chicago, Illinois Leaders Respond to Education Department Layoffs
Video: Joining “Chicago Tonight: Black Voices” are Paul Vallas, former Chicago Public Schools CEO; Peter Cunningham, former assistant secretary of education; and Leodis Scott, a professor of education at DePaul University. (Produced by Bridgette Adu-Wadier)
Officials from across Chicago and Illinois are sounding the alarm as the U.S. Department of Education plans to lay off about half of its workforce, saying that the move puts its future in peril while causing “chaos” for students and schools throughout the country.
“There is a tsunami coming from Washington to every child and state in this country,” Illinois Federation of Teachers President Dan Montgomery said Wednesday morning in Chicago. “It’s not efficiency, it’s not reform, it’s (the) destruction of a Department of Education because this administration in Washington wants to give huge tax breaks to billionaires.”
The Department of Education is planning to lay off more than 1,300 employees, which critics say is part of President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the agency.
Trump has said he wants to return all control of schools to the states.
“More than 1,300 dedicated public servants at the Department of Education are out of a job, our local schools will lose resources, and our kids will pay the price,” Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said in a social media post Wednesday. “This is Donald Trump’s vision of greatness.”
Trump’s handpicked Education Secretary Linda McMahon said when she got to the department, she wanted to reduce bloat to be able to send more money to local education authorities.
“My concerns are that it’s just moving the … chairs around instead of dealing with one central agency that deals with education,” said former Assistant Education Secretary Peter Cunningham, who worked under Arne Duncan. “School districts and states now have to deal with (the Department of) Justice on civil rights issues. The department oversees civil rights right now, and now it’s just going to be one of many priorities in the Justice Department. And they’ll have to go to the Treasury for student loans and they’ll have to go to HHS for Title I. They’ll have to go to (the Department of) Labor for workforce stuff. I just don’t see what the point is.”
The biggest question for many is what happens to the billions of dollars sent to run public schools every year, such as Title I funding, which supports schools in communities with high concentrations of poverty.
Educating low-income children, students learning English and those with disabilities often costs more because it requires specialized teaching or smaller class sizes. Districts without a strong tax base to fund schools often struggle to meet these students’ needs, which Congress recognized by authorizing the money.
Leodis Scott, an education professor at DePaul University, said the move to give more authority to states could leave behind the students who depend on support that federal funding provides.
“We need oversight or a federal view to know what we are doing really well,” Scott said. “If it was to the states, we would almost be separated and divided in a way that doesn’t really get us to communicate together as a community about what kind of education is working and how schools are working and how colleges are working.”
According to the IFT, the department supports more than 2 million Illinois children across 4,000 K-12 schools statewide. The 1.3 million students at Title I schools in Illinois rely on $778 million in federal funding.
More than $650 million in federal funding goes to support Illinois students with disabilities and $54 million is used to provide before- and after-school care for students with working parents, the IFT said.
The IFT contends the layoffs are unconstitutional and will likely face “serious challenges,” but Montgomery said even the attempt “exposes his reckless disregard for democracy and the rule of law.”
“Public education is the backbone of our democracy, and his threats are a direct attack on it,” Montgomery said in a separate statement.
McMahon has said she wants to send the money directly to states, with fewer restrictions. Some have worried that without guardrails or federal oversight, states will use the money to advance their own priorities in ways that potentially entrench inequality.
Paul Vallas, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, said the Department of Education has historically been a controversial agency and has gotten pushback on both sides for its education mandates, such as efforts to implement the Common Core education standards in states during the Obama administration.
“I’m agnostic on whether or not there is a department,” Vallas said. “The department, under successive administration, has gone far beyond the legislative mandates. They’ve literally legislated themselves through their rulemaking and they’ve done it in practically every single education initiative.”
The gutting of the Education Department also comes as the Chicago Teachers Union continues working toward a new labor contract with Chicago Public Schools following nearly a year of negotiations.
Union leaders had pushed to finish the deal before Trump’s inauguration in January, contending the new agreement is necessary to provide a “force field” around Chicago’s most at-risk students, including those with special needs and those in undocumented families.
CTU President Stacy Davis Gates on Wednesday said the federal layoffs “wreaked havoc” on the department and the dismantling of the department will cause chaos for students in Chicago.
“The rest of the world, and in particular the rest of this country, they are going to understand what it feels like to have to fight policies that come from people who do not honor children and what they need in their classrooms,” she said at a press conference. “(Former Chicago Mayor) Rahm Emanuel destroyed our public education system. Donald Trump is about to destroy the special education system for the nation.”
Bridgette Adu-Wadier and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
