Schools fear disruptions as the White House begins dismantling the Education Department

By COLLIN BINKLEY Associated Press Tuition Writer WASHINGTON AP The Trump administration says its plan to dismantle the Coaching Department offers a fix for the nation s lagging academics a remedy that could free schools from the strictures of federal influence Related Articles Supreme Court meets to weigh Trump s birthright citizenship restrictions blocked by lower courts Leaders arrive for a first African G summit overshadowed by a rift between the host and the US Federal judge orders release of immigrants detained in Idaho raid citing due process violations Federal judges uphold several North Carolina US House districts drawn by Republicans Executive ordered to resume deportation protection initiative for vulnerable immigrant youth Yet to particular school and state bureaucrats the plan appears to add more bureaucracy with no clear benefit for students who struggle with math or reading Instead of being housed in a single agency much of the Instruction Department s work now will be spread across four other federal departments For President Donald Trump it s a step toward fully closing the department and giving states more power over schooling Yet various states say it will complicate their role as intermediaries between local schools and the federal ruling body The plan increases bureaucracy fivefold Washington state s instruction chief reported undoubtedly creating confusion and duplicity for educators and families His counterpart in California mentioned the plan is clearly less efficient and invites disruption Maryland s superintendent raised concerns about the challenges of coordinating efforts with multiple federal agencies States were not engaged in this process and this is not what we have requested for or what our students need announced Jill Underly Wisconsin s state superintendent Underly urged the Trump administration to give states greater flexibility and cut down on standardized testing requirements Mentoring Secretary Linda McMahon reported schools will continue receiving federal money without disruption Ultimately schools will have more money and flexibility to serve students without the existence of the Instruction Department she stated Yet the department is not gone only Congress has the power to abolish it In the meantime McMahon s plan leaves the agency in a version of federal limbo The Labor Department will take over majority of funding and help for the country s schools but the Teaching Department will retain a few duties including plan guidance and broad supervision of Labor s training work Similar deals will offload programs to the Department of Vitality and Human Services the State Department and the Interior Department The agreements were signed days before the governing body shutdown and communicated Tuesday Inking agreements to share work with other departments isn t new The Teaching Department already had dozens of such agreements before Trump took office And local school agents routinely work with other agencies including the U S Agriculture Department which oversees school meals What s different this time is the scale of the programs offloaded the majority of the Learning Department s funding for schools for instance Yet Virginia schools chief Emily Anne Gullickson for one mentioned schools are accustomed to working with multiple federal agencies and she welcomed the administration s efforts to give states more control Where chosen see vulnerability of upheaval others see a win over bureaucracy Response to the plan has mostly been drawn along political lines with Democrats saying the shakeup will hurt America s greater part vulnerable students Republicans in Congress called it a achievement over bureaucracy Yet particular conservatives pushed back against the dismantling U S Sen Lisa Murkowski an Alaska Republican mentioned on social media that moving programs to agencies without initiative expertise could hurt young people And Margaret Spellings a former guidance secretary to Republican President George W Bush called it a distraction to a national guidance dilemma Moving programs from one department to another does not in fact eliminate the federal bureaucracy and it may make the system harder for students teachers and families to deal with and get the assistance they need Spellings mentioned in a report There s little debate about the need for change in America s schooling Its math and reading scores have plummeted in the wake of COVID- Before that reading scores had been stagnant for decades and math scores weren t much better McMahon announced that s evidence the Tuition Department has failed and isn t needed At a White House briefing Thursday she called her plan a hard reset that does not halt federal assistance but ends federal micromanagement Coaching Secretary Linda McMahon speaks as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt listens during a press briefing at the White House Thursday Nov in Washington AP Photo Evan Vucci Randi Weingarten president of the American Federation of Teachers union and one of McMahon s sharpest opponents questioned the logic in her plan Why would you put a new infrastructure together a new bureaucracy that nobody knows anything about and take the old bureaucracy and destroy it instead of making the old bureaucracy more efficient Weingarten noted at a Wednesday event Schools fear the impact of lost expertise on tuition laws The full impact of the shakeup may not be clear for months but already it s stoking anxiety among states and school districts that have come to rely on the Instruction Department for its procedures expertise One of the agency s roles is to serve as a hotline for questions about complicated funding formulas special teaching laws and more The department has not announced whether agents who serve that role will keep their jobs in the transition Without that help schools would have insufficient options to clarify what can and can t be paid for with federal money commented David Law superintendent of Minnetonka Inhabitants Schools in Minnesota What could happen is services are not provided because you don t have an answer stated Law who is also president of AASA a national association of school superintendents Several question whether other federal departments have the threshold to take on an influx of new work The Labor Department will take over Title I an billion grant project that serves million students in low-income areas It s going to a Labor office that now handles grants serving only people a year mentioned Angela Hanks who led the Labor office under former President Joe Biden At best Hanks noted it will unleash chaos on school districts and ultimately on our kids In Salem Massachusetts the -student school system receives about million in federal funding that helps endorsement services for students who are low-income homeless or still mastering English Superintendent Stephen Zrike reported He fears moving those programs to the Labor Department could bring new rules of engagement We don t know what other stipulations will be attached to the funding he mentioned The level of uncertainty is enormous Other critics have noted the Coaching Department was created to consolidate mentoring programs that were spread across multiple agencies Rep Bobby Scott D-Va the ranking member on the House Guidance and Workforce Committee urged McMahon to rethink her plan He cited the law establishing the department which announced dispersion had resulted in fragmented duplicative and often inconsistent Federal policies relating to learning AP training writers Moriah Balingit in Washington Bianca V zquez Toness in Boston and Makiya Seminera in Raleigh N C contributed to this document The Associated Press coaching coverage receives financial promotion from multiple private foundations AP is solely responsible for all content Find AP s standards for working with philanthropies a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP org