Quad-Cities school leaders consider potential loss of Department of Education
By OLIVIA ALLEN – Quad City Times, Davenport, Iowa (TNS)
Some Quad-Cities school leaders are already discussing what could happen if the new administration carries out plans to strip the U.S. Department of Education.
President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, drawing support from several in his inner circle. While this proposal has drawn criticism from both sides of the aisle, the Department of Education has been a decades-long target for many Republicans.
While it’s unclear if the Trump Administration could succeed in such a dramatic overhaul, the topic has already come up at some QC school board meetings.
How does the Department of Education support local schools?
Jay Morrow, superintendent of United Township High School, said most school leaders were in a “wait-and-see situation” when it came to the future of federal K-12 funding.
“In general, we are certainly worried about these income streams,” he told the Quad-City Times. “They account for just over 10% of our overall budget.”
The Department of Education provides primary education funding to each state — then distributed to local school districts by their respective state departments — under the U.S. Elementary and Secondary Education Act. These dollars include:
* Title I: Supplemental funding to high-poverty school districts.
* Title II: Programs for teachers, principals and school leaders (namely, professional development training); literacy, American history and civics education.
* Title III: Programs for English Language Learners students.
* Title IV: Programs that support a “well-rounded education,” such as health, safety and technology investments; afterschool instruction and care; family engagement initiatives and other activities, along with charter and magnet schools.
* Title I-IV funds are typically determined based on a school district population’s low-income status — i.e., the more low-income students a district serves, the more of this money they’ll receive.
* Title V: Supplemental funding to rural, low-income schools.
* Title VI: Supplemental funding for Native American, Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native education.
* Special education centers for students with disabilities through age 21.
* Head Start programs; which provide child care services to low-income and rural communities across the nation.
The federal government also funds grants toward textbooks, emergency relief and other, more discretionary uses.
While each Quad-Cities public school district uses Title funding in some capacity, they vary by district.
North Scott schools, for example, use Title for reading and career and technical education curriculums, while others — such as Davenport, United Township and East Moline schools — rely more on more comprehensive, supplemental funding to sustain their academic curriculums, extra or co-curricular activities, staffing and overall day-to-day operations.
Davenport and East Moline schools, for example, house Title schools.
With 97% of its students coming from low-income households, East Moline schools use Title funds for most ELA, math and science curricula; all intervention materials — including online access for social-emotional learning — and paraprofessional salaries; parent outreach coordinator salaries; Project Lead the Way materials and much of its professional development for teachers.
PLTW offers exploratory science, technology, engineering and math classes from kindergarten to eighth grade. Other local school districts, such as Davenport and Pleasant Valley, also use PLTW for STEM curriculums. East Moline Superintendent Kristin Humphries said the district was able to add PLTW for all grade levels thanks, in part, to federal funding.
Activities, such as Glenview Middle School’s podcasting and digital literacy classes are included, he said.
Outside of academics, East Moline schools used federal funds for significant building improvements — namely, district-wide library renovations; new desks, tables and storage for elementary schools and new tables and chairs at Glenview.
Across town, Moline-Coal Valley spokeswoman Candace Sountris said the district has “far too many” federally-funded academic and extra-curricular programs to list.
Among other areas, Rock Island-Milan schools rely on Title I funds for instructional pay for certified and non-certified staff and field trip transportation. The district also used these dollars to buy ActivPanel displays district-wide and supplies for family engagement events.
Rock Island-Milan financed several notable facility upgrades via Title IV, including new playgrounds, security equipment and fire alarm replacements. Title IV also funds advanced placement courses at Rock Island High School, along with the district’s “AVID” (Advance Via Individual Determination) program, a college-readiness curriculum starting in middle school.
Despite being the sole Quad-Cities school district without a designated Title school, Pleasant Valley uses federal funding for nine of its programs.
Superintendent Brian Strusz said Pleasant Valley leveraged federal funds in other ways, notably for its joint Transition Alliance Program via Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services — an agency almost 80% funded by the Department of Education.
The program provides free, year-round services to students with disabilities including counseling and career exploration; Pre-Employment Transition Services, post-secondary training, job placement, assistive technology and more. Pleasant Valley also uses federal funds to participate in a Regional Planning Partnership, focused on CTE opportunities, with local employers and community colleges.
If the next administration does disband the Department of Education, Morrow wonders how its previous duties will be assigned. He’s also curious if the ESEA will be reauthorized, too.
“And if so, what will the dollar amounts be?” for each program, Morrow said. “It’s likely and hopeful those will not be zeroed out completely.”
The Department of Education also enforces federal civil rights laws to prevent discrimination at U.S. schools and collects vital education data and insights.
The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act allows federal funding to support education for children with disabilities. As of the 2022-23 school year, 7.5 million students aged 3 to 21 received special education or related services through IDEA — reflecting 15% of all public school students.
The feds also supply schools with “Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning” grants to support before and after-school enrichment and extra-curricular clubs. Morrow said these grants generally were “precarious” because of the program’s payment timelines, but at United Township, they supported programs like “Gear Heads” (an automotive club), eSports and the district’s Big Brothers Big Sisters partnership.
Humphries said for the past 13 years, most of Glenview’s after-school programs were funded by these grants.
“We lost that grant this year,” Humphries said, adding that Glenview is now “scrambling” to find funding. “We’ve had to scale back (club offerings at Glenview) considerably.”
Other programs that support schools — such as food service and E-Rate, a federal reimbursement system for internet and broadband services — are overseen by other agencies, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Federal Communications Commission, respectively.
While there is little fear about the future of federal food service, the Supreme Court is poised to review a lower court’s ruling that deemed the E-Rate funding mechanism as unconstitutional, in July. Most U.S. schools utilize E-Rate to pay for broadband services, leaving many K-12 leaders nationwide worried about the possible impact of a future without the program.
“I am very concerned,” Humphries said. “Without that funding, we’d need to figure out how to fund many things E-Rate now covers, including high speed Internet at a reduced cost.”
But as educators await the next administration’s move, Morrow said the timing of any federal program cuts is “crucial” because of the legal timelines school districts must follow in adjusting their budgets and programming accordingly.
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