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Nearly five decades of working in rural schools have taught me that when a system is running short on people, time and resources, nothing is made better by tearing it apart. But by breaking up the U.S. Department of Education and shifting its core responsibilities to other federal agencies with little to no relevant experience overseeing public education, the Trump administration is doing just that.
This is being packaged as a way to streamline the department’s work. But out here in rural America, where I’m from, it’s clear that this kind of chaos will hurt the most vulnerable students first.
Under the plan, the Department of Labor will be responsible for overseeing K-12 programs. The Department of the Interior will run Native American education programs. The Department of Health and Human Services will take over campus-based child care programs for college students. The State Department will assume international education and student-exchange functions, including programs that support global language and area-studies partnerships. And the administration has hinted that it will announce the transfer of additional programs in the coming months.
There will be no clear authority, little technical assistance provided to districts like mine in rural areas, blurred accountability and conflicting priorities. This will interrupt funding and services that will wreak havoc on student outcomes.
Rural districts already operate with limited staff and underfunded central offices. In many places, one superintendent will be handling Title I, special education, federal grants, transportation, food service and student services all on their own — often while also overseeing district operations. Now, imagine telling that same superintendent that instead of leaning on the Department of Education for guidance, they must contact Labor for help with one set of programs, Interior for another, HHS for a third and the State Department for others. That’s not reform; it’s an obstacle course.
In addition, these agencies all use different payment systems, which only complicates the flow of funding to districts. I have extensive experience working with the G5 payment system, the Department of Education’s central online platform for managing grant funds. I’ve used earlier versions under multiple administrations — Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden. While no system is perfect, G5 has been relatively straightforward and predictable. When issues arise, there’s a clear structure for technical assistance and problem-solving.
That predictability would be lost. Requiring districts to navigate multiple payment systems across different agencies will introduce unnecessary complexity, slow reimbursements and increase the risk of errors. Small rural districts don’t have the administrative capacity to manage multiple federal accounting systems, and even short delays can disrupt payroll, special education contracts and student services.
These delays mean postponing reading interventions, suspending behavioral health services for vulnerable students or holding off on hiring staff. Since the creation of the Small Rural School Achievement program in 2001, which provides grants essential to bridging rural funding gaps, I hadn’t experienced a single delay in federal education funding — until this year. This is clear evidence that instability in Washington quickly reaches rural communities.
The students who rely most on stable federal support are the ones most harmed when a system enters a period of chaos. These include children with disabilities, Indigenous students, English learners and kids from low-income families. They depend on programs that require consistency, not fragmentation. If the Trump administration’s plan proceeds, those services will be stalled and undermined and could even vanish into bureaucratic gaps.
If the administration really wants to support states, there are common-sense steps that won’t plunge schools into chaos, such as streamlining federal grant applications, reducing duplicate reporting requirements, updating outdated data systems and expanding technical assistance. These are practical changes that could make life easier for school staff and families.
At the end of the day, rural America survives on stability. We know what happens when a barn collapses or a herd scatters — everyone suffers, and it takes much more effort to bring things back under control than it would have taken to fortify the structure in the first place.
The same principle is true here. Breaking up the Department of Education and scattering its shards throughout the federal government isn’t reform. It’s disruption. And rural schools, tribal communities and vulnerable students will be the ones who pay the steepest price.
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