The Trump Administration, Once Again, Fails to Invest in the Critical Resources Needed to Boost Achievement of our Nation’s Students

WASHINGTON (February 10, 2019) – In yet another predictable move to deny students the opportunities to reach their highest academic potential, and educators the resources to get them there, the Trump administration proposes cutting more than $5.5 billion from the U.S. Department of Education’s budget, a nearly 8% reduction. Much of that funding decrease is done through block granting more than two dozen P-12 programs. Additionally, while the proposal appears to support lifting the Pell ban for students who are incarcerated, a closer examination reveals that this budget would do so in a highly exclusionary way that lacks bipartisan support.

This short-sighted plan comes at a time when college is increasingly unaffordable, and public-school students — especially Black and Latino students and students from low-income backgrounds — attend schools with insufficient and inequitable resources. To truly help America live up to its ideals, policymakers must give students more of what they need to succeed in school and in the increasingly competitive global economy, not less. This budget is bad public policy, plain and simple. Congress should advance a federal funding package for FY21 that rejects these extreme cuts and invests in students from low-income backgrounds and students of color. Congress also should send the president a bill to lift the ban on Pell Grants for all students who are incarcerated.”

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