On Tuesday, employees at the US Department of Education were told not to come into work the next day, and shortly thereafter layoffs that will bring the total employees to half of what there were in January were announced.

Chalkbeat - U.S. Department of Education to lay off one-third of staff

Although shutting down the Department altogether would require a vote from Congress, slashing the staff will achieve a similar result. Already last month, hundreds of millions in research grants funded by USED were cut and thousands of hearings on discrimination in the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) were cancelled as well.

The legality of all of these moves is under dispute, but the negative impact is not.

Last fall, pro-public school advocates successfully pushed the Illinois General Assembly to sunset the state’s school voucher program (aka “Invest in Kids”). A broad coalition of more than 60 local, state and national orgs made this victory possible. Rather than devoting tens of millions of dollars a year to private schools that discriminate, those dollars now go back to the state’s General Revenue Fund to support the public good—including funding our public schools.