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.
In particular, students with disabilities will not have the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act enforced by the Dept of Ed to ensure they are getting the education they need and deserve. The OCR in the Dept of Ed plays a crucial role in enforcement.
CNN - 'Students will suffer harm’: Education Department’s civil rights office gutted by layoffs, closures
Spring testing season has begun in Illinois. The impact of this annual standardized testing in public schools, required under what’s now called the Every Student Succeeds Act, has been problematic for a quarter century. But the funding provided under ESSA and administered via the Dept of Ed is absolutely crucial, particularly for schools that serve many low-income students.
In total, Illinois stands to lose $800 million if Title I funding, the largest portion of funding under ESSA, disappeared. The Education Law Center has a helpful tool showing how much federal funding for K-12 education each state is receiving for FY 2025. The total for Illinois is more than $1.7 billion. (Note that ELC’s numbers don’t include things like school lunch funding or early childhood programs.) Slashing these funds should require an act of Congress, but the Trump administration has been happy to violate the law in nearly countless ways so far.
Given that the majority (>80%) of Illinois’ public schools are underfunded already, the loss of the more than 10% (or more for some districts) of total funding that comes from the federal government would be devastating to students and schools. (More stats on federal funding here.)
It is important to note that the president still hasn’t signed a formal executive order to even start partially dismantling the Dept of Ed—and this is almost certainly due to the preemptive public backlash against it. Last week once again, rumors and a draft order circulated, but the order itself wasn’t issued.
Keep the pressure on your US rep and senators! Here’s a letter to send to them. Follow up with phone calls! Your US Rep’s district offices are more likely to have a human pick the phone, and 5calls.org has those phone numbers for you.
The one-two punch of funding cuts paired with vouchers…
Slashing federal funding is devastating, but if it happens in parallel with the creation of a federal voucher program, it will mean catastrophe for our public school system. Far too few people even know that vouchers are on the table and that Congress is considering passing the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA).
Help us spread the word! Share this great op-ed from earlier in the week which succinctly and clearly covers what ECCA would do and how it undermines our constitution and our public schools.
Chicago Sun-Times - Martin Gartzman: Republican plan for 'school choice' is just a scheme for private school vouchers - Chicago Sun-Times
Here are IL-FPS' posts on Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky to reshare. You can print this flyer and distribute it in your school community, or text this image to a friend.
Attacks on federal agencies also hurt student privacy: HB 2696 could help
Another area that the dismantling and destruction of federal agencies will harm is protecting students’ sensitive personal data. The presidential administration is gutting agencies that play crucial roles in protecting student privacy, not just the Dept of Ed, but also the FTC, SEC, FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Education Week: Is DOGE Putting Student and Educator Data at Risk?
Illinois does have strong requirements in our state law, the Student Online Personal Protection Act (SOPPA) for protecting student data (many of those thanks to vigorous advocacy from parents and privacy advocates back in 2019!)
Unfortunately, enforcement of those requirements depends solely on our State Attorney General, and, even a blatant ongoing violation of the law like a state test vendor selling data hasn’t resulted in any action thus far, despite requests from legislators, families and advocates.
That’s why IL-FPS is supporting the passage of HB 2696, a bill in the General Assembly that would add another enforcement option to SOPPA to let families bring lawsuits against vendors for violations, like selling data or not securing it appropriately. This is known as a “private right of action”—something that tech companies virulently oppose.
AG enforcement of privacy laws simply isn't sufficient. When no one is enforcing privacy protections, tech companies have no motivation to comply with them! Perhaps not surprisingly, we’re also seeing that tech companies aren’t keeping student data safe from hackers. PowerSchool announced a massive breach in January that impacted more than 60 million students and almost 10 million educators across multiple countries, affecting at a minimum dozens of Illinois schools districts.
And Chicago Public Schools just announced another huge data breach last Friday, involving all current CPS students and former students back to 2017. Although families weren’t told about the breach until Friday, hackers publicly threatened to release the data back in mid-January, but according to Chalkbeat, “The district said it was never contacted about paying ransom in return for the stolen data.” This is at least the ninth major breach in CPS in the last decade by our count.
Call your state rep’s Springfield and district offices to ask them to co-sponsor HB 2696! The price of a public education in Illinois shouldn't be students' personal private data. You can also email them—all the info you need is included here. Keep an eye out for a witness slip link this weekend; a hearing for HB 2696 could be this coming week. If you’d like to go to Springfield with us to talk to legislators about why this is the time for the State to step up on securing kids’ data, reach out: [email protected]
Thanks for keeping up the fight for public schools in these rough times!