When Congress handed the fiscal year 2026 budget for the U.S. Division of Schooling earlier this month, many critics of the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the company had hoped the appropriation would ban the outsourcing of sure education schemes to different federal businesses.
It didn’t.
However whereas the appropriations statute doesn’t prohibit the Schooling Division from finishing up or coming into into interagency agreements with different federal businesses, the laws’s accompanying explanatory assertion — which is nonbinding — strongly condemns and discourages the switch of key applications out of the division.
The bicameral and bipartisan assertion mentioned that no authorities exist for the Schooling Division “to switch its basic obligations below quite a few authorizing and appropriations legal guidelines” to different federal businesses.
The assertion additionally raised issues that “fragmenting obligations for education schemes throughout a number of businesses will create inefficiencies, lead to extra prices to the American taxpayer, and trigger delays and administrative challenges in Federal funding reaching States, college districts; and faculties.”
It added that there are issues the interagency agreements will “weaken Federal help to guard the rights of scholars, youngsters, youth, and households below Federal training legal guidelines.”
The doc known as for biweekly briefings with Congress from the Schooling Division and its associate federal businesses on the standing of interagency agreements, together with staffing transfers, implementation prices and the way the businesses are measuring the supply of companies.
“I believe the underside line is there was quite a lot of debate in Congress about whether or not to place the brakes on these agreements in a roundabout way, whether or not that was strolling again among the ones that had already gone into impact, prohibiting new ones, or one thing else,” mentioned Julia Martin, director of coverage and authorities affairs at The Bruman Group, a Washington, D.C.-based education-focused authorized and consulting group. “And in the end, the individuals who have been very involved about these agreements misplaced that negotiation.”
The seemingly combined messaging from Congress has introduced some confusion into the already unfamiliar territory of transferring quite a few core applications out of the Schooling Division.
Collaborations on federal training
As a part of its “Returning Education to the States” initiative, the Schooling Division below President Donald Trump introduced in November it was creating interagency agreements with different federal businesses to help six applications. A kind of agreements was with the U.S. Division of Labor to deal with the administration of about $28 billion across multiple K-12 program grants for low-income college districts, homeless youth, migrant college students, educational helps, afterschool applications, districts receiving Affect Support and different actions.
The Schooling Division mentioned the Labor Division would tackle a higher function in administering these federal Ok-12 applications to make sure that they higher align with workforce and faculty applications to enhance pupil outcomes, in line with the interagency settlement.
Underneath one other interagency settlement introduced in November, the Labor Division will coordinate about $3.1 billion in postsecondary training and workforce growth applications, together with actions for TRIO and GEAR UP.
On Monday, the Schooling Division revealed two extra interagency agreements.
The primary is with the U.S. Division of State on international reward and contract reporting for sure private and non-private larger training establishments below Part 117 of the Increased Schooling Act. The second is with the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers for household engagement and college helps, together with programming for Faculty Emergency Response to Violence, Faculty Security Nationwide Actions, Full-Service Neighborhood Colleges and Statewide Household Engagement Facilities.
Earlier final 12 months, the division created an interagency settlement with the Labor Division for the day-to-day administration of career and technical education programming. As of January, the Schooling Division’s Workplace of Profession, Technical, and Grownup Schooling processed almost 1,627 fee requests totaling $575 million from 51 states and territories and has onboarded all grantees to the Labor Division’s grant administration and funds programs, according to a reality sheet on the Schooling and Labor departments’ elementary and secondary interagency settlement.
A number of of the interagency agreements assign the Schooling Division obligations for budgeting, coverage, hiring and general program accountability, whereas the opposite businesses are tasked with managing grants, technical help and different companies.
In complete, the Schooling Division has introduced 9 partnership agreements with different businesses since final 12 months.
“We are going to proceed to ship successes by these partnerships, additional solidifying the proof of idea that interagency agreements present the identical protections, larger high quality outcomes, and much more advantages for college students, grantees, and different training stakeholders,” mentioned Savannah Newhouse, Schooling Division press secretary, in a Feb. 13 electronic mail.
The Schooling Division didn’t present a standing replace on potential interagency agreements with different federal businesses to outsource oversight of special education programming, federal pupil monetary assist companies or civil rights investigations.
‘Have their cake and eat it too’
Interagency agreements, memorandums of understanding and joint process forces between federal businesses should not unusual and have been utilized by each Republican and Democratic presidential administrations. The Schooling Division has entered into interagency agreements in the past with different federal authorities businesses for particular analysis, know-how or different tasks.
These agreements usually have had broad help, as a result of they intention to create alignment on particular applications between two or extra businesses by shared funding and programming.
The breadth of the outsourcing within the latest a number of interagency agreements is extra uncommon, mentioned training coverage specialists.
Supporters have mentioned that cross-agency administration shifts are wanted to right-size the 46-year-old Schooling Division, which has seen its funds enhance over time whereas studying and math achievement lately has dropped. Final March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing U.S. Schooling Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all vital steps to facilitate the closure of the Division of Schooling.”
Trump can’t shut the division unilaterally with out the approval of Congress.
The enlargement of interagency agreements on the Schooling Division, which — along with Congress’ FY 2026 appropriations statute and assertion — is making a swell of Constitutional, organizational and authorized questions concerning the division’s statutory obligations and limitations.
A Feb. 4 Congressional Research Service report on interagency agreements on the Schooling Division mentioned the Financial system Act doesn’t authorize the “switch of statutory capabilities.” The division additionally “might not ignore” a statutory mandate, the report mentioned.
However CRS additionally mentioned it’s “unclear” if the Schooling Division’s interagency agreements signify a switch of statutory capabilities below the division’s authorities and below the Financial system Act, which the Schooling Division is citing for its means to enter into such contracts.
That willpower might rely upon the precise duties being carried out by the partnering company, in addition to these retained by the Schooling Division, the report mentioned.
Researchers, training coverage specialists and advocacy organizations say there are quite a lot of unknowns concerning the Schooling Division’s technique to cut back the company’s federal footprint by the usage of interagency agreements.
Neal McCluskey, director of the Heart for Schooling Freedom at Cato Institute, a public coverage analysis group that advocates for restricted authorities, mentioned the elimination of the Schooling Division ought to happen by an act of Congress. At present, there are a number of bills before Congress that suggest lowering or eliminating the company’s actions and there have been comparable proposals in previous congressional periods.
The FY 2026 appropriations language concerning the Schooling Division’s interagency agreements look like Congress “wished to have their cake and eat it too,” that means lawmakers do not actually like this method however are letting the agreements proceed for now, McCluskey mentioned.
“Whereas I believe there may be in all probability an inexpensive argument that the president has authority to do these interagency agreements, I believe that it is questionable, and it’s not the best strategy to remove the Division of Schooling,” he mentioned. “I believe that Congress wants to do this.”
A query for the courts
McCluskey and different training coverage specialists and researchers mentioned the validity of the Schooling Division’s interagency agreements could also be addressed by the courtroom system.
“We’re in principally uncharted territory with these IAAs,” McCluskey mentioned.
An ongoing lawsuit opposing the Schooling Division’s downsizing was amended in November to incorporate opposition to the company’s interagency agreements. The lawsuit known as the agreements illegal and dangerous to Ok-12 and better training programs.
The up to date criticism in Somerville v. Trump was introduced ahead by a broad coalition of faculty districts, worker unions and a incapacity rights group. That case has been consolidated with New York v. McMahon, which was introduced towards the Schooling Division by teams of states, college districts and trainer unions. The case is ongoing.
Moreover, a number of Democratic Senate leaders are asking the U.S. Authorities Accountability Workplace to analyze the Schooling Division’s present and any future interagency agreements.
“We’re deeply involved that the administration’s choices to implement CTE and grownup training grant applications on this method delayed essential funding that tens of millions of scholars and faculties depend on, created administrative inefficiencies, elevated the price of program administration, and compromised the standard of technical help supplied to states and grantees,” the senators wrote in a Feb. 19 letter to GAO.
Throughout a Feb. 11 dialogue in Washington, D.C., coordinated by Home Democrats, Ashley Harrington, senior coverage counsel on the NAACP Authorized Protection Fund, mentioned that whereas all federal businesses present necessary companies within the nation, “none of them are adequately ready to tackle the large portfolio of applications that these interagency agreements strip from ED. These businesses are already brief staffed.”
Harrington added that if the interagency agreements are carried out, the Labor Division would disperse extra training funding than cash for labor applications. “These modifications is not going to assist faculties, districts, households or states,” she mentioned. “At finest, these modifications would simply add extra layers of paperwork and extra pink tape between faculties and the federal funding that Congress has promised them.”
Final July, a few dozen former federal special education leaders from Republican and Democratic presidential administrations wrote a joint letter to Congress urging that particular training oversight stay on the Schooling Division.
Stephanie Smith Lee, coverage and advocacy co-director on the Nationwide Down Syndrome Congress and a former OSEP director within the George W. Bush administration, was one of many letter’s signers.
In a Feb. 17 electronic mail to Ok-12 Dive, Lee mentioned, “Scattering education schemes to completely different businesses is inflicting confusion, weakens collaboration amongst applications, and places the rights and alternatives of tens of millions of scholars — significantly these with disabilities — in danger.”
So far as what’s subsequent, Martin, the director of coverage and authorities affairs at The Bruman Group, mentioned, “it is a creating query.”
The potential modifications below the interagency agreements are tough for states and college districts to organize for, as a result of there are nonetheless many unknowns, Martin mentioned. “And admittedly, the division does not have quite a lot of particulars both,” she mentioned. “They’re nonetheless figuring all this out — and we have been instructed to remain tuned.”
Anna Merod contributed to this text.
