Secretary Miguel Cardona: “This isn’t a red or blue thing. This is about children. If we talk about the impact it’s going to have in all of our communities, regardless of political affiliation, we can correct what’s happening.”
Today, former United States Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, Central Bucks School District School Board Member Karen Smith, and Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education Member Nick Melvoin joined Defend America Action for a press call discussing the impacts of the Trump administration’s unprecedented attacks on education, up to and including the systematic dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education.
Speakers highlighted how Donald Trump’s education agenda, which was co-signed by the U.S. Supreme Court last week, is bad for American families, kids, and college students. In addition to making it harder to pay off student loan debt, Trump has withheld billions of dollars in education grants without explanation and signed a national private school voucher program into law that threatens to devastate public education.
“Our country is better when we have an educated workforce. Our country is stronger. Our defense is better when we have an educated workforce. However, it seems that the cuts in this administration are doing China’s work for them. When you cut our research, when you cut the departments that were intended to make sure that we are competing internationally, you’re doing China’s work for them,” said Former Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. “This isn’t a red or blue thing. This is about children. If we talk about the impact it’s going to have in all of our communities, regardless of political affiliation, we can correct what’s happening, and make sure that our students have the support that they need, the funding that they need, and that our schools are strong. If not, what chance do we have in this country of continuing to grow, and continuing to be internationally competitive?”
“As a cog in the wheel of public education, it feels grossly unfair and unjust to be forced at the school district level to pass and maintain balanced budgets annually, under a myriad of restrictions and regulations, when both the state and federal governments can be weeks late on their budget and add millions or trillions of dollars onto the deficit. There’s no balanced budgets for them,” said CBSD School Board Member Karen Smith. “This administration has claimed there’s not enough money for school lunches, so that our nation’s children are trying to learn on an empty stomach, yet they can find the money and the resources to build a detention center for immigrants in a week. They can triple the budget for ICE, but not for our kids. Their priorities are unconscionable.”
“At the very time that the Trump administration was cutting these programs for vulnerable students, they were spending more money on the National Guard and on the Marines, literally sitting a few blocks from our school district headquarters, doing nothing […] The amount of money spent on that wasteful and unconstitutional overreach, to have the National Guard and the Marines in LA, is more money than is being cut from our budget,” said LAUSD School Board Member Nick Melvoin. “This is not an exercise in balancing the budget. This is an exercise of cruelty and striking at the heart of our public school system, because we know that is how our immigrant and vulnerable communities succeed. And that success is not something this administration is looking for.”
BACKGROUND:
BY THE NUMBERS
- Trump signed a national private school voucher program that could cost taxpayers over $50 billion annually
- Trump is cutting Medicaid funding used to pay school nurses and therapists by $1 trillion
- Trump is cutting or terminating food assistance for an estimated 1 million children
- Trump laid off approximately 1,400 Department of Education employees
- Trump put $6.8 billion in federal funds for K-12 schools on hold indefinitely
- Trump plans to transfer the nation’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio of nearly 43 million borrowers away from the Department of Education to unrelated federal agencies without any experience administering education funding
- Trump is forcing millions of student loan borrowers to pay hundreds of dollars more in monthly student loan payments and has paused income-based student loan repayment plans for 2 million borrowers
📚 DISMANTLING THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
- Putting $6.8 billion in federal funds for K-12 schools on hold indefinitely and without explanation, threatening funding that helps pay for after-school and summer programs, support for students learning English, teacher training, and more.
- Laying off thousands of employees from the Department of Education.
- Announcing plans, co-signed by the Supreme Court, to shutter and dismantle the Department of Education, which entails:
- Transferring the nation’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio of nearly 43 million borrowers to the Small Business Administration or Treasury Department, both unrelated federal agencies without any experience administering education funding.
- Transferring workforce training and adult education programs to the Department of Labor.
- Transferring other duties to the Department of Health & Human Services and Justice Department.
🎓 MAKING HIGHER EDUCATION LESS AFFORDABLE THAN EVER
- Making it far more difficult for low- and middle-income graduate and professional school students to take out loans for expensive graduate programs by capping loan amounts.
- Forcing millions of borrowers to pay more in monthly student loan payments
- Pausing income-based student loan repayment plans for 2 million borrowers
🏫 THREATENING TO DESTROY PUBLIC EDUCATION AS WE KNOW IT
- Signing the first national private school voucher program into law that could cost taxpayers over $50 billion annually, devastating public education by providing up to $1,700 in federal tax credits for individuals who donate to organizations that provide private and religious school scholarships.
- Cutting Medicaid – which states use to fund salaries for school health staff such as nurses, psychologists, occupational and physical therapists, and speech-language pathologists – by $1 trillion.
- Cutting or terminating food assistance for an estimated 1 million children, who could lose eligibility for free school meals in the process.
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