Education Dept. Cancels Over $600M in Grants for Teacher Pipeline Programs
At last week’s confirmation hearing, education secretary nominee Linda McMahon called teaching “one of the most noble professions that we have in our country” and expressed support for workforce development programs.
But now the department she wants to lead has abruptly canceled more than $600 million in grants designed to prepare teachers, especially in high-need schools.
The cancellations include a $3.38 million grant to Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, where McMahon serves on the Board of Trustees. The funds supported a program focused on recruiting special education teachers and strengthening instruction in STEM subjects.
The university was among 20 recent recipients of a Teacher Quality Partnership grant, a program that aimed to attract and prepare a more diverse educator workforce. In response to Biden administration priorities, several of the grantees targeted the funds — $70 million in 2024 — toward recruiting and training future educators from underrepresented communities. But now those goals put organizations at odds with the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“Without warning all funds were swept, thus all employees on the grant were terminated without cause or warning,” Erin Ramirez, an associate professor at California State University Monterey Bay, said in an email.
Ramirez said her university’s $5.7 million grant was “illegally terminated.” The funds were supporting an alternative teacher preparation program that aimed to draw 1,350 residents of the central California region into teaching in their local school districts. The revocation of funds, including $3.76 million in scholarships, will result in larger class sizes, higher teacher turnover and “exacerbates existing workforce shortages and economic instability,” according to a summary Ramirez provided.
In letters sent to grantees last week, Mark Washington, the department’s deputy assistant secretary for management and planning, said the cancelled grants were “inconsistent with, and no longer effectuates, department priorities” and could “unlawfully discriminate” based on race or other characteristics.
In a press release Monday, the department cited some of the activities it found objectionable, such as workshops on “building cultural competence” and an emphasis on social justice activism. Grantees have until March 12 to challenge the department’s decision.
Also among the cancellations were Supporting Effective Educator Development grants, which sought to train more highly effective educators. TNTP, a nonprofit that aimed to prepare almost 750 teachers to work in the Austin, Baltimore and the Clark County school districts, and Tulane University, which worked to address a teacher shortage in New Orleans schools, were among those affected.
“Not only does it feel like chaos, it just feels disheartening,” said Libby Bain, executive director of talent at New Schools for New Orleans, one of the organizations working on the grant. The funds supported nearly 300 high school students in nine schools who were earning credit toward an education major in college. Schools might have to cancel summer school, she added, because the grant also paid for the aspiring teachers to work as tutors to gain extra experience.
“They’re going into a field that already feels hard to go into,” Bain said. “Now this thing that they were so excited about at 17 or 18 is being taken away.”
Three-year grants were last issued in 2022 and would have ended in September. The department is arguing that under education law, it has a right to terminate grants early if they are no longer in line with the administration’s goals. But some grantees say they plan to appeal, and Julia Martin, director of policy and government affairs at the Bruman Group, a Washington law firm, added, “We’ll likely see some litigation.”
‘The next generation of teachers’
Both grant programs help lower the cost of becoming a teacher through scholarships and stipends that help defray housing expenses, especially for teacher education students completing their training in higher-priced urban areas. The universities and nonprofits often focus on recruiting teachers for math, special education and other hard-to-fill subject areas. The grants also pay for research staff who evaluate which aspects of preparation programs, like having a mentor, are more likely to keep novice teachers in the field.
“I have a lot of concerns over what’s going to happen to aspiring teachers in areas where we already had local teaching shortages,” said Kathlene Campbell, CEO of the National Center for Teacher Residencies, which had a $6.3 million grant that was cancelled.
The center was working with 13 organizations, including several historically Black colleges and universities, in four states. Some students might not complete their program if they can’t cover tuition and fees on their own, Campbell said. She was still collecting data on how many staff members have lost their jobs because of the cuts.
“If we lose the people who are preparing the next generation of teachers, as well as a significant portion of aspiring teachers, we could see a really big problem in a couple of years,” she said.
Such programs seek to respond to multiple challenges in K-12 classrooms. Over 400,000 teaching positions last year were either unfilled or were staffed by someone without the proper credentials, according to the Learning Policy Institute.
The nation’s public schools also continue to grow more racially diverse. By 2030, Hispanic students are projected to make up a third of enrollment. Between 2012 and 2022, the percentage of white and Black students in the nation’s classrooms fell, while there was an increase in Asian students and those of two or more races. A diverse teacher workforce has been shown to have positive effects on students, including higher math and reading scores, regardless of students’ race. Black students matched with Black teachers are also more likely to graduate and less likely to be identified for special education.