Steven Potter:
How would that dismantling of the federal Department of Education affect Wisconsin's state school system?

Dr. Jill Underly:
Yeah, it would be catastrophic for our Wisconsin school systems. We recently released some maps that show the amount of funding that is federal coming to our different school districts and communities in Wisconsin. Anywhere from — the most diverse school districts, it's about 10% of their budget is from federal dollars. And then in some of the higher poverty or in some of the more rural areas, especially up north, it's upward of 15% or 20% of their budget can be from federal dollars. It would damage programs for literacy and math, especially for elementary school students. It would damage programs for special education. It would certainly lead to higher class sizes because these federal dollars often fund teachers.

Brittany Kinser:
So we don't have information on what that will look like with dismantling it — we're hearing a lot about it. My point is that we still need to get the federal funding that is owed to our taxpayers and to our schools. It's I think around 14%, but it supports our special ed students, our Title money, which supports students who are living socioeconomically disadvantaged. We need to make sure that we still receive that money, and then I think we can — if there's other changes — we can figure that out. But, we need to make sure that the money still comes to our state.