Suzanne Eckes on Deep Cuts to the US Department of Education

Frederica Freyberg:
The U.S. Department of Education this week announced it would lay off 1300 employees, effectively decimating its staffing. Wisconsin is one of 20 states that has joined a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration over this move and to “stop the dismantling of the agency.” To understand the impact, we’re joined by Suzanne Eckes, professor of education, law, policy and practice at the UW-Madison School of Education. Thanks very much for being here.

Suzanne Eckes:
Thanks so much for the invitation.

Frederica Freyberg:
So as an education policy expert, what is your reaction to cutting nearly half of the staff at the U.S. Department of Education?

Suzanne Eckes:
Well this is going to have quite an impact on the U.S. Department of Education as a whole. And then specific departments, whether it’s related to the group that’s working on financial aid or the office for Civil Rights. Over the years, Congress has enacted many statutes, federal laws authorizing additional functions of the U.S. Department of Education. So, for example, federal loans for college students under Title IV, Pell Grants, the FAFSA form for financial aid. They oversee Title I funds that provide schools with high numbers of low-income students additional funding, special education and civil rights enforcement. That’s just to name a few of the areas that will be affected by these large numbers of layoffs in this last week.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what will those large number of layoffs or possibly shutting the Department of Education down altogether mean in Wisconsin?

Suzanne Eckes:
So when you are a parent or a family that feels that you have a student in the public school system, that maybe is experiencing harassment, bullying, disability discrimination, race discrimination, the office for Civil Rights was a way for families to file a complaint for free, and then the Office for Civil Rights, one of these regional offices, usually Wisconsin would work with the Chicago office, which is now not functional, would perform an investigation to ensure that the civil rights of students were being protected in a school setting. So last year alone, there were 23,000 complaints to the Office for Civil Rights, complaints by families and parents. Most of those 23,000 involve students with disabilities, and that’s an increase of 18% from the previous year. So there are still some functioning offices for Office for Civil Rights, but it’s going to cause quite a backlog and stall these parents who are seeking advice and assistance with these pretty serious civil rights matters.

Frederica Freyberg:
So I know that the Trump administration has said that they would like to move some of the functions or all of the functions from the Department of Education back to the states. Can Wisconsin absorb that?

Suzanne Eckes:
Well, that’s interesting. So they talk about moving a lot of the tasks to the states but there’s also been a lot of discussion about moving some of the functions of the U.S. Department of Education to places like Health and Human Services or the U.S. Department of Justice. One issue that you have from shuttering the U.S. Department of Education, and whether you’re moving it to the state level in Wisconsin or you’re moving it to HHS or to, let’s say, the Department of Justice, is do these agencies have the expertise that the U.S. Department of Education had? I believe you’re losing some — a lot of that expertise around, for example, I’ve used the example previously, around students with disabilities that presumably people who work in the U.S. Department of Education in that area have an understanding of that very complex area of law.

Frederica Freyberg:
So the multi-state lawsuit that Josh Kaul signed on to over cuts to the Department of Education, asserts that it takes an act of Congress to dismantle the agency. But how much havoc do these actions, lawsuits, judicial, you know, temporary injunctions and rescissions, you know, wreak on the people doing the work?

Suzanne Eckes:
It really alleges that these layoffs are incapacitating the U.S. Department of Education to function. It is severely harming these 20 states’ education system. So that is one of the main arguments. But to be fair, the U.S. Secretary of Education has always been authorized to allocate, reallocate functions among the officers of the department and to establish and alter this organizational entity. They have the right to manage federal personnel. But I think what this litigation or this lawsuit is alleging is whether these cuts, pretty severe cuts, have really exceeded the executive powers when it comes to the authority in the U.S. Department of Education. And I think this is going to play out in litigation, much like we’ve seen some of the other cuts.

Frederica Freyberg:
Indeed, Professor Suzanne Eckes, thanks very much.

Suzanne Eckes:
Thank you.