The Trump administration is withholding nearly $7 billion in federal funding for after-school and summer programming to ensure that the educational grants comply with the president’s policies.
The nationwide programs that rely on the billions in funding include after-school programs, specialized lessons for students learning English, updates to classroom technology, and adult literacy programs.
The funding was expected to be distributed on Tuesday, however the Education Department notified state education agencies on Monday that the money would not be available. The department did not give a timeline for when the money would be distributed, reiterating that “decisions have not yet been made” on grants for the incoming school year.
“The Department remains committed to ensuring taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the President’s priorities and the Department’s statutory responsibilities,” Education Department officials wrote in the notice, which was obtained by The Associated Press in a report published Tuesday.
The Department of Education did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
The move has resulted in pushback from schools, who have stated that they won’t be able to provide affordable or even free after-school classes or care for children from low-income families.
“This is lawless,” Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement Tuesday. “These are congressionally approved programs for this year, and the Trump administration is trying to defund education unilaterally through government overreach. The administration does not have the right to starve children because of its ideology.”
A senior Trump administration official, who spoke on a not-for-attribution basis, told The Los Angeles Times on Monday that officials were “conducting a programmatic review” and found that some grant funding was in “conflict with what the president ran on, what his agenda is.”
“He did not want to promote multilingual schools. And, obviously, illegal immigration ties in with this,” the administration official told the Los Angeles Times.
The Trump administration has notably taken a more hostile approach toward education and has even proposed to eliminate the Education Department entirely—a move that requires Congressional approval.
