DFL, GOP educator-leaders respond to Trump‘s dismantling of the Education Department

Education advocates are promising to fight President Donald Trump's most recent executive order that begins dismantling the federal Department of Education.

While the president can't entirely close the department without approval from Congress, Thursday’s order was met with mixed reactions, ranging from Minnesota Republican Congressman Tom Emmer calling it a “win for America’s children” to Democrat Rep. Angie Craig saying it’s an “attack on our kids, teachers and on the future of our state.”

So what does this move mean for Minnesota students, parents and teachers, and is the state prepared? Assistant Majority Leader and Chair of the Senate Education Finance Committee Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton — who is a library media specialist — and House Education Policy Committee Co-Vice Chair Rep. Patricia Mueller, R-Austin — who is a teacher — joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer on Morning Edition to talk about the implications.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player button.

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The President says he wants the states to take more responsibility for education. But as you know, states already have a good deal of freedom, including here in Minnesota, what then realistically could happen by dismantling the federal agency?

Patricia Mueller: It’s important to remember that education is about 40 percent of our state budget, and of that 40 percent, only 8 percent of that comes from the federal DOE. Of that 8 percent, 80 percent of that doesn't even come from the DOE, it's from the Department of Agriculture, and how we actually feed our children. And so after we look at funding, just because they're talking about dismantling the department, doesn't mean we're dismantling the funding.

And so I think the question as we’re talking about how we are looking at the federal Department of Education is, “why are we not looking at what we are doing right here in Minnesota?”

The only budget that we've seen has been what the Governor has proposed which includes over $178 million of cuts — on the back of special education, on the back of nonpublic pupils, and on the back of some of our teachers’ pay, including Q comp. That's something that we should be talking about more than this.

So federal funding accounts for about 8-10 percent of the state’s education budget. But these federal grants are a lifeline for low-income and rural schools. What happens to that money?

Mary Kunesh: Oh, that is a really, really good question. I don't know, and I think that's all part of this game plan to create chaos and confusion for our schools. We know that it is been a long-time goal to defund public education and bring in vouchers and that’s pretty much destroyed the public education that we have.

It might be a certain percentage we’re getting from the federal government, but it's $1.4 billion. That’s a lot of money. That’s money that we use to feed our kids. It's money that we use for Title I — for our neediest and most challenged students.

Saying that that money isn’t important is really disingenuous, and I think that's sort of the attitude of defunding this whole education at the federal level. The long-term ramifications are going to be pretty serious, I’m sure.

Rep. Mueller, what do you say to your colleague here who thinks that this is part of a larger plan to trash public education?

Mueller: Well, I've been a supporter of public education all my life; I've been in the schools for over 20 years. And it doesn’t create confusion and chaos. There is a plan of how to make sure that this funding continues.

And to tell you the truth, the funding that they're talking about is really important and can come from other agencies, but what comes straight from DOE to us is actually what’s funding our own Minnesota Department of Education — which, by the way, even while our schools are cutting because they have they don't have enough money to be able to run their schools, the governor still decides to give MDE more money.

Based on data, the MDE staff payroll is 46 percent federally funded to help support more than 470 full-time employees. And so when we're talking about funding from the federal DOE, remember, let's think about what's actually going to our students and what's going to our bureaucracy.

We want the DOE to be a clearinghouse so that we can have actual guidance and give guidance to our schools. But DOE isn’t doing that, and MDE certainly isn’t doing that, as we are seeing as they keep telling us they have to hire more people to deal with literacy and chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism was never addressed in the governor’s budget.

A lot of parents with kids who are in special education classes are worried about what could happen. Does that mean the state will have to find more money to fully fund special ed?

Mueller: We already are trying to find more money, and we already had passed a plan that actually continued. It was always supposed to be a 40-60, split, and the federal government has never fully funded that.

This funding isn't going away. This is a federal mandate. The IDEA Act would probably go to the Department of Health and Human Services, and 504 plans could probably go to the Department of Justice. These are places where this funding could still go.

And the type of lobbying that we should be doing to our federal government to fund our special education is something that we should continue to do, because, as we are seeing, we are not able to have our cross subsidies completely covered, and our schools are continuing to take more money out of their general fund.

And so sure, let's go ahead and ask the federal government to do that. Department of Education hasn't been doing that. Maybe we'll be able to see that happen as it goes to other revenue streams.

Kunesh: I think when you use words like, well, it could be here, or this agency could do that, or that department could do that, that is the chaos. We have no idea what their plan is to fund education. We don't know if those funds are coming through. We don't know who to contact to ensure that the grants are going to be available, or how to apply to the grant.

When you cut over half of your staff… I mean, tell me how that is efficient. That is far from being efficient. And those are the things that are going to affect our rural schools, our most vulnerable students, our special ed. All of those things that are affecting our students here in Minnesota right now — transportation, food, homelessness — all of those things are coming through one local place.

To say this could do that, or that could do that, is really disingenuous and it adds to the confusion and the chaos of, how do I create a budget? I'm the chair of Education Finance. How do I create a budget not knowing if those funds are going to be frozen, if because schools have ‘we are welcome’ and ‘all are welcome’ posters up they're not going to get the funding? There is so much chaos.

Public feedback

The Minnesota Department of Education on Thursday launched a public feedback portal for students, parents and teachers to share their thoughts, following Trump’s executive order.

“Instability and uncertainty are not strategies, but collaboration is,” Minnesota Education Commissioner Willie Jett, who was unavailable for an interview Friday, said in a statement. “In Minnesota, we know strong public education relies on policy decisions that are based on the real experiences of students, families, and educators. In the face of unpredictable federal action, MDE will amplify Minnesotans’ stories as we continue to advocate for the stability, resources, and policies schools need to ensure every student has the opportunity to succeed.”

MDE said 860,000 students in Minnesota rely on partnerships between their schools and the state and federal education departments.