Trump’s $7 billion education funding freeze blindsides schools

Nearly $7 billion in education funding—which Congress had approved and President Trump signed into law in March—wouldn’t be released as expected the following day. The email didn’t elaborate on why, mentioning a review.

With the new school year not far off, the funding freeze has sent superintendents from California to Rhode Island scrambling to figure out how to handle a shortfall. The money had been earmarked for a range of activities, including after-school programs, teacher training, adult education and support for students learning English.

“It’s too late to be making this kind of a decision," said Eric Mackey, the Alabama state superintendent, who describes himself as an “old-fashioned fiscal conservative."

On Tuesday, the association of state education chiefs convened an emergency meeting, as their members tried to advise confused district leaders. Advocacy groups attacked the decision as illegal, and educators began contemplating how to plan for the coming school year.

Cheryl Jordan, the superintendent of a diverse, midsize district near San Jose, Calif., said she had planned to use some of the funds for teachers of students learning English and for an onboarding program for new teachers.

If the money isn’t released, it would leave a roughly $1.5 million hole in the district’s budget. It’s too late to make cuts for this school year, Jordan said, so the district would then accumulate a deficit and have to make deeper cuts the following school year.

“It will definitely greatly impact us," she said.

Armen Tooloee, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the move reflected an “ongoing programmatic review" and that “no decisions have been made yet." He added that “initial findings" from the review show that grants had gone to “subsidize a radical leftwing agenda."

Tooloee said that in one instance a grant had “promote[d] illegal immigrant advocacy organizations." He didn’t say what share of the funding has gone to uses that OMB deems inappropriate. The administration has made similar arguments for withholding funds for other federal initiatives, including for NPR and USAID.

Mackey of Alabama said he wasn’t aware of instances of such uses of funds in his state, and would want them brought to his attention if the administration were aware of any.

The billions of dollars in question amount to less than 1% of total money spent on public schools. But the grants are spread widely across thousands of school districts and every state in the country.

Chase Christensen, the superintendent and school principal of an 83-student district in northern Wyoming, said he had planned to use the funds to help train teachers on a new math curriculum and to continue a self-defense program. Without that money, he can probably preserve the teacher training but he isn’t sure about the self-defense course, which Christensen says has boosted students’ self-confidence.

In Durham County, N.C., Superintendent Anthony Lewis is concerned about a dozen or so federally funded instructional coaches who mentor and support new teachers. Lewis doesn’t know whether the money will ultimately come through or whether he should try to find another funding source. “It’s impacting our ability to plan effectively for this coming year," he said.

The Trump administration has several possible next moves. It could ask Congress to approve the cancellation of these funds. It previously sought congressional approval for other withheld federal dollars. In a recent Senate hearing, OMB Director Russell Vought said further requests are “certainly an option."

The administration could on its own not distribute the funds—which would set up a challenge to a federal law that bars the executive from unilaterally withholding congressionally approved dollars.

The administration could ultimately restore the grants, or some of them, after its review.

Thomas Beck, an attorney who was on the Trump transition team where he wrote memos about withholding federal funds, said the administration might argue that states and schools have failed to adhere to the terms of the education grants.

Lawmakers from both parties have raised objections. “This funding was appropriated by Congress and is critical to Maine public school programs," Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) said. Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.) also criticized the move.

This is the Trump administration’s latest effort to cut federal dollars for local schools and shrink the Education Department’s budget. Officials have argued that the department and some of its programs have proven ineffective.

In March, Education Secretary Linda McMahon revoked a previously approved extension for spending Covid-relief money. A federal judge recently blocked this move, and schools have been able to tap in to this funding again. The administration has appealed.

Angélica Infante-Green, the commissioner of education in Rhode Island, said she was particularly worried about withheld funding that has been used to train teachers in science-based reading instruction.

“It’s just been so very chaotic for the last six months," she said. “This is just another layer of that chaos."

Write to Matt Barnum at matt.barnum@wsj.com