$380 Million In Funding Cuts To One Of The Most Successful Public Education Programs – OpEd

Every day, there's yet another abuse." The wanton attack on public schools is one of America's biggest tragedies.

Chicago schoolteacher Claudia Morales may have been reflecting the feelings of most Americans about life under the Trump presidential administration when she told Our Schools, "Every day, there's yet another abuse. It's scary. And it's coming from our own government." In her work as a bilingual program teacher and bilingual coordinator at Curie High School in Chicago Public Schools (CPS), she's been witness to one trauma after another.

"First, there were the funding cuts the Trump administration made," said Morales, referring to the federal government's decision to withhold more than $4 billion in funds for public education at the start of the 2025-2026 school year. CPS was particularly hit hard by the cuts, with the district losing millionsit had counted on to pay for staffing positions and programs.

"Then we had ICE invade," Morales recounted, noting that the Archer Heights neighborhood, where most of her students come from, was one of the communities targeted by the federal government's immigration crackdown. The Trump administration's decision to rescind the protected status that prohibited immigration raids at schools and student gathering places, like bus stops and playgrounds, made her school's largely Hispanic student population—many of whom are recent immigrants—especially vulnerable.

"And now this," she concluded. "This" is the December 2025 announcementfrom Trump's U.S. Department of Education, signed by Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, to withhold some $380 million in federal funding that was previously granted to schools from the department's full-service community schools (FSCS) program. The initiative provides support for the planning, implementation, and operation of the community school approach to school improvement. The community school approach transitions traditional schools from being strictly academic institutions into community hubs that provide student and family support services based on resources and voices of the surrounding community. The strategy is showing promise in improving student outcomes nationwide, but that seems irrelevant to current federal officials.

As a result of the funding cut-off to Chicago schools, according to Morales, Curie will lose money it needs to pay for tutors, after-school programs, parent education courses, and academic support for students who struggle with learning. These are programs and services parents specifically asked the school to provide, said Morales.

The loss of funding for in-school and after-school tutors will be especially damaging to the students' academic achievement, according to educators at Curie.

"When we learned that funding for our tutors was getting cut off," said Leslie Reyes, the director of the community schools at Curie, "a student, nearly in tears, told us how important this support was for her. Without it, she would have no one else to turn to," she said.

Because of the grants, "our school is a community hub that brings resources into the school it otherwise would not have," said Reyes. "Now our roster of 15 student clubs, which did not exist before the grant funding, will likely go away. We've been able to add these programs and clubs because we had the money to pay staff."

"The whole school feels crushed," said Janet De La Luz, a resource coordinator at Curie whose position is directly funded by the grants. She won't know whether she has a job until sometime in February.

As resource coordinator, De La Luz works with FSCS grants to align program funding with the needs of Curie students and families and make sure they are aware of these programs. She also supervises and monitors after-school programs supported by FSCS grants, including classes on financial literacy and robotics as well as social clubs. Other popular clubs that did not exist before the grants are a horticulture club in which students learn about and tend plants, a Black Student Union, and a National Honor Society focused on higher academic achievement.

"The cuts come on top of being targeted by ICE," she said. "It's just sad for everyone involved."

"Although the students are the ones most affected by these grant terminations, adults are too," said Cynthia Ramirez, a parent coordinator at Curie. "Many of them rely on the after-school program to keep their children safe and engaged in learning while the parents are still at work."

For the past five and a half years, Ramirez has been in charge of parent classes at the school, and she organizes parent workshops to give support and point parents to services and resources in the heavily Hispanic, working-class community. She also coordinates with school nurses and other health providers to help parents navigate things like vaccinations, physicals for sports programs, dental and eye services, and mental health problems. Now, she fears she is likely going to lose her job.

"We're only two or three weeks into the semester, and I've already had a student say she doesn't know how she'll keep her grades up without the help of our tutors," she said. "It's heartbreaking."

"How can a government that is supposed to be taking care of our communities do this?" Morales asked. "It's a betrayal."

'There's Still Hope'

"The harmful impact of these cuts is intentional," said Patrick Brosnan. Brosnan is executive director of Brighton Park Neighborhood Council (BPNC), a local nonprofit that contracted with Chicago Public Schools to administer the FSCS grants at Curie. "The announcement of the cuts was purposefully orchestrated to make it nearly impossible to respond," he said.

According to Brosnan, the organization in charge of administering the FSCS grants statewide, ACT Now Illinois, received the Department of Education's email announcing the grant funding cuts on December 12, 2025, a Friday, so nothing could be done until Monday, December 15. Meanwhile, this was the last week of classes before winter break and during finals. ACT Now and BPNC directors were told they had a December 22 deadline to respond back to the department. "They knew exactly what they were doing and counted on us to not be able to respond," Brosnan said.

"At BPNC, we suddenly had no access to funds," Brosnan explained. "So, we're currently floating staff positions and program positions, including coordinators for after-school programs, parent education, restorative justice programs, and student clubs." Among BPNC employees whose jobs have been placed in limbo are Ramirez, De La Luz, and Reyes.

Despite the short turnaround time the Department of Education laid out, two lawsuits were filed on December 29, including one initiated by ACT Now Illinois and one led by BPNC and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the nation's second-largest teachers union. In an email, AFT President Randi Weingarten stated, "The Department of Education is not Linda McMahon's personal plaything where she gets to decide what legally mandated functions stay or go or whether spending is allocated or not—and yet she repeatedly acts like it. From cutting summer school and after-school programs in June [2025]... to now gutting community school grants in the middle of a school year, her actions are only hurting young people and increasing stress and anxiety for hundreds of thousands of families."

"As long as we're still litigating, there's still hope," said Brosnan.

'These Kids Won't Have a Freaking Chance'

In other states affected by the cuts, students and families are losing programs and services providing for basic needs, schools are scrambling to adjust resources and personnel in the middle of the school year, and educators are losing their jobs.

In a separate legal action on December 30, three Democratic state attorneys general—from Maryland, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia—called for the reinstatement of more than $30 million worth of discontinued grants in their respective states.

Kentucky has seen 40 schools across 20 districts lose their community schools grants suddenly. The Lexington Herald Leader reported that "[t]he grants provided a wide range of services for students and families, including health care, tutoring programs, meals, and immigration assistance."

"We are being cut off at the legs a little bit at a time, where I think we could have done a lot of good for a lot of students," said a spokesperson for the Kentucky-based nonprofit that was distributing the grant, reported WPSD Local 6. "At one Kentucky school," Education Week reported, "a community schools coordinator helped form a partnership with a local optometry college to offer free eye exams to 60 students. Twenty of those students ultimately needed glasses—and got them for free." Now, that service is likely going away.

In western North Carolina, termination of the FSCS grants will likely lead to layoffs of community school coordinators who were key in organizing donations and helping families find essential resources during the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Helene in nine Appalachian communities in 2024, according to Smokey Mountain News. Schools that were gearing up to receive their first grant money from the program will see their planning and preparations go for naught.

In New Jersey, Congressional Representative Nellie Pou, who represents the district that includes Paterson, penned a letter to McMahon decrying the loss of programs covered by the FSCS grants in her district. The grants were key to funding a school-based health center, food distribution programs, resources for teen parents to prevent chronic absenteeism and possible dropout from high school, and after-school tutoring programs.

Nationwide, as a result of the grant terminations, "[h]undreds of public school employees have lost their jobs, with many more fearing they'll be next," reported Education Week.

Although many frontline educators express confusion over why federal funds are drying up midstream, the Education Department's rationale, according to multiple news sources, has to do with its mandate to end "diversity, equity, and inclusion" programs in schools.

To Curie High School teacher Morales, that reasoning sounded like her school was being targeted because of its effort to create a more level playing field for students and families who are already under severe disadvantage in the education system.

"While we should be creating and sustaining systems that help create success, we seem to be going backward," she said. "This onslaught is creating a breakdown of the systems we rely on. Which, to me, is very scary. These kids won't have a freaking chance if we continue to create this instability in their lives."

• Author Bio: This article was produced by Our Schools. Jeff Bryant is a writing fellow and chief correspondent for Our Schools. He is a communications consultant, freelance writer, advocacy journalist, and director of the Education Opportunity Network, a strategy and messaging center for progressive education policy. His award-winning commentary and reporting routinely appear in prominent online news outlets, and he speaks frequently at national events about public education policy. Follow him on Bluesky @jeffbinnc.