Federal funding for educator quality helped a small district outside Boston cut down class sizes for beginning teachers. A cadre of Delaware districts used it to help teachers better personalize instruction for students. And the school district in El Paso, Texas, which is always on the lookout for teachers with expertise in working with English-language learners, has used some of the money for recruitment.
Those activities—and thousands of educators’ jobs—could be in jeopardy if Congress takes President Donald Trump up on his proposal to get rid of the Supporting Effective Instruction State Grant program, better known to school districts as Title II, after the portion of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that governs it.
Eliminating the $2.3 billion program could hamper implementation of the law’s newest version, the Every Student Succeeds Act. It also could lead to teacher layoffs and make it tougher for educators to reach English-learners and other special populations and to make the most of technology in their classrooms, educators and advocates say.
The proposed cut is the largest—and arguably, the most consequential—the new president pitched for the U.S. Department of Education in his fiscal 2018 budget request, unveiled earlier this month. Overall, the administration wants to slash spending at the department by $9 billion, or 13 percent of its current, nearly $70 billion budget. The plan would cover the budget year that begins Oct. 1 and generally affects the 2018-19 school year.
