President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants to “close” the U.S. Department of Education – something he’s repeated many times on the campaign trail, along with promises of school choice.
“I’m going to move education back to the states, and we’re going to do it fast,” Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania in October.
What would that mean for the state of Florida?
The education department not only funds programs for the most vulnerable children in Florida, it also funds Pell grants (aid that helps students go to college) and manages state compliance with federal law, like Title IX.
Critics of Trump’s plan say leaving it to the states would push money into the state’s Family Empowerment Scholarships, one of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ major education initiatives, and allow for the discrimination of LGBTQ students.
But some of Florida’s top leadership in Washington agree with Trump.
“It should be disbanded. We don’t need a federal Department of Education,” Sen. Rick Scott said earlier this week.
And Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. hasn’t weighed in on the idea specifically, but he’s no fan of the department.
This week, he posted on X, in response to a proposed federal education data collection rule change, “I look forward to helping the @realDonaldTrump administration put an end to this bureaucratic and divisive nonsense.”
About 1 of every 5 dollars for education is from federal funds
Florida schools receive funding from local, state and federal funds. Those federal funds make up about 18%, according to the Florida Policy Institute (FPI), a nonprofit think tank in the state. For this year, that’s about $10.5 billion, according to Norin Dollard, a senior policy analyst with FPI.
“It takes all three levels of government to make sure that the maximum resources are available to students to support their learning,” Dollard said.
While the department funnels much of the federal government’s funds to the states, other agencies also directly fund state programs, like the U.S. Department of Labor, the Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
For example, Leon County Schools received $19.6 million federal funds for the National School Lunch program from the USDA.
Federal funds that flow through the department support populations of children most at-risk for not graduating high school in Florida, Dollard said.
English language learners, Title I schools, which serve a higher concentration of students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and students with disabilities depend on federal funding to the state for programs.
This year, the feds gave Florida over $830 million for special education programs and over $1 billion was earmarked for “Education for the Disadvantaged,” according to data from the feds.
Critics worry money will be siphoned to pay for private school vouchers
In recent years, under the guidance of DeSantis, the legislature has expanded vouchers for school choice, a move that worries Andrew Spar, the head of Florida’s teachers union, because he believes if left to state leadership, the most vulnerable children would be affected if Trump sent Education Department money directly to the states.
With no cap on family income, any student in Florida can qualify for an approximately $8,000 voucher to attend the private school of their choice on state dollars with the Family Empowerment Scholarship, providing the private school accepts them.
“Those are dollars coming out of public schools,” said Spar, president of the Florida Education Association.
According to FPI, the price of these vouchers is growing: $2.8 billion was allocated to vouchers this year, compared to $2.1 billion in 2023-2024 and $1.4 in 2022-2023.
“The U.S. Department of Education is really a gatekeeper,” and leaving it up to DeSantis would put special needs students and students in poverty at risk, said Spar, who believes those buckets of money could be spent on other initiatives that align with what the governor wants.
Some of the funds the state receives, however, coincide with the governor’s educational agenda.
The state receives over $82 million for career and technical education (CTE) state grants. In 2019, DeSantis set a goal to make Florida first in the country for workforce education by 2030, and since then has allocated billions of dollars for CTE.
In Florida, February is recognized as career and technical education month. “This strategic commitment equips the next generation for success, fostering a thriving economy built on a highly skilled and educated workforce,” Diaz said in a press release this year.
The department is also in charge of making sure states comply with federal law, like Title IX, a civil-rights law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program or activity that receives federal funding.
Florida, however, has fought the federal government’s new interpretation of the civil-rights law because of its expansion of protections based on gender identity. Some Florida lawmakers are worried that Trump will embolden DeSantis’ attacked on the trans and LGBTQ community.
In recent years, Florida Republicans have pushed for laws that criminalize trans people for using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity and have restricted health care for trans people.
In April, Diaz, at DeSantis’ direction, warned superintendents and school districts to hold off on putting any changes to Title IX into practice. Florida joined other states, including Louisiana and Oklahoma, in opposing the feds’ new regulations. In August, a judge granted the state an injunction against the new rules.
DeSantis called the new regulations a “radical rewrite” and said the rule would “impose gender ideology on K-12 schools all across the country.”
In one of his earliest appearances on the campaign trail, Trump echoed DeSantis’ efforts and has vowed to roll back protections for transgender students.
In Iowa in 2023, Trump said he would cut federal funding for schools teaching “critical race theory,” “transgender insanity” or “any other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.”
“We’re seeing a complete reinterpretation of these programs, not just to discriminate against LGBTQ-plus students, but also to take away protections against girls,” said state Rep. Anna V. Eskamani, D-Orlando.
“At least the Biden administration had some guardrails, and I’m concerned those will be replaced with hostile individuals who will weaponize their position to discriminate against LGBTQ people across the country,” she said.
Ana Goñi-Lessan is the State Watchdog Reporter for USA TODAY – Florida and can be reached at AGoniLessan@tallahassee.com.