MN legislators brace for potential federal education dismantling

Minnesota legislators are trying to figure out how hard-hit students and teachers will be if President Trump follows through on threats to dismantle the federal Department of Education.

Currently, there’s a lot of uncertainty at the Minnesota Capitol.

Panic at the Capitol

Prepared for potential:

Legislators know President Trump’s team is drawing up orders to eliminate the federal Department of Education.

What he can legally do and whether a Republican Congress would follow his lead are unclear, which makes school planning a lot more complicated.

So 'uncertainty' is more than a spelling word in the Minnesota education system.

"There is some currently, in the last several weeks, some confusion, some delay with what is the status at the federal level," said Adosh Unni, who works in governmental affairs for the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE).

How it hurts

Money for Minnesota:

Federal funding accounts for 10% of the state’s education budget.

Minnesota gets more than $1 billion a year in school funding from the federal government to cover everything from Head Start, to teacher training, to special education services.

A lot of the money covers things the state doesn’t pay for, like $37.5 million in startup funds for charter schools.

But the Trump administration appears ready to dismantle the department sending out that money.

"And when school districts come to us and say ‘how are we going to plan for next year and the next year and the next year?’ I have no answer for them because we don’t know," said Sen. Mary Kunesh (DFL-New Brighton). "And so, should we panic? Hell yeah."

Premature panic?

The mandate:

Republicans on Minnesota’s Senate Education Finance Committee said the panic is premature and some of the funding shouldn’t be subject to an executive order.

But one of them also said this is what voters wanted.

"Americans across the country gave President Trump a mandate," said Sen. Eric Lucero (R-St. Michael). "The system is broken. Systems across the board are broken, including the federal Dept. of Education."

More to worry about?

What's next:

Democrats countered that Trump didn’t get 50% of the vote, and a lot of his voters didn’t cast ballots to bring chaos to their kids.

"We have to build a budget for two years," said Sen. Erin Maye Quade (DFL-Apple Valley). "We can’t even say what’s going to happen two hours from now."

The federal department is also being targeted by Elon Musk’s group of young data collectors, so there are concerns about Minnesota sharing data with the federal government.

EducationDonald J. TrumpPoliticsMinnesota