Middle Island, N.Y.: Hands of a student are shown with pencil and test booklet during New York State math test on May 2, 2017. (Photo by John Paraskevas/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
Los Angeles, California – California schools could lose more than $1 billion in federal education funding under a Trump administration proposal to withhold support for five longstanding programs that serve some of the state’s most vulnerable student populations, state leaders warned Tuesday.
The California Department of Education said the total loss could exceed $1 billion if the freeze is finalized. That includes at least $810 million in estimated losses across school districts statewide, and $110.5 million for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) alone.
The funding pause impacts five major programs, including support for English learners, teacher training, summer school, and before- and after-school programs in high-poverty areas. In total, LAUSD estimates the cuts could affect as many as 400 staff members — though the district says no layoffs are planned for the coming school year. Instead, LAUSD will draw from reserves to temporarily fill the gap.
Still, district officials say the damage is significant, particularly for a district where 96,000 students are learning English, and where immigrant families make up a large share of the population.
“It targets some of the most vulnerable student populations in our community,” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said in a Tuesday press conference. “It deprives teachers and students alike of the funding necessary to maintain a viable workforce, to professionalize our teachers, to maintain kids in school, to provide afterschool programs, to provide kids who depend on tutoring programs and counseling support.”
Carvalho called the decision “part of an ongoing effort to scapegoat our nation’s ills on immigrant communities,” adding, “It is not fair, not just, it is immoral and certainly unethical.”
One of the affected programs, Title III-A, funds English language instruction. LAUSD receives $10 million annually from that grant to support more than 100,000 English learners. Another, Title IV-B, provides $23.2 million for before- and after-school programs in high-poverty areas. LAUSD board member Sherlett Hendy Newbill, the daughter of immigrants from Belize, said the cuts felt deeply personal.
“The fact that I became an educator was because of funds supported in Title II,” she said. “The fact that I stand before you as a parent who has used and been able to attain care for my children at school sites is because of funds like this. This is a disgrace.”
Federal officials told the Los Angeles Times that no final decision has been made. But the looming uncertainty — paired with LAUSD’s $18.8 billion budget already stretched thin — has renewed concerns that the most marginalized students will bear the cost of political decisions made in Washington.
