Policy & Advocacy | June 4, 2025

May 2025 Policy News Round-Up

Movement in legislation and the courts: universal school choice, blocked firings, and budget cuts for FY26, the fight against attempts to shutter the Department of Education continues in May.

Budget Reconciliation Bill Includes ECCA, Passes House

The Budget Reconciliation bill (H.R. 1) narrowly passed through the U.S. House of Representatives on May 22, including a version of the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), a universal school choice provision that will provide up to $5 billion in federal tax credits for donations to scholarship organizations each year through 2029. NCLD opposes ECCA as it would drain public funding towards private schools. Read more about this proposal in NCLD’s earlier missive on the universal school choice in H.R. 1 and the National Coalition for Public Education (NCPE) ECCA 2-pager.

In addition, the bill includes steep cuts to Medicaid and impacts college affordability. See NCLD’s joint statement with other education groups here.

President’s FY 26 Budget Proposes Huge Cuts to Education Programs

President Trump’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 proposes cutting funding for Education programs by $12.4 billion (15.6%). The budget folds almost all current funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act into a new “Special Education Simplified Funding program,” freezing total special education funding. The budget maintains the grants for infants and toddlers as a separate program, as well as the Special Olympics education, but everything else would now be funded in the main grants to states. It eliminates funding for programs including TRIO, Teacher Quality Partnerships, GEAR UP, Innovative Approaches to Literacy, State Assessment grants, and English language acquisition.

Secretary of Education Lisa McMahon testified in front of the House Appropriations Committee in late May, discussing the President’s FY26 budget as it pertains to the Department of Education. The Secretary has previously vowed to dismantle the Department. In her testimony, the Secretary defended budget (decrease by $12 billion), program, and personnel cuts to the department to improve efficiency as the Trump administration moves forward with winding down the department. Check out the full testimony.

Courts block Trump’s bid to Dismantle USED

A U.S. District Judge from Massachusetts blocked the Trump administration’s latest attempt at dismantling the Department of Education in line with the Executive Order signed in March to close down the Department. This court order barred the firing of half of the Department’s remaining workforce as well as the transferring of federal student loan programs to the Small Business Administration. More details on the ruling here.

SCOTUS 4-4 Ruling on Religious Charter Schools

The Supreme Court announced a split 4-4 decision with one abstention on the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond case on religious charter schools. In 2023, the Oklahoma Charter School Board approved an explicitly religiously affiliated charter school, which was then challenged by the state attorney general. As the Supreme Court was undecided over its decision, the lower court ruling from the Oklahoma Supreme Court still stands, which ruled that this school violated both the State and Federal Constitution, requiring a separation between church and state, and that public schools be nonsectarian. The divided ruling of the Supreme Court means, however, that the case sets no national precedent.

Grant priorities

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced her first three proposed priorities for discretionary grants from the Department of Education: evidence-based literacy, expanding education choice, and returning education to the states. Read the full press release.

Reintroduced Legislation: Protecting our Students in Schools Act:

The Protecting Our Students Act was reintroduced on May 9th. This bill would ban corporal punishment in all schools that receive federal funding. Students with disabilities face disproportionately higher rates of corporal punishment than their non-disabled peers. In the press statement, NCLD’s CEO, Dr. Jacqueline Rodriguez, said “Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, when so many students were learning from home, nearly 20,000 students still endured corporal punishment in schools, of which 2,400 of those students have a disability. Corporal punishment has no place in education. On behalf of the National Center for Learning Disabilities and our partners in the disability rights community, I applaud Representative Bonamici, Senator Murphy, and the other co-sponsors for their leadership on this critical bill. Now it’s time for the rest of the members of Congress to step up and ensure all students have a safe, supportive, and high-quality public education.” Read the full press release.

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ICYMI

What We’re Reading:

NPR: What to know about a federal proposal to help families pay for private school
ProPublica: The Department of Education Forced Idaho to Stop Denying Disabled Students an Education. Then Trump Gutted Its Staff
EdWeek: Trump’s Barrage of Executive Orders for Education: How Significant Are They?