Moving key federal grants that help districts educate disadvantaged children, English learners, and rural students from the U.S. Department of Education to the Department of Labor is almost certainly going to be a major administrative adjustment for Washington.
But what will the move announced Nov. 18 mean in classrooms and district central offices around the country?
One way to begin answering that question: Examine educators’ initial responses to a similar bureaucratic shift that began several months ago.
This summer, the Trump administration began moving workforce-connected programs—including the $1.4 billion Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education grant program—from the Education Department to the Labor Department. The Perkins program is the largest federal funding source for CTE programs.
The change hasn’t had—or is unlikely to have—much of an impact on schools, according to a plurality of educators, most of whom are connected to CTE, surveyed by the EdWeek Research Center in September and October.
More than a third—38%—were neutral on the change, saying they doubt the move will affect them. About another third—34%—said the move has, or could have, a negative impact on CTE programs. And a little over a quarter—27%—said it has, or could have, a positive impact.
“I don’t think it will really affect me at all,” said Casey Sacks, who is the president of BridgeValley Community and Technical College in Charleston, W.Va. Her institution also operates the WIN Academy, an early college charter high school focused on preparing students for in-demand fields such as health care and manufacturing. WIN receives federal CTE dollars.
“The Perkins law is still the Perkins law,” said Sacks, who served as deputy assistant secretary for community colleges at the Education Department during President Donald Trump’s first term.
The federal government is still saying, “we need whole career pathways and to really think about lifelong learning,” Sacks said. “None of that changes.”
But Amy Loyd, who served as assistant secretary of the Education Department’s office of career, technical, and adult education during the Biden administration, is deeply worried that the transfer is jeopardizing a longtime push for workforce education programs that help students build long-term career trajectories by exposing them to both on-the-job experience and post-secondary coursework.
That approach might not always neatly line up with the “mission of the Department of Labor, [which is] employer needs-driven and focused on the vacancies of today,” said Loyd, who is now the chief executive officer of All4Ed, a nonprofit focused on educational equity and preparing students for life after high school.
Putting CTE programs in Labor seems to be a step backward, to when districts considered CTE and college-bound students to be two separate groups.
It might take time for on-the-ground educators to see the impact of the policy changes, said Loyd, who began her career as a math teacher.
But she believes it is already pushing state education officials to “revert back to a more mechanical purpose of education, to fill slots for employers, instead of thinking about adaptability and critical thinking, navigating complexity and lifelong curiosity and learning and innovation, entrepreneurship,” and other “durable” skills that are the hallmarks of high-quality CTE programs.
Meanwhile, state education chiefs’ take on shifting CTE programs to Labor seems divided along traditional partisan lines.
Debbie Critchfield, Idaho’s GOP state superintendent, said the transition has been “business as usual.” Mo Green, North Carolina’s Democratic state chief, said it was time-consuming and resulted in delays.
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon told Education Department staff Nov. 18 that if the agreements moving key functions, including CTE and other K-12 grants such as Title I, out of the agency were successful, she would ask Congress—which would have to sign off on permanent changes—to codify the interdepartmental moves.
She described the transfers as a “pilot” in an interview with CBS News.
“I want to prove to Congress that these transfers of programs are more efficient and that they work,” McMahon said.
So far, shifting CTE programs to the Labor Department has gone swimmingly, McMahon told reporters during a White House briefing on Nov. 20.
“The really good news is the Department of Labor has a much more sophisticated system” for filling grants than the Department of Education, she said. “We were able to get those grants out the door more smoothly, and states have actually better access for those systems than they do at the Department of Education. So that’s a real bonus.”
