Senator Patty Murray convened an education roundtable at North Seattle College Thursday to draw attention to what she characterises as significant cuts to public education funding implemented by the Trump administration, changes she argues will harm students and educational institutions across Washington state and the nation.
“They cut off billions that schools had been counting on to make their budgets work. Many years ago, I was on a school board. We counted on that federal funding,” Murray stated, drawing on her own experience in local education governance to illustrate the importance of federal support for school district operations.
The roundtable included educators from various levels and a former Department of Education employee who described her termination earlier this year as part of broader workforce reductions at the agency.
“I was responsible for canceling millions of dollars in student debt for our most vulnerable borrowers across the country. I was unlawfully fired in March along with 1,400 of my colleagues,” stated Rachel Gittleman, describing mass layoffs that eliminated positions focused on student debt relief programmes serving low-income borrowers.
In the past week, Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced six new interagency partnerships she characterises as streamlining federal bureaucracy by redistributing education responsibilities to other federal agencies and returning greater authority to state governments rather than maintaining centralised federal oversight.
President Trump has repeatedly stated his intention to eliminate the Department of Education entirely, fulfilling a long-standing conservative policy goal of removing federal involvement in education and returning complete control to states and local communities.
“They wanna take their children back and really teach their children individually. Probably the cost will be half, and the education will be maybe many, many times better,” Trump stated during a press conference, articulating his belief that federal education programmes are inefficient and inferior to local control.
“I have been hearing people say ‘dismantle the Department of Education, get rid of the Department of Education’ in some kind of 10 second soundbite, throwaway line forever, but under this administration, under the Project 2025 agenda, this was a critical part of it, and we are now seeing Trump’s Secretary McMahon put that in place,” Murray stated, connecting current policy changes to the conservative Project 2025 policy blueprint that outlined plans for restructuring or eliminating federal agencies including the Department of Education.
Currently, the federal government provides essential funding for education to local school districts, community colleges, and universities that supplement state and local tax revenues supporting educational operations.
“At Seattle colleges, we get about 31 million of federal funding, both through the Pell grant program, but also some direct grants,” stated Dr. Rachel Solemsaas, President of North Seattle College, quantifying the federal financial support her institution relies upon to serve students, particularly low-income students accessing higher education through Pell grants.
As the policy debate continues circulating through political discourse, local educators argue that eliminating the Department of Education or significantly reducing federal education funding will disproportionately impact students already struggling to access quality education, particularly those from low-income families, students with disabilities who receive federally mandated services, and students attending under-resourced schools in economically disadvantaged communities.
The Department of Education currently administers numerous programmes including Title I funding for schools serving high percentages of low-income students, special education funding mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Pell grants enabling low-income students to attend college, student loan programmes, civil rights enforcement ensuring equal educational access, and research initiatives studying educational effectiveness. Eliminating the department would require either transferring these functions to other agencies, devolving them entirely to states, or eliminating them altogether.
