Federal Education Actions and Their Impact Children in Foster Care: What State and Local Stakeholders Need to Know
Over the next several weeks students across the country will return to school amid a changing education landscape. Federal policymakers have enacted or proposed significant changes to funding, oversight, and support for schools that will impact all students; however many will have particular impact on students involved with child welfare systems.
This blog post is the first in a series that will track and discuss the policy landscape related to education issues, with a focus on programs that serve and support children and youth in foster care.
Actions Aim to Dismantle U.S. Department of Education
On March 25, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order directing the Secretary of Education to facilitate closing the Department of Education, “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” In response, several federal legislators have introduced bills to carry out the closure of the Department or Education, or to eliminate or reassign its functions; legislation was also introduced to preserve the Department as it now exists, stating that its current structure is “designed to promote student achievement and equal access to education.” Currently, none of these bills have become law, and a lawsuit has also been filed to stop the closure. The Department of Education has fired nearly 1,400 employees as part of a reduction in force, and those firings are also the subject of ongoing litigation. Lending its expertise to the national dialogue about the role of the DOE and related education policy, the National Working Group on Foster Care and Education highlights ways that the federal Department of Education supports school-age children in foster care, including by:
Promoting educational access and equity
Supporting many vulnerable students through Title I, Part A programs
Holding states accountable for providing education to all students with disabilities
Protecting students and their families against discrimination
Requiring, collecting, and reporting on critical data that measure how students are doing educationally
Supporting older students in completing secondary education and accessing post-secondary education
Supporting key programs for students known to be vulnerable for poor education outcomes due to life circumstances
Federal Education Funding Rollbacks, Consolidations and Freezes
The Executive branch and Congress have also taken several steps to limit and consolidate federal funding to schools and other education-related funding. On March 28th, the Secretary of Education informed states that they could no longer spend their remaining pandemic relief funds, a move Education Week described as “the Trump administration’s decision to effectively cancel more than $1 billion in K-12 education funding.” In April, a coalition of states sued the Department of Education over the decision; an injunction was issued in May, pausing enforcement. Litigation on the issue is ongoing and the Department of Education has said that non-plaintiff states can continue to spend their allocated funds, and also created a process for states to apply for project-specific funding extensions. In late June, the Department of Education announced that it was freezing nearly $7 billion in funding for K-12 schools across the nation, leaving states, who expected to receive the funds on July 1, scrambling to plan for impacts on their upcoming school year. The funding streams that were impacted included teacher recruitment and training, afterschool programs, adult education and programming for migrant children, all of which could impact youth in foster care and their families. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia sued the Department of Education and President Trump over the funding freeze. A July 16, 2025 letter from 10 Republican Senators to OMB director Vought echoed concerns raised nationally and urged the release of the funds, which ultimately were released by the end of July.
Congressional and Presidential Budget Actions
It’s been challenging to monitor federal funding decisions in 2025 due to fast-paced action by Congress on three types of budget actions: (1) budget reconciliation (enacted by H.R. 1), (2) a rescission package (enacted by H.R. 4), and (3) appropriations of funding for Fiscal Year 2026. In this blog, we highlight the latter (appropriations for FY 2026) and its potential impact on education funding.
The President’s proposed FY 2026 budget, delivered to Congress earlier this year, is currently being considered by Congressional appropriations committees. The White House budget proposal calls for several changes and cuts to educational programs that could impact youth experiencing foster care including:
Consolidating several programs that focus on specific populations that include or often overlap with youth who experience foster care, for example Title I, Part D’s program for Youth Who are Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk, and cuts to post-secondary education and training programs.
Advocates and educators have pointed out that when programs are combined, the focus on individual populations of youth who have specific needs and challenges, such as young people who experience foster care, can be lost. They have also noted that important expertise and skill is lost when programs are consolidated, especially if essential staff are cut.
“Level” funding for special education; although the budgeted amount for special education remains the same, keeping funds at the same level means fewer services for children when rising costs and an increasing number of special education students are factored in. (Youth in foster care are more likely than other youth to need and qualify for special education services.)
Services to students with special education needs may be impacted negatively by the consolidation of programs discussed above, and by cuts to Medicaid, which funds services for eligible children in schools, as part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). (Medicaid reductions are also predicted to result in cuts to school-based health services and staffing more broadly.)
A letter to Congressional appropriators outlines how pending changes in education funding can impact the educational experiences and outcomes of youth in foster care, who already have lower high school graduation rates and poorer educational metrics than their peers.
Looking Ahead
We expect ongoing deliberations and action at the federal level relating to education policy and will report on these actions in future blog posts, emphasizing the impact on youth in foster care.
We encourage readers to visit the Journey to Success website which hosts a database of federal legislation impacting transition age youth - the database is maintained by colleagues at Youth Law Center. And colleagues at SchoolHouse Connection maintain a weekly federal education policy update here.
We encourage all interested stakeholders to keep in touch with your federal representatives to let them know how proposed policies could impact you and your community.
About the Child Welfare Advocacy Hub
The Child Welfare Advocacy Hub (The Hub) supports both rapid-response advocacy and multi-year issue campaigns aimed at improving outcomes for children, youth, and families involved in the child welfare system—and for families more broadly.
The Hub brings together advocates, strategists, subject-matter experts, media professionals, researchers, and other partners to craft timely and effective advocacy strategies. This work includes shaping policy proposals, developing compelling messages, producing communications tools, analyzing data and research, and mobilizing influential messengers. The Hub regularly shares new resources tailored for advocacy and policy audiences.