Education welfare has been under fire in Washington, D.C., and it’s about to get even more so.
In the first year of the Trump administration, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has proposed an overhaul of how students in low- and moderate-income schools are funded.
She has proposed cutting funding for a federal program that provides grants to low- to moderate- income students to fund their education.
The proposal has the backing of some conservative lawmakers, who have criticized the administration for focusing on a small percentage of students who need special education, instead of providing resources to those students.
But DeVos has been joined in her proposal by a number of other prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Education Secretary DeVos.
The new budget would slash $2 billion from the federal program for students in public schools and a number other programs that are meant to help students who don’t have the financial resources to attend college.
In addition, DeVos proposed slashing funding for the program for low- or moderate-class students, who receive more than 90 percent of their funding from the program.
“These students deserve to receive the resources that they need to succeed in college and beyond,” Ryan said in a statement Thursday.
“The funding for these programs is outdated and needs to be changed.”
DeVos’ proposal has received wide bipartisan support, but not everyone agrees with her plan.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said that the proposed cuts to education programs were unfair to students.
“You’re not going to find the money for these students to attend the colleges they want to attend,” Barrasso said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“There’s no way to tell where they are.
You can’t even tell if they’re on the top or bottom.
They’re in the middle.”
DeLaurie Triggs, the director of the National Center for Education Statistics, told NPR that the proposal “doesn’t help the students that we’re supposed to be helping.”
“There’s a lot of data that shows that the low- income and minority students that are in public school are less likely to be successful in college than white students, so if you’re talking about this, it’s not helping those students,” Triggs said.
“There are many, many other groups that are also underrepresented in college that are not getting the resources they need.”
She said that a number different groups of students are disproportionately represented in low and moderate class, but that the majority of low-class and moderate students are enrolled in a high school.
“It’s not really about the students,” she said.