Dive Brief:
- Millions of dollars in federal funding for teacher training were reinstated — for now — with a federal judge’s temporary blockage this week of a Trump administration directive.
- The U.S. Department of Education must restore the grants to the eight Democratic-leaning states whose attorneys general sued the agency last week, under the temporary restraining order granted March 10 by Judge Myong Joun of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The funds include awards through the Teacher Quality Partnership Program and the Supporting Effective Educator Development.
- The order is in effect for 14 days. The coalition of attorneys general next plans to seek a preliminary injunction to extend the block on the grant cuts until a final court decision is rendered.
Dive Insight:
The temporary block comes as a similar lawsuit filed by three teacher preparation groups also seeks a preliminary injunction on the Education Department's February cancellation of more than 100 teacher training grants nationwide.
Opponents of the cut say it has already disrupted K-12 educator pipeline initiatives across multiple states.
In their March 6 lawsuit, the attorneys general for California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin allege the department “arbitrarily” and “improperly” terminated the grants.
The judge's order to temporarily restore funding to those states “is a victory for our students, teachers and school districts, restoring funds to programs designed to address the ongoing teacher shortage in the Commonwealth, including those serving vulnerable students with special needs,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell in a Tuesday statement.
The Education Department’s Feb. 17 announcement said the $600 million in cuts were made for “divisive” teacher training grants.
Judge Joun’s order cites the department’s termination letter to grantees, which said it cut the grant programs because they “for example, ‘promote or take part in DEI initiatives’ or ‘are not free from fraud, abuse, or duplication’ or ‘otherwise fail to serve the best interests of the United States.’”
According to Joun, this justification “does not reach the level of a reasoned explanation; indeed it amounts to no explanation at all.”
The judge said that "even accepting any one of these bases as justification for the agency action, such as discrimination related to DEI initiatives, the Termination Letter is arbitrary and capricious because its statements are only conclusory.”
Dive Awards
