The U.S. Department of Education will shift some of its programming and activities by partnering with a new set of federal agencies, the agency announced Tuesday, a move that has implications for both higher education and K-12 school administrators. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), for example, will take a growing role in administering certain elementary and secondary education programs funded under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. At the postsecondary level, the DOL will manage grant funds, provide technical assistance, and integrate the DOE’s postsecondary education programs with programs already administered by the Labor Department.

While the announcement does not spell the official end of the DOE — that would still require an act of Congress, as we outlined in a prior client alert — it does serve as a preview of what it could look like if the decades-old federal agency were to go away. That future raises important questions for school administrators, including about oversight of local educational agencies and what happens to federally funded education programs and the billions in higher education grant funding.

At the core of Tuesday’s announcement are six new interagency agreements with four federal agencies (the Departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services, and State) to "break up the federal education bureaucracy, ensure efficient delivery of funded programs, activities, and move closer to fulfilling the President’s promise to return education to the states," the DOE stated in its press release.

Under the agreements, the DOL will now partner with the DOE on Title I, which provides critical federal funding to K-12 schools to support low-income students. States will continue to receive all title funds, including for low-income students, teachers, academic enrichment, and after-school programs. They will just receive those funds from the DOL. It remains to be seen how the technical assistance piece will look going forward.

The DOL will also have more of a presence managing a host of grant funds at the postsecondary level such as TRIO, Title III, and the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). A full list of programs can be found on this fact sheet. All programs will continue to be administered.

For now, school administrators can expect the DOE to remain in name as it has not yet been fully abolished, which was a possibility given previous statements of the incoming Trump administration at the time. They can also expect certain grant programs to continue functioning, just under a partnership with a new federal agency.

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