>> the Department of Education will soon be shrunk to half its size.

The Trump administration says its plan to lay off or that it plans to lay off more than 1300 of the department's employees, which critics say is part of the president's plan to dismantle the agency.

The administration says the cuts reflect the department's commitment to efficiency, but opponents say it will put billions of dollars in education funding at risk.

Joining us to discuss the potential impact on Illinois students are Paul Vallas, former Chicago Public Schools, CEO Peter Cunningham, former assistant secretary of education and Leo to Scott, a professor of education at DePaul University.

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us.

Welcome back.

Welcome.

Let's start with your reaction to the administration's move to shutter the Department of Education Liotta.

Scott, I'll start with you, please.

Well, first of all, I think one of the things that struck me immediately was this notion of thinking about the states and bringing it down to the states.

>> And really from education from the beginning has always been connected to our democracy.

And so really we need a national view of thinking of education and to break it down to the states would be era because we all need to have education just as it was founded.

And this goes back to the pretty much the agriculture business agricultural establishment that we thought about education as in showing educational opportunity for every individual.

And so we want to make sure that that includes those in low-income communities, those who are disenfranchised and so bringing down to the states, we may run the risk of losing these voices and have them not have access to education.

You're going him.

I would say the actions by the Trump administration raise one fundamental question is education a matter of national interest?

>> Every president before him has agreed that it is going back to Lincoln to start the LeBron colleges that you were sort of talking about Eisenhower to Nixon to Reagan.

Maple believed it.

And the you know, the fact is it's still mostly controlled the state and local level, only about 10 to 12% comes from the feds.

But the feds played vital role in protecting most vulnerable students.

And that's I think what's really at risk here is the most vulnerable students.

>> I think there's 2 issues.

One is the Department of Education bureaucracy itself and in the second is to programs and of course, to actually close to implement of education or to get rid of those programs require.

My congressional action.

So I think they're talking about collapsing the bureaucracy, not necessarily just a new program.

So we have to separate that.

Secondly, looks, you know, the Department of Education has been controversial, very controversial both on the left and the right.

You recall during the Obama administration Hughes were in a poor because Department of Education was trying to to mandate the Common Core curriculum and the charred trying to dictate local cricket local con ability there tying some additional funding to that.

And actually both the left and the right join into an alliance to get legislation passed almost checkmate.

department during the Bush administration.

He used Department of Education in a heavy-handed way to try to force districts to privatized the use of up one dollars to hire a private consulting private tutorial.

You talk about collapsing, the bureaucracy of the Department of Education.

Peter Cunningham isn't us.

And actually one of the smallest of not the smallest.

>> agency of its kind cabinet level agency.

And give us a sense also, if you would, what the department is responsible for briefly.

So it is smallest agency about 4200 employees or at least that's what the number was until.

>> Yesterday and what they primarily do distribute money, targeted too low vulnerable populations.

Low income kids, rural kids, students with disabilities.

>> Bilingual students and what you have is a very, very small number of people whose job it is to make sure those dollars are spent in the way that Congress intended them.

And they're the only ones who are making sure that and what what what they're talking about doing now is just saying, let's just block grant everything, give it back to the states.

But they're very explicit in the president's executive order last month that he's basically saying the states, if you want to convert that to about your program, you can and that will have consequences for people.

So those dollars and not going to be as targeted as they could be.

>> newly confirmed Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon has said exactly that that the intention is to send funding to the states through block grants.

What might the impact be?

I'm gonna come back to you.

Paul Vallas.

If block grants are smaller than what the state where the school district's budget in 4.

>> Well, again, that's a separate issue.

I'm either going to do Spock Ranch either.

The gun reduce the total on funds.

that's a separate issue.

Then in effect reducing the size of the U.S. Department of Education.

Look prior to the creation of the U.S. Department of Education, the grant programs were handled by then health, education and welfare.

And of course, you when it came equal rights and things like that advocacy Sohn on on, student writes on parental rights that was done through the Justice Department.

Of course, student Loan Program D manage student loan program could have it could easily be handled through the Treasury Department.

So, you know, at the end of the day I'm not making about I'm kind of agnostic on whether or not you have a department.

One might argue that if your route, if you if you're fearful of what Trump might do, >> you might more fearful of a department of Education.

That is obviously run by Trump appointees because department has been intrusive in the past.

I mentioned going show is that the the workload then could be distributed and that in some of that workload has, of course, distributing funds are saying that could be farmed out to various other departments.

But Lee Otis Scott, I want to come back to you.

>> Are you concerned?

Because this is something you've mentioned inequities being furthered without a Department of education overseeing all of that?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think even thinking about.

>> The thought of education, even the student loans to point going into another department would be a fundamental misunderstanding of what education is because education was more of an investment towards those students and not more of a sense of alone or any other type way, which we think of it.

So if we have to think back of the investment part of the loans and why we did it in the first place.

But let me respond what his title Congress you.

Our viewers know a one dollar part yes and a special and then go.

The legislature tells you how to spend that money.

It's same thing with the student loan program.

The problem and I'm just saying that the criticism of the department is they've gone in and they've done their own rulemaking.

>> For example, during race to the top, they tried spin off some money and allocate that money to the schools based on whether or not they were going to comply with with the federal mandates.

I know we all come participate in a recent stop sweepstakes.

A Bush administration tried to challenge our use of our title one money because they wanted us use our title one money or a portion of it to hire private tutorial firms to provide intervention services.

So the even during the Biden administration, if you remember, look at how the allocated look at how they allocated the COVID money.

They totally discriminating against both charter schools and private schools in the allocation of COVID phone as a mansion title one dollars because according to the University of Michigan's Poverty Solutions for the 2020 21 school year.

So several years ago, we admit Illinois received about 645 million dollars.

>> In title one funding, which as we said, supports programming for low-income schools.

Cps received about 262 little almost to 63. to Scott.

How could if if funding like that is a cut, if it's impacted, what is the impact on low-income and particularly black brown students in Chicago?

>> Yeah, we have to go back to access.

>> It's having equal opportunity, equal educational activity for everyone, every individual.

And so that's what we missed by doing that.

One thing I want to say to your point, even about the Department of Education, Paul, was that department education is more than just elementary and secondary education.

It also includes post-secondary education also includes career technical and adult education.

And this speaks to how education is multigenerational.

It includes everyone.

And I think sometimes when we have this conversation and we just talk about a missing 8, well contact, I think we missed a lot about the role that education plays going back to my point.

Time to democracy is not connected together.

And that's how we think of it in America and I would.

I'd like to add something also, you know.

>> When the Department of Education started in 1979 19% Americans had college degrees today.

38% have them.

People are 10 to just talk about the test scores and that they're the same.

And that's why reason why they haven't gone up, maybe one reason is because the kids themselves are still coping with the same root causes that caused that, you know, they don't have the preschool.

They don't have the support at home.

They don't have what it takes.

But when you look at the college attainment level, that's a serious, serious improvement to safety.

With a high school graduation level.

So the only way I want to get to this and and everybody's going to get him got a couple minutes left to the Illinois State Board of Education says that so far they've received no formal communication or guidance from the Department of Ed on this.

>> A statement from a spokesperson reads, quote, This is the extent of the information is be has available at the moment, which is not much and it is deeply concerned about the potential implications is be will be seeking clarity from senior officials at the U.S. Department of Education to help get families and students information they deserve to know about the 3.5, 6 billion dollars in federal funding we expect to receive in fiscal year 2025.

Peter Cunningham, I want to come back to you because we talked about, you know, issues with other departments absorbing the work of What are your concerns with that?

My concerns is that it's just moving the deck chairs instead of dealing with one central.

>> Agency that deals with education, school districts and states now have to deal with justice and civil rights issue in department.

Also, the civil rights complaint Department oversees civil rights right now.

And now it's just going to be one of many priorities in the Justice Department and they'll have to go to Treasury on student loans and they'll have to go to HHS title and they'll have to go labor for workforce.

Tough it see what the point is.

If if they're not, that is moving it around other agencies, why is that better?

It's not at all clear why that's any better.

>> And I think my response in terms of the criticism, might not to go the route or not.

You have a department is is the fact that the department under successive administration's has gone far beyond villages mandates and they've literally legislated themselves through the rulemaking and they did it in race to the top.

They did it in practically every single education Me tell you well, the record on higher Ed is not the most stellar record you're going tell next time we have this conversation because we're out of But I thank you