In addition, educators in larger school districts (with 10,000 or more students) were more likely than their counterparts in smaller districts to say the federal policy environment made them less likely to want to stay in their positions. A slight majority of large-district educators (51%) said federal policies have made them less likely to want to remain in their positions for the next two years, compared with 37% of educators in mid-size districts (2,500-9,999 students) and 34% of educators in small districts (fewer than 2,500 students).<\/p>\n
The survey was administered from July 31 to Aug. 28, with 694 responses from teachers, principals, and district leaders.<\/p>\n
While Trump took office pledging to \u201cmove education back to the states,\u201d the Education Department that he\u2019s shrunk by nearly half has also inserted itself more forcefully into state and local affairs since January<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s launched investigations into districts, state education departments, and athletic associations<\/a> to compel them to bar transgender girls from girls\u2019 sports and eradicate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Before court intervention, it tried to force every state and district to sign a certification disavowing \u201cillegal DEI,\u201d<\/a> and it abruptly told schools that their time to spend remaining COVID-19 relief funds had passed<\/a>, when they had earlier been given another year to spend the money.<\/p>\n As educators took the EdWeek Research Center survey, the Trump administration had just days before released the last of nearly $7 billion for teacher training, after-school programs, English-learner services, and more<\/a> that it had held back for weeks. School districts had already built those funds into their budgets and scrambled to craft contingency plans.<\/p>\n Months before, the president had released a budget proposal to cut the Education Department budget by $12 billion<\/a> and eliminate or consolidate more than 40 department programs<\/a>. And his administration since the winter has terminated numerous grants, including for teacher training<\/a>, research and data collection<\/a>, and student mental health<\/a>.<\/p>\n In open-ended, anonymous responses to the survey, educators largely lamented the uncertainty of federal funding.<\/p>\n \u201cThe not knowing from day to day what is going to change makes it difficult psychologically to want to remain,\u201d one person wrote.<\/p>\n Another respondent added: \u201cThere is not enough money to do what we need to teach students all day. We already don\u2019t get paid much, and them cutting off so much funding for programs we need is very, very bad.\u201d<\/p>\n Others said the Trump administration\u2019s push to restrict transgender students\u2019 access to bathrooms and athletic teams<\/a> that align with their gender identity and to revoke the longstanding policy that restricted immigration enforcement on school grounds<\/a> has undermined educators\u2019 ability to focus on teaching. Some said those efforts have \u201cemboldened\u201d students to be unkind to their peers and school staff.<\/p>\n \u201cThe impact of the negativity of the Trump administration reverberates through schools,\u201d one respondent wrote. \u201cThe administration is normalizing meanness, which is trickling down to all aspects of society. Schools are left to pick up the pieces and manage the hate and harassment being normalized by politicians and their supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n Educators who said the Trump administration\u2019s policy changes have made them more likely to want to remain in their current roles for the next two years applauded efforts to \u201cdismantle\u201d the U.S. Department of Education and shared their hopes for more local control over education. Others said the administration has reduced schools\u2019 focus on \u201cwoke\u201d ideology and \u201csocial engineering,\u201d and welcomed this change.<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. Department of Education should have been disbanded a long time ago. Trump is right in advocating for states to handle education budgets, and eliminating the overpaid staff at the federal level could improve efficiency,\u201d one respondent wrote. \u201cThis approach has worked at the state level, so there was no need to establish the federal department in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n Another person said: \u201cThe less intervention the better. I want my local school board to make the decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n Some respondents said they are now more likely to remain in their jobs because, despite their disagreement with federal policy changes, they feel responsible for the children they teach.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to make a difference for children and families despite the cuts and indifference to what is needed for our future,\u201d one person wrote.<\/p>\n Another said: \u201cI am proud to be a consistent and reliable person during a state of uncertainty for many.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The federal policy changes related to schools since President Donald Trump took office in January have led nearly two-fifths of educators to rethink whether they … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions\/367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Educators weigh in on the impact of these policy changes<\/h2>\n