The Trump administration has made major cuts to the U.S. Department of Education, following through on vows to "return authority over education to the States and local communities."
Although an official shut down of the Department of Education requires an act of Congress, President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March calling for Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate" its closure "to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law."
About half of the department's staff have been laid off, with some taking buyouts, and at least 40 different organizations have had their contracts terminated.
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The department's National Center for Education Statistics — the main agency that collects, analyzes and reports data on education in the U.S. — has been whittled down from 100 employees to three.
Although the Trump administration said they'll continue to preserve statutory programs such as "formula funding" that provides supplemental dollars to low-income and rural schools, it's uncertain how with most of its workforce gutted.
"It's going to particularly impact our lowest income students and our highest needs students," said Damaris Allen, executive director of Families for Strong Public Schools, "And that is going to be devastating for those services that are desperately needed in order to make sure those students have the tools they need to succeed."
Florida gets around 17% of its education dollars from federal funding, or about $6.7 billion.
School districts get most of their funding through local revenue, particularly property taxes, which means not all districts may receive the amount necessary to serve their students.
That's where federal assistance comes in — to serve as an equalizer for high poverty districts and districts that need more resources for students with disabilities.
The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, has outlined the total amount of federal money each district receives.
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"Today’s federal education aid is extremely well-targeted toward high-need districts, and even if the level of federal aid to states is maintained, it’s not clear that it would remain as well-targeted," the authors of the analysis wrote.
The data shows that as neighborhood poverty increases, so does the share of federal funding that goes to support that district.
Note that data on Jefferson County School District isn't available. In the year the data was collected, the district was transitioning back to local control after a period of state oversight.
Several other tools on federal funding for schools are also available.
The Education Law Center allows you to calculate how much money your state will lose in specific programs if a certain percentage of the funding was reduced.
The American Federation of Teachers has a dashboard showing how much in federal, state and local funds districts get.
And the National Education Association provides a more detailed look at the federal programs funded within your state.
NPR reported that an NCES employee told them that the cuts to the Education Department likely won't impact the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) or Title I grants for the 2025-26 school year, but that "the fate of these grants beyond that seems incredibly uncertain."
For grants that go to rural schools through the REAP program, NCES plays a direct role in creating the relevant data and providing assistance to local school leaders.
For REAP grants, the NCES is in charge of "creating the relevant data and providing assistance to school leaders."
And, for Title I, the NCES "works with the U.S. Census Bureau to analyze school district boundaries, income levels and other characteristics that help the Department of Education determine grant eligibility."
NPR reported that the Trump administration is planning to make cuts to the Census Bureau workforce as well.
Funding from Title I serves about half of Florida's K-12 students.
Information from NPR was used in this report.
