Major K-12 funding for federal formula grant programs like Title I and IDEA are sent out to states on July 1 in advance of the upcoming school year. States then distribute the money to school districts. But for five foundational programs that support students and educators these funds will not be sent out to states on time—and it’s not clear when or even whether they will be sent out at all.

The effected programs are some of the largest in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA): Title II professional development state grants ($2.2 billion), Title III English language acquisition grants ($890 million), migrant education state grants ($376 million), Title IV-A student support and academic enrichment state grants ($1.4 billion), and Title IV-B the 21^st Century Community Learning Centers program, i.e., after-school activities ($1.3 billion). In total, $6.1 billion that Congress appropriated to schools for the 2025-2026 school year are now in limbo. You can see how much funding, in total and by program, is currently at risk in your state based on this analysis by the Learning Policy Institute.

This issue has been intensifying for weeks now, though education advocates were hoping it wouldn’t get to this crisis point. The Department of Education is responsible for calculating the state allocations for all the various formula grant programs and sharing them publicly months in advance of the July 1 deadline so that states and districts can plan and approve their school budgets accordingly. This did happen for Title I, IDEA, and some other smaller programs. But the calculations were not done nor publicly shared for four of these programs (the preliminary estimates were made for Title IV-A), which sent many school districts scrambling this spring to revise their budgets or create contingency plans.

Make no mistake, the information delay which might be dismissed as a simple bureaucratic glitch by those trying to undersell the situation caused real challenges for school leaders who couldn’t plan properly for student programming and educator supports or budget appropriately for this upcoming school year. But the funds not going out at all compounds the problems, the uncertainty, and reveals that the snafu was the intention all along.

Educators saw that the Trump administration’s FY26 budget proposal targeted these programs for elimination. But the FY25 funding for these programs that is now being withheld was enacted by Congress and signed by the president back in March.  We took it for granted the federal government would fulfill its obligations. We were wrong.

It seems that the Trump administration wants to flex its fiscal muscles. The budget director wants to expand executive authority over the spending decisions made by Congress. The issue is called “Impoundment,” which dates back to the Watergate era and the question of how much discretion the president has in spending federal money appropriated by Congress. A law was enacted during the Nixon administration compelling it to spend the money as Congress directed. Nixon argued that he could just return the money to the treasury without disbursing it. As this Washington Post article makes clear, the Trump administration is eager to challenge the law in order to enhance its budget discretion and power. Amidst this burgeoning fight about federal funding–which includes education but also includes many other worthy programs–it will be the students, educators, and schools that suffer.