House Republicans on Thursday unveiled a federal budget proposal that once again proposes billions of dollars in education funding cuts, and aims to impose new restrictions for schools that support transgender students.
The , released Thursday morning in advance of a subcommittee markup on Friday, marks the opening salvo for what will likely be months of negotiations on Capitol Hill. Congress has until Sept. 30 to approve either a full spending bill or temporarily extend current fiscal 2026 funding levels.
House appropriators have revived several of their key proposals from last year鈥檚 budget bill, even though Congress as a whole rejected virtually all of them. For the 2027-28 school year, lawmakers are proposing to slash $1.6 billion, or 9%, of annual Title I formula dollars for low-income students; eliminate billions of formula dollars for teacher professional development and English-learner services; and nix competitive grants for community schools initiatives and teacher training, among others.
Annual formula funding would increase slightly for special education, Impact Aid for school districts with non-taxable federal property, education for Native American students, and Head Start for early childhood education. Competitive grants for charter schools would get a second consecutive boost of $60 million in annual funding, just a few months after Congress approved an equivalent increase for the program. And formula grants for before- and after-school programming ($1.3 billion), rural education ($230 million), and services for homeless students ($129 million) would remain intact.
All federal funds would be in jeopardy, though, due to language in the bill that would dock funding for K-12 schools and colleges that allow transgender girls to participate in women鈥檚 sports, or 鈥渨ithhold or conceal鈥� information about students鈥� gender identity from their parents.
Implementing these policies wouldn鈥檛 be straightforward, though. Several states, , have enacted legal protections for transgender athletes that would likely conflict with this federal requirement and prompt messy court battles, said Julia Martin, director of policy and government affairs for the Bruman Group, an education law firm that represents states and schools.
Specifically at issue, Martin said, would be the U.S. Supreme Court鈥檚 ruling in the 2020 case of Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that the Civil Rights Act protects employees against workplace discrimination based on gender identity.
鈥淚f you鈥檙e a state who has that civil rights law ... your lawyers are going to say, 鈥榃ell, the Supreme Court requires us鈥欌�� to do what federal lawmakers are now aiming to prohibit, Martin said.
Most of the changes under consideration wouldn鈥檛 touch schools until fall 2027. However, the new proposal does aim, as did last year鈥檚 bill, to cancel $1.6 billion of the $2.2 billion Congress already approved this year for Title II鈥攖he formula fund that pays for teacher professional development and other measures to boost teacher quality.
Schools are currently set to begin receiving those educator professional development funds in the coming months.
A House subcommittee will meet June 5 to , followed by a on Tuesday, June 9. The Senate hasn鈥檛 yet begun releasing its appropriations bills for fiscal 2027; the Senate鈥檚 version of the education budget bill last year differed markedly from the House鈥檚.
In the meantime, here are some more highlights from the House bill:
House Republicans align with Trump鈥攂ut not on everything
Portions of the latest House bill mirror President Donald Trump鈥檚 proposed fiscal 2027 budget鈥攊ncluding the elimination of Titles II-A and III-A, which are worth a combined $3 billion a year.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e leading the discussion by saying, 鈥榃e want to reduce or eliminate some really key formula programs in a targeted way鈥� that I think was not on the table until a few years ago,鈥� Martin said.
The bill also appears to adopt Trump鈥檚 proposal to zero out annual funding for adult education programs. The Trump administration has characterized those programs, currently worth $729 million a year, as and argued that they
In other areas, though, appropriators are charting their own course. Trump, for instance, proposed level funding for Title I ($18.4 billion), while House lawmakers want to reduce annual investment in the program to $16.8 billion.
The proposed to slash annual funding for the department鈥檚 office for civil rights ($140 million), eliminate Title IV-B formula grants for before- and after-school programs ($1.3 billion), and consolidated discretionary funding for special education research, training, and technology development ($258 million) into the existing formula grants schools used to pay for direct services to students with disabilities.
The House bill includes level, year-over-year funding for all of those priorities.
Trump pitched $261 million in annual funding for the Institute of Education Sciences, the department鈥檚 research arm. House appropriators opted for a less dramatic cut, allocating $493 million for the program, compared with the current funding level of $790 million.
Education Department downsizing gets little mention
The that accompanied the new bill鈥檚 release touts a 10% year-over-year funding cut for the Department of Education鈥攎ore than double the earlier this year, but a far cry from the Trump administration鈥檚 stated goal of closing the agency altogether.
The Department of Education under Secretary Linda McMahon in the last year has begun transferring day-to-day management of more than 100 Education Department programs to at least five other federal agencies. Agency officials have teased similar moves for special education, civil rights enforcement, and education research, though those changes haven鈥檛 been finalized.
The House appropriations bill doesn鈥檛 mention any of the ongoing or proposed program shifts, or the interagency agreements that made them possible. It doesn鈥檛 prohibit the Trump administration from continuing to pursue this strategy鈥攂ut it also doesn鈥檛 formalize efforts to outsource Education Department functions.
The fiscal 2026 spending bill both chambers of Congress approved in February included some language expressing concerns about the interagency agreements and restricting the wholesale transfer of programs from one agency to another.
