Education Department Budget Details Revealed
The following summary is excerpted in part from the analysis by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) with whom NAPT closely partners on federal advocacy efforts:
On May 30th, the Trump Administration released additional details of the so-called ‘skinny budget’ for Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26). This includes specific funding requests for programs funded through USED. Note that the FY26 proposal for the department calls for a $12 billion cut in funding as well as proposed policy and program changes that would reduce federal investment in K-12 education in ways that could potentially be harmful to our public schools. This is in addition to the Presidential Executive Order calling for closure of the Education Department.
According to the release and AASA summaries, two items of good news are that (1) Title I, Part A would receive level funding and (2) IDEA-Part B (Grants to States) would receive an increase of $677 million. That increases IDEA-Part B to a new total of $14.9 billion if approved. AASA notes however, that this is countered by the roughly $676 million in cuts made previously to special education programs. A review shows that the Administration has proposed to increase funding only for the Charter School grant program and level funding for Impact Aid, Indian Education and the Perkins Career Technical Education (CTE) program.
The budget offers a so-called K-12 Simplified Funding Program (K12 SFP) which would “consolidate most currently funded formula and competitive grant programs for elementary and secondary education into a single State formula grant program” to provide flexibility to districts and reduce administrative burden. It is important to note that the total funding for such a block grant would be $2 billion, which reduces the current federal commitment to those programs by more than $6 billion. It is also important to understand that reverting authority over those funds to states and districts changes the dynamic for that funding, a change that districts will need to adapt to and manage.
Specifically, Title II, REAP, Title IV, Parts A & B, and McKinney-Vento are all proposed to be rolled into the K-12SFP block grant– and would not receive any direct funding for FY26. Further, the proposal eliminates Title I-Part C, Title III, Teacher and School Leader Incentive Grants, and Full-Service Community School programs.
Beyond direct funding to schools, the ‘big beautiful bill’ includes provisions that would restrict enrollment in free school meals programs, reduce family food stamp benefits, remove credits for solar energy systems and electric school buses and more. Each of these, among others, will affect overall funding for schools which, in turn, will affect funding available for non-instructional costs like school bus transportation.
AASA suggests that the FY26 budget process will focus on attaining the deep cuts that the President and Congress tried to but did not fully realize in FY25 budget deliberations. But the process will unfold with the need for bi-partisan support in the Senate which could result in less dramatic cuts and changes.
With our partners at AASA, we will continue to monitor the appropriations process and provide additional information as it becomes available.
English Proficiency to Be Enforced
As we know, federal regulations at 49 CFR 391.11(b)(2) specify that “A person is qualified to drive a commercial motor vehicle if he/she can read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records.”
On May 22, 2025, the U.S. Department of Transportation through the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, issued guidelines to the Commercial Motor Vehicle community that reinforced those regulatory provisions based on an Executive Order. This executive order and DOT action reverse an Obama-era (2016) directive to DOT not to disqualify CDL holders for failure to meet that specific standard.
In an announcement by DOT Secretary Sean Duffy, commercial vehicle operators were informed that they needed to take steps to assess the abilities of their drivers to understand instructions and questions from roadside inspectors which will be conducted entirely in English. The process will apply to interstate drivers and will include assessing familiarity with traffic and highway signs. Inspectors are prohibited from using aids and prompts to assist the drivers and are directed to initiate disqualification procedures when drivers fail the assessment.
As a result, the Department made clear that drivers who could not successfully perform would be disqualified from driving commercial vehicles in interstate settings. The heightened concern from DOT stems from a recent record of accidents involving CDL drivers who could not understand signage or directions.
These guidelines could be applied to school bus drivers who are technically covered given their status as federal CDL licensees and often drive their buses in interstate settings. We will stay on top of this matter and update our members as we learn more.
Congress Advances $5 Billion Choice Program
In earlier articles here in School BUS Ride, we shared an observation that the new administration’s policy direction in education would result in increased focus on choice and charter schools and parental vouchers to enable increased school choice.
Our observations continued that such new directions could affect pupil transportation in two ways: (1) increasing the routing of buses to an increasing number of destinations and (2) reducing or restricting the funding that flows to the public schools that are our base of operations and support.
In the expansive budget bill that was passed recently by the House of Representatives, that body included $5 billion per year to support scholarships to help families send their children to private and religious schools. This has never been done before and is part of the administration’s agenda to establish ‘universal school choice’ across the nation. AASA’s legislative team referred to this development as a ‘significant threat’ to public education.
It is unclear whether this provision will survive the negotiations with the Senate but it’s worthy of note that the funding made it this far and is on the table. To the extent that this will present challenges in terms of logistics, costs and driver needs, we will continue to follow this policy development and inform members accordingly.