On a recent Monday night, Segun Eubanks was scrolling through his email when he came across a memo from the U.S. Department of Education.
As the director of the University of Maryland College of Education’s Center for Education and Innovation Improvement, Eubanks helped launch an academy aimed at supporting principals of Title I and high-need schools. But in the email, the federal agency said grant funding that paid for the program would be terminated because it doesn’t align with the department’s priorities.
The School Improvement Leadership Academy addressed diversity, equity and inclusion, the note said, and therefore violated civil rights laws.
The note surprised Eubanks, mainly because when the school applied for the grant funding, the federal government asked it to address DEI issues. Dozens of emails from disappointed colleagues and program participants followed. On Feb. 10, the program abruptly stopped its work.
President Donald Trump campaigned on promises to end DEI policies, and has signed an executive order that aims to end “radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing.”
In a news release this week, the Department of Education announced it had cut more than $600 million in grants to nonprofits and academic institutions that “were using taxpayer funds to train teachers and education agencies on divisive ideologies.” Those cuts include Teacher Quality Partnership and Supporting Effective Educator Development grants.
In the D.C. region, Virginia Commonwealth University, American University and the University of Maryland are among those listed as recently receiving funding from the federal agency through those grant programs.
“Teacher prep programs should be prioritizing training that prepares youth with the fundamentals they need to succeed for the future, not wasting valuable training resources on divisive ideologies,” Education Department spokeswoman Savannah Newhouse said. “The U.S. Department of Education will continue working to ensure taxpayer dollars are used wisely to strengthen America’s education system.”
The University of Maryland program “wasn’t complicated or controversial, we thought, at all,” Eubanks said.
It offered principals across Maryland and in one New Jersey district the chance to participate in a two-year program. As of January, the program has worked with 70 assistant principals and principals, with the focus of helping them create school improvement plans “that actually work,” Eubanks said.
The academy recruits assistant principals to help them prepare to become principals and offers principals professional development. Instead of traditional exams, the school leaders are assessed on what actually gets implemented in their schools. Equity was a point of conversation because “we know that there are certain groups of students who are not doing well,” Eubanks said.
The future of crafting plans to address that is unclear, Eubanks said. The cohort had been working on addressing chronic absenteeism, defined as when a student misses 10% or more of school days in an academic year. Some fellows were focusing on improving outcomes for English language learners by prioritizing language development and math skills, he said.
“This work that they were doing, hopefully they’ve learned enough that they can continue that, but it’s hard to know what will continue now,” Eubanks said.
The Department of Education offers an appeal process, and Eubanks said the university is going through it. But for now, its efforts have been paused. The university was due about $877,000 that was intended to keep the program operating until October. The original grant was for $4.8 million.
VCU, meanwhile, was awarded a grant for a residency program to prepare educators to work in high-need schools. The residents complete what’s described as a “yearlong clinical experience.” It was awarded in fiscal 2024, but a campus spokesperson didn’t respond to specific questions about the future of the grant funding, instead explaining the school is “involved in bipartisan conversations at the state and federal level about how White House executive orders, federal agency directives and court decisions may impact the university.”
American University is listed as receiving a five-year, $1.85 million grant in fiscal 2023 for a master’s program that includes a partnership between its School of Education and D.C.’s Friendship Public Charter Schools. The university didn’t respond to a message seeking information about whether its grant funding had been stopped.
Locally, the impact of the Department of Education grant cuts is unclear. A Maryland Department of Education spokeswoman said the agency is reviewing the information and declined to comment. A Virginia Department of Education spokesman said the agency is aware of the Education Department decisions following Trump’s executive orders, and “the VDOE looks forward to further information from US DOE on these decisions.”
A Fairfax County Public Schools spokeswoman said the Northern Virginia district is continuing “to review the impact of all evolving federal government actions.” A spokesman for Loudoun County Public Schools said the division is assessing potential impact.
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