MANCHESTER, NH – U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan and Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander on Monday met with a group of educators and school officials who represent students from kindergarten through college, from around the state. They gathered at Manchester Community College to discuss the implications of President Trump’s executive order to begin abolishing the U.S. Department of Education (DOE).
The educators discussed how support from the U.S. Department of Education is a critical part of their programs and how it has a direct result in improving outcomes for students. Of particular concern is the loss of professional expertise due to layoffs at the DOE and the reduction of Title I funding.
Title 1 is a grant program to support schools with low-income students – 35,000 students in New Hampshire receive funding support from the DOE program.
“The Trump administration’s unilateral move to abolish the Department of Education is obviously devastating for children all across the country. And I’ll just say, the Trump administration does not have the authority to unilaterally abolish the Department of Education. That’s something only Congress can do,” Hassan said.
Hassan proposed an amendment in committee to overturn the executive order. Her Republican colleagues voted to prevent consideration of the amendment. Goodlander is a member of the Rapid Response Task Force and Litigation Working Group formed by House Democrats fighting executive orders and agency actions of the new administration.
The federal government historically has had a significant role and stake in public education, as Goodalander describes, “This basic idea that education, public education, is a public good, and that public education should be accessible to every student in the country.”
Hampstead Superintendent of Schools Robert Thompson emphasized the importance of federal support in his school system.
“I’d just like to say that as public educators, our number one commitment is to do what is best for our students. And we achieve that through federal funding. So, largely our federal funding goes to our most at-risk kids. It is students from low-income families. It is students who are homeless. It is students with social and emotional needs,” Thompson said.
“So we’re talking about our students, our families. What that federal funding has done is. It’s allowed us to make improvements with early intervention. And we know the sooner we enter with a child, the more likely they are to have success,” Thompson said.
Josh Gagnon is the Director of UNH TRIO Upward Bound, a program that helps students develop skills to graduate from high school and attend two- or four-year colleges. The stakes for his group are dire, saying, “We are 100 percent completely federally funded,” adding that 2,500 students would lose access to their program if the funding is eliminated.
Erin Anderson, Principal of Sunset Heights Elementary School in Nashua, described the value of Title I funds in her school. They fund staff and programs to provide services to high needs children and are an important part of their eduction program.
In 2024, her school was recognized as a National ESEA Distinguished School for its “exceptional student performance and academic growth” in ESEA federal funds to improve education for all students, especially those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. For her, the federal dollar matters because of the value of the staff she has built, saying, ”The more trusted adults we can have in a building to be able to support kids, the better the kids are. The better off they are, the more individualized attention we can give them. And with a cut in funding, any funding, we really lose the human capital. And I firmly believe that the more qualified educators (1:08) we can have in a building, the better off kids are.”