The Trump administration terminated $106 million in K-12 education grant funding for Massachusetts. But the Bay State wasn’t alone.
The federal Department of Education pulled federal funding from states across the country through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund.
In a statement on Tuesday, Mass. Gov. Maura Healey estimated the cuts at $2 billion across the country. Massachusetts ranked #9 among states whose funding was cut, as of January numbers.
A full list of states and what was cut appears at the bottom of this article.
In the most up-to-date information available through the U.S. Department of Education, which tracks money spent through Jan. 31 of this year, states range in unspent ESSER money now canceled by the federal government from just $18,000 in Hawaii to more than $250 million in Pennsylvania.
Massachusetts, which was listed in federal records as having about $124 million still left unspent, had about $106 million remaining, according to Healey.
A state-by-state map of unspent ESSER money can be found below, or at this link.
Healey’s statement read that the Trump administration contacted states on Friday at 5:03 p.m. stating that federal Education Stabilization Funds — of which ESSER Funds are a part — would be terminated as of 5 p.m. that day — three minutes prior to the message going out.
“At a time when students are still struggling to recover from the pandemic, we need to be doing everything we can to address learning loss and the youth mental health crisis. Instead, President Trump suddenly ripped away more than $100 million in funding that is supposed to go right to Massachusetts students and schools,” Healey wrote in her statement.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education, which President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month to dismantle, released a statement Tuesday that the emergency that brought about the ESSER funds — COVID-19 — is “over.”
“States and school districts can no longer claim they are spending their emergency pandemic funds on ‘COVID relief’ when there are numerous documented examples of misuse,” said Madi Biedermann, the U.S. Department of Education’s deputy assistant secretary for communications.
“The Biden Administration established an irresponsible precedent by extending the deadline for spending the COVID money far beyond the intended purpose of the funds, and it is past time for the money to be returned to the people’s bank account,” she said.
Biedermann said the federal administration will consider extensions on an individual project-specific basis where states can show that the funds will be able to directly mitigate the effects of the pandemic on student learning.
The most impacted states
The 10 most impacted states are as follows, based on federal records of unspent ESSER money:
- Pennsylvania: $254 million
- Texas: $242 million
- Maryland: $240 million
- New York: $178 million
- Florida: $150 million
- Ohio: $137 million
- Tennessee: $136 million
- Mississippi: $132 million
- Massachusetts: $124 million
- New Jersey: $110 million
The least impacted states
These are the 10 least impacted states, according to federal data.
- Hawaii: $18,000
- Alabama: $1.4 million
- Alaska: $1.4 million
- Wisconsin: $1.4 million
- Rhode Island: $2.2 million
- South Dakota: $3.1 million
- Wyoming: $4 million
- North Dakota: $4.2 million
- Oregon: $4.6 million
- Iowa: $5.8 million
A full table of cut funds based on U.S. Department of Education data is available here and below.