OHIO — From President Donald Trump’s executive orders surrounding DEI to his efforts to put some federal grants and loans on hold and his questioning of the effectiveness of the Department of Education, the president has made it clear he’s looking to reshape the role of the federal government.
Martha Ross is a retired teacher, and she’s worried.
“That children with disabilities will not get the resources that they need,” Ross said. “I’m nervous about, that like our reading teachers, the Title 1 teachers are not going to be there, that the school lunch programs aren’t going to be there.”
Ross started teaching right after college and throughout her over 30-years career she’s had both special education and fifth grade.
The role of the Department of Education, Ross said, is to provide an equal opportunity to schools across the country.
“To make sure that someone in Mississippi is, hopefully, getting the same amount of resources as somebody in a rich district in like D.C. or out in California areas,” Ross said.
But Senate President Rob McColley, R-Ohio, said the system will benefit from giving the power of education to the states.
He said the one-size-fits-all approach that’s coming down from Washington D.C. is not working and that’s why Trump wants to dismantle this department.
“It’s now basically legal bribery to the states to say, ‘You have to take this federal money and you have to do everything that we’re asking you to do otherwise you’re not going to get this federal money,’” McColley said. “We are going to have a better idea of what Ohio education needs are than they are in Washington D.C., that’s just a simple fact.”
State Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Ohio, said federal money pays for several programs.
The Title 1 program that Ross is worried about provides supplemental reading services for kids that would otherwise fall behind.
“There are a lot of levers, pulleys and checks and balances that come through the Department of Education that states left to their own devices, I worry what that means for each individual state," Antonio said. "More importantly, I worry about what it means for our children.”
According to U.S. Public Education Spending statistics, Ohio K-12 schools receive around $4 billion from the federal government.
Ross may be retired, but she’s still involved with children.
She hopes for a change in focus when it comes to education.
“My volunteer job is to be a CASA, which is a Court-Appointed Special Advocate for children that are in the foster care system,” Ross said. “I think there are many good things happening in our schools and we tend to look at a few bad things instead of promoting the wonderful things that many of our public educators are doing.”
