Opinion: New poll finds Pennsylvanians oppose dismantling US Department of Education

Imagine for a moment what would happen if the public schools in your community suddenly lost millions of dollars in resources for student programs.

Imagine losing hundreds of teachers, classroom aides, and other support professionals. Imagine fewer school nurses and counselors supporting your students. Imagine class sizes ballooning and effective reading and math tutoring programs disappearing in the blink of an eye.

I don’t want to imagine it. None of us do.

But since taking office, President Trump and his administration have waged an unprecedented campaign to shutter the US Department of Education and dismantle public education as we know it in this nation.

At risk is $1.6 billion in crucial federal funding that supports the education of 1.7 million public school students in rural, urban, and suburban communities across Pennsylvania — and a vast majority of Pennsylvanians do not want the Trump administration messing with it.

How do we know this? We asked them.

In a poll of 700 likely voters conducted for PSEA by Susquehanna Polling and Research between March 17 and 23, 58% said they oppose the idea of closing the US Department of Education, while only 39% support it.

Delving deeper, we found remarkably high levels of support for key federally funded programs that support Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable students.

A whopping 88% of Pennsylvanians want the $428 million in federal funding Pennsylvania receives for students with special needs to remain the same or increase.

And 86% want the $578 million in federal funding the state gets for Title I programs, which fund academic supports for low-income students, to remain the same or increase.

Anyone who reads polls — and these days many of us do — knows that it’s tough to get a majority of any group to agree on something. Numbers this high are incredibly rare.

There is no question about it. Pennsylvanians want to see the federal government invest in their community schools and firmly oppose any effort to gut that funding or the Department of Education.

Our poll also found that more than half of Pennsylvanians want the federal government to allocate significantly more education funding than it does today. Fully 55% of those polled said that federal funding should account for 15% or more of total funding to Pennsylvania’s public schools.

How much do the state’s public schools actually receive in federal funding? Just over 5%, based on audited annual financial reports filed by school districts with the Pennsylvania Department of Education for the 2022-23 fiscal year

Now, the Trump administration has been quick to say that federal funding is not being cut. After all, Congress would have to approve that. Right?

Well, the administration has not been shy about cutting congressionally approved funding. How many federal agencies, with congressionally approved budgets, have been wiped out of existence by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). USAID is just one of many examples.

Just as concerning is how closely the Trump administration has been adhering to Project 2025, a right-wing policy wish list that on page 350 explicitly calls for winding down the federal government’s role in public education funding.

Even if federal funding is untouched, shuffling the responsibilities of the Department of Education to other federal departments and agencies is a recipe for disaster. There is no guarantee that the staff will be there in other agencies or have the expertise to get the job done. It would undoubtedly put $1.6 billion in federal funding for Pennsylvania’s public schools in jeopardy.

This is happening. The threat is real. We must face it and do our best to understand what taking the department’s staff to zero looks like for our students.

Based on our poll results, Pennsylvanians are doing just that. And they don’t like what they see. They understand that this is about the federal government abdicating its responsibility to the children who learn in our public schools.

Closing the US Department of Education is wrong. That’s what nearly six in 10 Pennsylvanians think. Now we need to tell the president and our US senators and representatives that we won’t stand for it.