Georgia received $2.2 billion in federal funding for public education in 2024

Gov. Brian Kemp lavished praise on President Trump’s Executive Order to close the U.S. Department of Education, despite near-unanimity from legal experts that doing so without an act of Congress is unconstitutional. 

Kemp offered no solutions for how the state would replace the $2.2 billion Georgia received from the federal government in 2024, or how he would continue providing the services Georgia’s children rely on currently handled by the federal Department of Education.

“Georgia’s children, teachers, and parents - who just saw Brian Kemp praise Donald Trump for blowing a $2 billion hole in the state budget — are left wondering what comes next,” said DPG spokesperson Dave Hoffman. “Destroying public education is not going to bring prices down, help people make ends meet, or ensure every Georgia student gets the resources they need to receive a high-quality education.”

Read the reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution here:

AJC: What Trump’s attempt to dismantle the Education Department means for Georgia
Jason Armesto; March 21, 2025

KEY POINTS FROM THE ARTICLE:

• President Donald Trump is growing closer to fulfilling his vision of effectively eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, signing an executive order Thursday that could have significant consequences for Georgia’s schools and students.
  
• Although dissolving the agency requires a vote from Congress, Thursday’s order directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”
  
• Missing from the order - issued a week after the department announced it would lay off nearly half its staff - are specifics about how, and if, the department will continue to deliver services many students depend on.
  
• Those services include distributing Pell Grants, loans and other student aid for colleges and universities. The department enforces civil rights protections, distributes money for special needs programs and provides what is known as Title I funds to K-12 schools in high poverty areas. It collects data educators rely on, measuring how schools and students across the country are performing.
  
• In Georgia alone, the department is expected to contribute more than $2.2 billion to public schools for the upcoming fiscal year, according to state budget documents. The University System of Georgia, which oversees the state’s public colleges, received at least $3.6 billion in federal funding during the 2024 fiscal year, according to an audit.
  
• Created during then-President Jimmy Carter’s administration, some Republicans have disparaged the department for decades. Its elimination was championed in Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for overhauling the federal government, which Trump tried to distance himself from during his 2024 campaign.
  
• A former assistant superintendent at Gwinnett County Public Schools, Georgia’s largest school district, Babak Mostaghimi agrees that American learning systems are not performing at their best. But dismantling the department, he says, is akin to cutting off one’s legs, removing a speedometer from a car or taking apart the engine of a plane mid-flight. “The approach to improvement comes about by using a scalpel, not a butcher’s knife,” he said.
  
• The student performance data the order cites is from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Often referred to as the Nation’s Report Card, it is a congressionally mandated program conducted by the Department of Education. It is not clear if the department will continue to do so. That worries Mostaghimi and educators who have relied on the data for decades.
  
• “Good decisions require that reliable, long-term information,” he said. “That’s not only going to be problematic for schools, but also for parents trying to figure out, like, ‘Hey, is the school system in Georgia doing well?’”
  
• Poor and rural parts of Georgia could be especially at risk. State data show that rural Clay County, for instance, receives 31% of its budget from federal sources, versus just 3% in metro Atlanta’s Forsyth County.
  
• Staci Fox thinks officially dissolving the department, which would require a vote from Congress, is a long shot. The president of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute notes that there are not enough Republicans in the U.S. Senate to meet the necessary 60-vote threshold.
  
• But that does not mean current and prospective college students won’t be affected by the ongoing dismantling. The order notes that the department currently manages more than $1.6 trillion in student loan debt.