BALTIMORE — Some of the first questions raised after President-elect Donald Trump made clear his desires — to remove Washington’s influence from schools and hand over control to the states — included:

What is happening to special education funding? Or Title I funding for low-income families? What about respecting civil rights in schools? These are all things that the Department of Education oversees right now, a department that the president-elect wants to eliminate. The decision does not depend only on Trump. Congress should repeal the law that created the department in 1979.

“I think there’s a lot of fear about what that would mean,” Tim Villegas of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education told us. “In the short term, if the Department of Education is abolished, all of that funding would probably go elsewhere and be administered elsewhere in the federal government.”

For example, the department’s Office for Civil Rights, which enforces things like Title IX protections against sex discrimination in schools, could be housed by the Justice Department.

Villegas’ organization is primarily concerned with ensuring that students with special needs continue to be protected under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which provides federal funding for the education of children with disabilities.

“Congress has yet to appropriate these funds, and IDEA has never been funded at the 40 percent it was promised. Only 14 or 15% at most was reached. Our fear, if we have any, is that these funds may be eliminated. But there is no indication that this administration would actually do that.”

Dr. Jade Wexler of the University of Maryland explains how IDEA, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), and other fundamental education laws are department-independent.

“They are separate laws that were created by Congress that are not eliminated even if the Department of Education is eliminated, as long as Congress continues to appropriate money for these different programs.”

These laws actually predate the Department of Education, which was established in 1979. Before that, there was the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, or “HEW.” Dr. Philip Burke, a special education teacher in Maryland, used to work in that department and saw how education was handled by the federal government back then.

“Honestly, it got very little attention. The “e” in HEW was a very small “e”, not capitalized at all. It was a very small part of a large agency that controls Social Security, possibly Medicare (…). it was moved to the Department of Education, it gave a lot more visibility, which is a good thing.”

Still, even today, the federal government typically provides only about 10 percent of a state’s school funding.

“Even if all the federal funds — poof, they’re just gone — there will still be funds available for students with disabilities, assuming they follow the federal guidelines in the law,” said Villegas of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education.

What is worrisome to some is the potential to lose federal government oversight. The Department of Education measures states’ compliance with laws like IDEA, which was originally created because states were not adequately serving students with disabilities.

If the department were to be eliminated, “They (the states) have no or minimal responsibility. So, then there is an unequal responsibility in all states”, explained dr. Wexler.

“If left to other agencies or states, they don’t have the experience to do the work of making sure our girls can participate in sports, that our students have equal access and equitable access to the programs they need. We don’t want to see those important Title IX and Title I protections passed or gone,” said Paul Lemle, president of the Maryland State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union.

Lemle also worries that any perceived threat to the public education system could hurt efforts to bring more teachers into the field. He says there are about 120,000 open jobs in public education right now.

“When we talk about running our programs and our schools like political footballs, we’re really undermining trust in our public schools,” Lemle said. “We want people to know what a great job it is. Attacks do it a lot. Harder.”

But something the experts we spoke with should reassure educators and families is that laws like IDEA and ESEA have historically had bipartisan support.

“Anything could happen, but it’s unlikely that they would want to reduce the amount of money that goes into it,” said Dr. Wexler.

“We love our jobs; we love our children. We think the sentiment is shared across the aisle,” Lemle said.

However, many, including Dr Burke, believe it would be a “huge mistake” to get rid of the department.

“If you really look at what’s going on in the world, every country has realized that education is its future. In other words, the ability of the workforce to be well educated, to be able to effectively participate in government, to be economically successful—they really see education as a major investment. I think one of the tools they use to be able to have a role in that is to have a major federal agency as part of the government,” said Dr. Burke for WMAR-2 News. “All major industrial countries have the equivalent of a Department of Education. It may not be called that, but basically there is a central role for education in central government, which I think is really central to the success of a nation, to be honest with you.”

Another big part of this conversation is about culture in schools, particularly through the curriculum. The Department of Education does not decide which schools can and cannot teach; in fact, it is against the law to do so under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act 1965. It depends on each state and local school boards.

For example, even with Common Core, those standards were adopted independently by each state. The Obama administration at the time only boosted it by giving grants to states that implemented Common Core, so there can be indirect influence from the federal government, but it can’t directly control the school curriculum.

The Maryland State Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment on this matter.

The Maryland Association of Boards of Education sent the following statement:

“We have been following public education headlines closely while focusing on our core work of supporting local school boards in their efforts to promote excellence in public education in Maryland. As you may already know, we provide this support to school boards and local school board governance. Through professional development, advocacy, and member services, we will continue to monitor this and other public education issues in an effort to keep local school boards in MD well-informed, and we are eager to learn more specific details these days. and months ago.”