Trump's assault on bilingual education
By Jeff Bryant for The Left Chapter
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| You can use the same maps to chart funding cuts |
Chicago schoolteacher Claudia Morales may have been
reflecting the feelings of most Americans about life under the Trump
presidential administration when she told Our Schools, “Every day, there’s yet
another abuse. It’s scary. And it’s coming from our own government.” In her
work as a bilingual program teacher and bilingual coordinator at Curie High School in
Chicago Public Schools (CPS), she’s been witness to one trauma after another.
“First, there were the funding cuts the Trump administration
made,” said Morales, referring to the federal government’s decision to withhold more than $4 billion in funds for public education
at the start of the 2025-2026 school year. CPS was particularly hit hard by the
cuts, with the district losing millions it had counted on to pay for staffing
positions and programs.
“Then we had ICE invade,” Morales recounted, noting that the
Archer Heights neighborhood, where most of her students
come from, was one of the communities targeted by the federal government’s
immigration crackdown. The Trump administration’s decision to rescind the protected status that prohibited immigration
raids at schools and student gathering places, like bus stops and playgrounds,
made her school’s largely Hispanic student population—many of whom are recent
immigrants—especially vulnerable.
“And now this,” she concluded. “This” is the December
2025 announcement from Trump’s U.S. Department of Education,
signed by Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, to withhold some $380 million
in federal funding that was previously granted to schools from the department’s
full-service community schools (FSCS) program. The
initiative provides support for the planning, implementation, and operation of
the community school approach to school improvement. The community
school approach transitions traditional schools from being strictly
academic institutions into community hubs that provide student and family
support services based on resources and voices of the surrounding community.
The strategy is showing promise in improving student outcomes nationwide,
but that seems irrelevant to current federal officials.
As a result of the funding cut-off to Chicago schools,
according to Morales, Curie will lose money it needs to pay for tutors,
after-school programs, parent education courses, and academic support for
students who struggle with learning. These are programs and services parents
specifically asked the school to provide, said Morales.
The loss of funding for in-school and after-school tutors
will be especially damaging to the students’ academic achievement, according to
educators at Curie.