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Facts in the Flood: Education First’s analysis of federal education policy under the Trump Administration

The Trump Administration began with a flurry of executive orders and actions that have significant implications for education policy. Education organizations are struggling to identify the important facts within this overwhelming flood of policy announcements.

To help address this, Education First launched Facts in the Flood, a new series with analyses and resources about federal education policy under the Trump Administration. Our goal is to help education organizations (philanthropies, nonprofits, state and local education agencies, and others) make sense of these changes and develop strategies for navigating the new policy environment.

We will be updating this page with new analyses and resources to address changing events.

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Federal Education Policy Primer

Last update: 3/25/25

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This slide deck explains the reach and limits of federal authority over education, and how each branch of the federal government impacts education policy.

  • Federal role: States have more control over education policy than the federal government. The federal role is primarily focused on funding, regulation, data and accountability. Higher education is more reliant on federal funding than K12.
  • Legislative authority: Republicans control both houses of Congress, but are unlikely to pass partisan education legislation due to Senate Democrats’ ability to filibuster. Therefore, most partisan legislative changes to education will come through the annual budget process, which can bypass the filibuster. The chairs leading the education committees in both the House and Senate are new.
  • Executive authority: The Department of Education (ED) can control education policy via regulation, guidance, waivers and investigations, each of which has certain powers and limitations. Trump’s senior ED appointees are a mix of Trump-aligned non-educators and traditionally conservative state education leaders.
  • Judicial authority: The federal judiciary can use temporary restraining orders, preliminary injunctions and permanent injunctions to block executive actions that violate federal laws or the Constitution. Rulings from lower courts can be appealed.

Strategies for Responding

Last update: 3/25/25

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This analysis provides frameworks to help education organizations consider how to respond to changes in federal policymaking.

  • The Trump Administration has issued dozens of executive orders impacting various facets of education. Many of these fall on the edges or outside federal authority over education.
  • Organizations seeking to minimize legal risk may end up “overcomplying” with non-legal orders. A holistic risk assessment should also include a consideration of “mission risk”: the harm to an organization’s mission resulting from overcompliance.
  • The Trump Administration is asserting an expansive vision of its authority over education policy while also paradoxically reducing the capacity of the federal agencies that would implement this vision. This tension will make it difficult for federal agencies to implement orders that require administrative action. Organizations may ultimately experience the impacts of federal retreat more than federal expansion.
  • In response to the Administration’s anti-DEI efforts, many organizations are changing their words but not their actions–an approach we call “Quiet Continuity.” This approach has tradeoffs that should be considered relative to the alternatives.

ESEA Waivers 101

Last update: 3/25/25
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The Trump Administration is focused on returning “authority over education to the States and local communities.” One mechanism for granting states more flexibility is the Secretary’s power to waive certain ESEA statutory and regulatory requirements. However, the law outlines limitations on waivers and includes specific requirements requests and approvals have to meet.

In partnership with All4Ed,  we developed this brief to help the field understand:

  1. what states need a waiver to do and what they can do without a waiver,
  2. what ESEA requirements can and cannot be waived, and
  3. what the waiver request process looks like.

Resource Hub

Last update: 3/25/25
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To accompany our own analyses and resources about federal education policy under the Trump Administration, we’ve created this resource hub curating some of the best articles and resources on the Administration’s actions. We have prioritized open-access resources, primary sources and non-partisan analyses and we will continue updating this as policies evolve. The resources include analyses of key executive orders as well as more detailed resources for the majorpolicy areas we’ve identified as the administration’s education priorities, such federal funding cuts and rollbacks of DEI initiatives.

Click here to read Charting Change, our previous series on the implications of the 2024 state and federal elections on education policy.

If you would like to partner with Education First or learn more about navigating the new federal policy environment, please contact us.

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Facts in the Flood: Federal Policy Resource Hub
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Kelly Jasiura
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