In May, the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) closed the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) office to “ensure better alignment of programs” for English learners. As a result, a 22 U.S. Senators sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon on June 2, 2026 demanding answers over the U.S. Department of Education’s closure of the Office of English Language Acquisition last month. In that letter, the Democratic and Independent senators said that the decision “will have devastating and lasting consequences for the education of more than five million English learner students nationwide.” 

The letter also claims that portions of the Department of Education Organization Act, which established the agency in 1979, also “require the establishment of OELA.” and that the USDE “remains statutorily responsible for administering the programs that Congress has assigned to OELA through multiple authorization and appropriations laws.” 

In their letter, the senators asked the USDE to respond within 30 days with information, including what role the Labor Department will play in administering Title III programs, what steps the USDE has taken to ensure compliance with all statutory requirements, and whether the USDE will publicly release a transition and implementation plan.

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According to a May 27, 2026 report by the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC), 74% of school districts are concerned about the effect on school meals from looming federal budget cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid. In fact, according to FRAC, children are set to lose direct certification for free school meals as families lose access to SNAP and the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the One Big, Beautiful Bill would wind up reducing SNAP participation by roughly 2.4 million people in an average month over the 2025-2034 period and, in the last year, in the 12 states with available data the number of children receiving SNAP food assistance has dropped by over 700,000 since the law was enacted last year.

In addition, to make matters worse school districts have reported that infrastructure challenges limit their ability to increase school meal participation, with over 80% of the 96 surveyed districts reporting high food and labor costs in the 2025-26 school year.

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As reported by The 74, the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) is among the 17 funding sources that the Trump administration wants to roll into a $2 billion block grant. Congress approved $220 million for REAP this year, but under the president’s plan, governors and state education chiefs would decide whether rural districts would get extra money. In fact, rural districts struggle to apply for large, competitive grant programs and rural school officials have expressed great concern that money rolled into a block grant would be swallowed up by the bigger schools as their needs are much greater than those in rural areas. Such an outcome would leave “small rural schools looking to find funding despite their not having grant writers and cannot bring in the resources other states might have or other cities might have. In fact, rural districts struggle is applying for large, competitive grant programs

REAP does not work like a block grant and districts eligible for the funds, based on size and location, receive an invitation to apply. Most do apply since the process is simple, direct and does not require extensive administrative capacity.

Districts that qualify for Small, Rural School Achievement funding, one of the two REAP programs, have fewer than 600 students and are located in an area their state defines as rural. Others, with 20% of students who live below the poverty line, qualify for the Rural and Low-Income School program, and some are eligible for both. This year, 17,873 were eligible for one or both programs and funding is used for use the funds for tutoring, afterschool and technology needs, bullying prevention, special education assistants, and support to help students graduate.

The administration pitched the same block grant idea last year, and Congress ultimately rejected it.

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