West Virginia’s state Senate Education chairwoman and its senior U.S. senator each expressed openness to the potential dismantling of the federal Department of Education.
President Donald Trump has indicated plans for significant spending cuts at the education department while also pushing employees to quit. A planned executive order would direct his administration’s education secretary to start winding down the agency.
The U.S. Department of Education works with states like West Virginia to establish policy, administer federal assistance and ensure equal access to education.
West Virginia received for the 2025 fiscal year: $204 million for the school nutrition program, $157 million for Title programs, $13.6 million for vocational programs and $94.8 million for special education/IDEA programs.
Broadly, the federal department is responsible for the $1.6 trillion federal student loan program and a range of grants for K-12 schools.
The biggest grants under the federal department are the $18.4 billion Title I program that provides supplemental funding to high-poverty K-12 schools and the $15.5 billion program that helps cover the cost of education for students with disabilities.
Curriculums are set by states and school districts, not the federal education department.
Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said she is willing to consider the federal department’s closure. Trump’s executive order would ask Congress to pass legislation to end the department.
The senator did not anticipate that federal education funding would be diminished, just that it would flow more directly to state and local authorities. Capito noted that about 19% of West Virginia’s schools funding is federal.
“There are a lot of handcuffs on this funding. There’s a lot of one size fits all to this funding,” Capito said in response to a question by Bob Westfall of WTRF television during a briefing this week with West Virginia reporters.
And I think in some ways, having the money closer to the student, closer to the educational institution, is going to be better for the students and their families.”
Capito, responding to a question from reporter Charles Young of West Virginia News, did not commit yet to supporting legislation to shutting down the Department of Education, saying that’s still evolving. But she again suggested decisions about to use funds could be best made at the state and local levels.
“And so I want to get the biggest bang for our buck from the federal government, but I want West Virginia, the Legislature, the governor, the county school boards, to be able to make the decisions that are best for Gilmer County or Ohio County, or wherever you might be,” Capito said.
“And so, you know, I’m going to look and see what the president’s proposal is, I’m not going to weigh in, because we don’t even know if he’s going to attempt to do this or what direction it’ll go.”
West Virginia state Senator Amy Nichole Grady also suggested federal dollars might be best directed by state and local authorities.
“We’re hearing a lot about dismantling the Department of Education, but it doesn’t mean the funding is going away. So what that means is, the funding is not going through the U.S. Department of Education but will come directly to the states,” Grady, R-Mason, said at the annual Legislative Lookahead event in Charleston.
“And so I’m not 100 percent sure about how I feel with it honestly. I’d like to see how it’s going to play out. But I don’t really see a problem with the money coming directly to the states to the state department to decide how that could be spent on our West Virginia schools.”
Grady is the chairwoman of the state Senate Education Committee and also teaches fourth grade. She was responding to a question by Eric Douglas of West Virginia Public Broadcasting during the legislative preview sponsored by the West Virginia Press Association.
“I teach at a low income school, Title One school, so we have federal funds that come to us with a lot of red tape, a lot of red tape. You can spend it on certain things, but you can’t spend it on other things. If there are certain things that I possibly need in the classroom, that money can’t be used for it,” Grady said.
She concluded by saying, “I think it could be a really good thing that if the states can control the funding and how we can spend it because who knows our state better, the U.S. Department education or the West Virginia Department of Education? So I think that’s where I stand on it.”