Posted by: Francis Koster Published: April 8, 2025
Holding on to the Farm and the Future of Our Schools (April 8, 2025)
With Each New Cut, We are All
At a Loss.
You already know that President Trump plans to dissolve the U.S. Department of Education. But did you know about additional cuts to school funding being done by other government departments?
Led by Elon Musk, the “Department of Government Efficiency” has also decided to take their chainsaw to school food programs administered by the Department of Agriculture.(1) These cuts will be added on top of cuts made to the Department of Education announced last month.
This is a tragedy. What happens inside school systems impacts the trajectory of those student's lives forever.
Around one in six Americans either works at or attends an American K-12 public school.(2) In many communities the school system is the area’s largest employer. And for most daytime hours on most days of the week, school personnel are the caretakers of our nation’s children, including seeing they get fed.
In North Carolina, our school administrators and teachers are mission-driven folks who by every national standard are underpaid and overworked due to staff shortages. Much of these staff shortages are caused by our state legislature, which has us ranking 48th out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia in state funding per student.(3) We need every dollar we can get to take care of the kids.
For fiscal year 2024-25 the federal government had been budgeted to provide around 13% of all money invested in K-12 education in North Carolina (including charter schools).(4) Given the low level of support from our legislature, this has been critical.
And now that 13% Department of Education funding is being cut severely. And on top of those previously announced cuts we are now learning of new cuts to school food funding.
One notable example of being chainsawed is the Local Food for Schools program, which funded school systems to buy healthy produce and vegetables from local farmers. Doing so enabled schools to reduce the amount of processed foods that make students gain excessive weight and replace the junk food with healthy fruits and vegetables.
This invisible chainsaw cancels national funding of around $660 million this year for the Local Food for Schools program.(5) Last year, it provided $19 million to school districts in North Carolina to buy locally grown fruits and vegetables.(6)
This is not just a threat to our kids – it hurts the small food producers in our local markets and weakens American food security.
According to the USDA, America now imports almost 20% of our total food supply, mostly from Mexico and Canada.(7) Most of that is fruit (36%) and vegetables (6%), because over the past 20 years American production of these foods has dropped.(8) And to make matters worse, as our food production dropped, our population grew by 47 million people.(9)
Without Local Food for Schools schools, purchases from local farmers will decrease, hurting the local economies in which these small businesses operate. And we will increase our dependency on other nations to sell us food.
Not a great step for national security.
Feeding kids healthy food is important. The better their diet, the better their brain develops. They learn more, become smarter, make more money, and live longer. When children eat junk food, their belly grows, but their brain and life expectancy does not.
The Department of Education is the smallest of all the federal departments – just 4% of all the total federal budget. Most of that federal investment is designed to help the low-income child learn enough so that their earning capacity is greater than their parents. Why are Trump and Musk making this the first target for the chain saw? It cannot be just about money--if the administration wants to save money, there are better alternatives--like this one: Fossil fuel companies now receive annual subsidies of between $20.5 billion and $52 billion dollars in American taxpayer subsidies (10) while making over $244.4 billion dollars annually in profits for their shareholders.(11,12)
Why are we subsidizing profitable polluting and climate changing companies billions while cutting a tiny investment program feeds kids healthy food and keeps our farmers in business.
Follow the money.
It is time for our local elected leadership to speak out against this kind of shameful behavior.
🍎🥦🌱🏫📚👩🏫🚜🍎🥦🌱🏫📚👩🏫🚜🍎🥦🌱🏫📚👩🏫🚜
From Local Farms to Schools:
A Program with Bountiful Harvests
Since its grassroots beginning in the 1990s, the Farm to School Program recently discontinued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture fostered beneficial relationships among schools, local farmers, food producers, and other community organizations. Over the years, more and more schools purchased healthy, locally-grown foods from farms to serve in student cafeterias. These purchases, along with school-sponsored farmers' markets, supported farmers and other small businesses in the local economy. At the same time, teachers incorporated lesson plans on agriculture, nutrition and sustainable food systems into their curricula. And to supplement classroom learning, students visited farms, nurtured school gardens, and received cooking lessons.
By the 2022-2023 school year, more than 74,000 schools (or 75 percent) participated in Farm to School activities.
Learn ways to preserve the Farm to School connection at the National Farm To School Network.
From Lost Advocate to Victim?
The U.S. Department of Education
Claims Potential Harm from Federal Grants
for Teachers
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling announced this past weekend has perilous implications for the future of three major sources of education funding. The decision released on April 5 favored the U.S. Department of Education (the Department), allowing it to cancel over 100 education grants awarded through two programs: Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) and Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED).
The Department successfully argued that the grants, awarded by the prior administration, were contrary to restrictions issued after inauguration day on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Moreover, they contended, distributing the $65 million to selected recipients might cause irreversible financial harm to the government.
Although the case returns to a U.S. District court, a majority of Supreme Court justices suggested the lower court lacks jurisdiction under the federal Administrative Procedures Act. Together with the Department's assertion of irreparable loss, the judges' opinion portends poorly for a second case facing federal appeal. Unlike the first case, brought by attorneys general from eight states,* this lawsuit was filed by private organizations dedicated to teacher development.** Their challenge to grant cancellations includes hundreds of millions of dollars for TQP and SEED, along with the Teacher and School Leader Incentive (TSL) program. Legal experts predict that this case, too, will be heard by the highest court.
*CA, MA, NJ, CO, IL, MD, NY and WI; **American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, National Center for Teacher Residencies, and MD Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
Read more about Divided Supreme Court sides with Trump to block teacher grants and Federal judge restores teacher grants axed by Trump administration.
Find other sources at Supreme Court allows Trump to halt millions in teacher training grants, Supreme Court, in a win for Trump, lets admin cancel $65M in teaching grants, and Supreme Court allows Trump to halt teacher training grants for now.
References for We are All at a Loss
(1) Trump Admin. Cuts Program That Brought Local Food to School Cafeterias
(2) (340 citizens) / (50.6 million students + 8.4 million teachers)
(3) NC again ranks near bottom for effort to fund public schools | WUNC
(4) U.S. Public Education Spending Statistics [2025]: per Pupil + Total
(7) Ag and Food Statistics: Charting the Essentials - Agricultural Trade | Economic Research Service
(8) America’s Food Crisis: Declining Production and Rising Reliance on Imports - Carolina Farm Trust
(9) US population by year, race, age, ethnicity, & more | USAFacts; I took US Census data for 2004 and 2024 to create population number and percentage.
(10) Trump Admin. Cuts Program That Brought Local Food to School Cafeterias
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