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As President Donald Trump moves to shutter the U.S. Department of Education, students, education advocates and Democratic state lawmakers spoke out against the effort Monday at the Texas Capitol in Austin.
State Rep. Gene Wu of Houston warned that the city’s students — especially disadvantaged students, like those who have special needs or come from low-income households — were already in need of more funding.
“People keep saying that our education system is near the cliff,” Wu said. “It is not near the cliff. Our education system has already gone over the cliff. It is hanging on by its very fingernails and they are slipping.”
Trump, a Republican, last week signed an executive order telling U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education” and to do so “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” The department previously announced it was slashing its workforce by half.
“This is a loss for not only Texas, but this could be the end for many Texas families who already barely struggled to survive,” Wu said.
Wu spoke at a news conference held by student-run organization Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, or SEAT, which was co-founded by Cameron Samuels, a 2022 Katy ISD graduate.
Samuels said Houston students are in a unique position because of the Texas Education Agency’s takeover of Houston ISD. With the lack of elected representation on the school board potentially overlapping the closure of the federal education agency, Samuels said local students would be losing another layer of security.
“The dismantling of the Department of Education on the federal level has grave implications for Texas and our communities,” Samuels said, adding this is happening at a time when state lawmakers are debating a school voucher-like program that would provide public funding for private-school tuition and potentially decrease state funding for public schools.
“All these issues are happening in context with one another and don’t occur in a vacuum,” Samuels said. “And this landscape we’re seeing in Texas harms students, it harms our futures, our future of Texas.”
The Department of Education is responsible for overseeing the distribution of federal funds to campuses, especially school districts in low-income and rural areas. The federal agency is also in charge of enforcing civil rights laws at schools — an arm of the department which Samuels has been leaning on to investigate a complaint they filed last year.
Uncertainty surrounding civil rights investigation into Katy ISD gender policy
In 2023, Katy ISD’s school board adopted a policy requiring students to use restrooms and locker room facilities corresponding with their biological sex. The policy also requires district administrators to notify students’ parents or guardians if they identify themselves as transgender or ask to be addressed by pronouns that do not align with their gender at birth, while allowing teachers to refuse such requests.
Months later, Samuels filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging the policy discriminates against queer and transgender students.
Samuels alleges that because of the policy, more than 40 students who identify as transgender have been reported to their families without the students’ consent. Samuels said this is “potentially jeopardizing their safety or their stability in their family, and this policy is prohibiting students from utilizing the resources at their school district to affirm their identity.”
The Department of Education began an investigation into Samuels’ case in May 2024, and at the time, they said: “Seeing as how our complaint has been validated and taken seriously, we have merits to our case. There is something to be investigated. We’re really fortunate the department is taking these measures to investigate objectively and thoroughly. Hopefully, we will see a prompt resolution.”
But now, Samuels feels like they’ve been left hanging. They don’t know if the investigator handling their complaint has been laid off and handed off the complaint to someone else.
“Right now, it’s a moment of confusion and uncertainty because we don’t know the status of our OCR (Office for Civil Rights) complaints and investigations,” Samuels said.
Samuels’ complaint is among nearly 20,000 filed with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that are pending, according to the Associated Press.
Samuels added although they haven’t heard from the federal agency, it’s likely their case will remain pending because the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in Dallas has been dissolved. The whole department there was closed when the agency announced more than 1,300 layoffs across the country.
“We don’t know what the status is of the investigation, other than what we can imagine through current events in the news and the rhetoric of the Trump administration,” Samuels said. “I have lost trust and many other students have as well. We have lost trust and faith that the federal administration and the Department of Education can meaningfully, can appropriately, can sufficiently address these concerns and the harm that’s being done to our students.”
In addition to civil rights cases, Judith Cruz, a former elected trustee for HISD, said she’s concerned about how the deconstruction of the federal department may leave students with disabilities and special needs without protections.
“What I’m understanding is the federal administration is currently saying the funding will still be there, it’s just being moved to other departments, right?” Cruz said. “But the question is: What will that implementation look like? And if some of the funding gets pushed down to the states, then who is responsible for making sure that there is compliance with the law, that those protections are indeed in place, and that students are receiving the services that they are entitled to?”