Congratulations to my neighbors who voted for Donald Trump in the last election!
With over 50 public K-12 school districts, public brick-and-mortar charter schools, and public vocational schools in Pennsylvania’s 13th Congressional District (PA-13), it is clear that dismantling the federal Department of Education (DoE) will have a profound impact here, just as you hoped.
Congratulations on paying much more in school taxes if you are a property owner on a fixed income!
PA-13 receives about $120 million dollars a year from the federal Department of Education for IDEA, Title I, Title II, Title III, Title IV, and Title V programs that support individuals with disabilities, low-achieving students in high poverty schools, adult basic education, English as a second language instruction, college affordability, and rural education, career, and technical training, respectively (Source: https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/search?state=PA)
However, since the President’s administration has gutted personnel and announced unconstitutional impoundment of funding for the DoE, you must make up the shortfall because students need, and therefore receive services, through these lawfully-mandated programs.
But wait, there’s more! In consideration of the current administration’s impending tariffs, recession, and general skyrocketing cost of living, property owners can also be expected to meet the increased salary needs of the personnel who teach and care for the over 94k public school students in our congressional district. And with personnel being the greatest part of any school district’s budget, the sky’s the limit!
Congratulations to working families who will now provide more meals for hungry children!
Since the current administration is also impounding United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) funding for the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act that funds the meals of an average of 46.4% of public school students who qualify, feeding the hungry children will fall back onto the families who already didn’t have the means. Almost half of the PA-13 families meet the income standard to enroll their children in this federally-funded program which provides those public school students their necessary nutrition. Moreover, with the Trump administration’s threat to impound Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Women, Infants, and Children program (WIC) which would affect the 110k and 13k PA-13 recipients respectively, local children can go hungry not only at school, but at home too!
And for those who voted for these cuts, yet suffered being called, “racist,” that insult won’t work in PA-13 because at least 65% of the public school students and working families most affected by these impoundments are white!
Isn’t this all so wonderful for you?
Aren’t you thrilled?
Or, do you perhaps have some reservations? A conscience, even?
Might all this unconstitutionality, increased expense, and deprivation of nutrition and public education be…harmful? Might it conflict with the spirit by which our Constitution was written?
Or were the phrases, “ensure domestic tranquility…promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity…” simply pretty words, only meant to be memorized by school children in a history lesson, never actually lived out?
You see, while you were being distracted by lies about litter boxes in the classrooms, the U.S. Department of Education was actually working to provide real instruction to American public school students so they could learn to read and write, think critically (instead of say, follow the whims of a cruel and foolish dictator), prepare for careers in technical industries, attend college, and seek improvements in their lives so that maybe they too could have a piece of the American Dream someday.
Of course, you can change all of this from happening because as a United States citizen, you have power, but you must act quickly before this power dissolves. You must require your legislators to act through the non-violent mechanism our Revolutionary Founders gave to us centuries ago. You must demand your US Representative, who is John Joyce, to impeach Donald Trump. If he is silent or if he refuses, then you must demand Joyce to resign. Once Joyce would resign, PA-13 would have a special election and vote for a representative who would preserve the Department of Education and reestablish congressionally-approved funds for its programs. You might even be a footnote in the history lessons future public school students would receive.
Then, when all is back to normal, you can apologize to yourself, your neighbors, and your community for the incredible cruelty, cost, danger, grifting, lies, and foolishness you inflicted upon us, as well as articulate the valuable lessons you learned.
And that is indeed a cause for celebration.
Beth Farnham is a member of the DFA Education Task Force. She lives in Adams County with her husband, their two children, an exuberant dog, and a loud, fluffy cat.
Beth Farnham is a member of the DFA Education Task Force. She lives in Adams County with her husband, their two children, an exuberant dog, and a loud, fluffy cat.