By Brenda Ortega
MEA Voice Editor

Over a long career—first in the U.S. Army and now as a teacher in the career and technical education (CTE) field—MEA member Mike Cook has always used education and training to reinvent himself and build a resume of marketable skills.

This year Cook began creating a new CTE program in Redford Union Schools, a western suburb of Detroit, to teach young people skills needed to work in high-paying, in-demand careers such as network administrator, information security specialist, and cyber-security analyst.

But he’s worried the unilateral dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education now happening with Tuesday’s sudden firing of half of the department’s workforce will destroy his fledgling program and others like it.

“A whole lot of programs are run by the Department of Education that are very important,” Cook said. “If the department goes away and that federal funding is cut, the states will be left to fill in as best they can—and they will have tough choices to make.

“They’ll have to decide what’s more important between things like reading programs, school lunches and CTE. How do you choose?”

Indeed, at stake for students and families nationwide is access to opportunity. Perhaps that’s why Americans are deeply against eliminating the Education Department—opposing the idea by a roughly two-to-one margin, 65% to 30%, in an Associated Press/Ipsos poll conducted last month.

Cash-strapped rural and urban districts would be hardest hit by closing the Education Department, which delivers funding to help states lower class sizes, provide special education services to students with disabilities, feed hungry children, and lower the cost of college and vocational training.

MEA members from across Michigan participated last week in a national “Protect Our Kids” Day of Action to raise awareness of what’s happening and get more people involved in the fight.

A few dozen members from Farmington and neighboring Oakland County communities stood on a pedestrian overpass spanning Interstate-696, holding signs saying “Protect our Schools” and “Honk if you love Public Schools” to a steady stream of blaring and beeping car horns from commuters below.

“I think with so much going on—all of the cuts and chaos across the board—this issue of losing federal support for vulnerable students hasn’t been on people’s radar yet,” said Chris DeYonke, president of the Farmington Education Association.

“But I can tell you about half of the people on this bridge today are special-ed staff, because they definitely know how big the stakes are in this fight.”

Join the movement, and sign up for NEA Town Hall zoom meetings (the next one will be at 8 p.m. on Thursday, March 13) to learn what you can do to get involved, at nea.org/protect.  NEA is also calling for local walk-ins on Wednesday, March 19 – learn more here.

In Berkley, last week’s Day of Action drew several dozen current and retired educators to march and wave signs on a major thoroughfare through town, joined by parents and other community activists who turned out with just 48 hours of notice.

Parent Mary Hippler said she answered the call to action to awaken parents to what’s coming if federal cuts move forward. Her daughter is autistic and attends a public school district that offers critical services from warm and caring educators—services she’s being warned could disappear.

“It’s hard to think of all these cuts, to special education, to lower-income schools, to students who need Pell grants to go to college—cuts to all these wonderful programs that create opportunities for children,” Hippler said. “That’s terrifying to me, not just for my child but for our country in general.”

In west Michigan, MEA-Retired member Jo Bird is involved in local efforts urging U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga—her representative in Congress—to push back against President Donald Trump’s unconstitutional moves to tear down federal departments without Congressional approval.

“I have organized two large protests, one at Huizenga’s Holland office on Feb. 27 with 70 to 75 people, lots of my retired Lakeshore chapter,” Bird said. “If you want to see retired teachers speaking up, let me tell you!”

Bird is a retired 31-year teacher from Zeeland and a longtime union leader and expert MEA-PAC fundraiser who first became active in state politics when former Gov. John Engler began the push to privatize public education to benefit for-profit corporations.

Her latest activism helped draw national media attention to Huizenga and other Republicans refusing to hold in-person town halls via an Associated Press news story that was widely reprinted and broadcast.

“I always take a big bag of signs to share,” she said, noting her hand was also pictured on the front page of the local newspaper as she and another protester pushed notes from constituents under the locked door of the congressman’s office. “I’m just a worker bee who knows the Constitution better than Trump.”

In Redford Union, Mike Cook doesn’t know what will happen to his CTE program next year, given all of the uncertainty. The school district invested up front to buy equipment and retrofit a space in the high school for the new IT program.

After the initial outlay, the district expected to receive a grant through the Education Department’s Perkins Act funding, the modern-day version of a Vocational Education Act first passed by Congress in 1917. Now that program and many more are on the chopping block.

What will be lost if federal supports disappear?

“When you lose CTE programs, you lose the opportunity to train students in a skill they can use forever or give them college credits to get started on a degree if that’s what they want to do,” Cook said. “But the local area and local businesses lose too—they lose skilled workers which they’re in desperate need of.”

On a larger societal scale, the most vulnerable students and communities will face the most harm, he said. “It’s very complicated, but it’s going to hit a lot of different people out there. They may not realize it yet, but they will be feeling the effects very soon.”

Michigan received nearly $1.3 billion in federal funding for K-12 programs in fiscal year 2024. MEA has developed a breakdown by district of federal funding for at-risk and special education students, just a portion of the department’s work.

For higher education, 156,869 students received federal Pell Grants totaling $831 million to make college more affordable, and more than 27,000 Michigan children are enrolled in Head Start programs that receive $425.1 million in federal funding. Another $231 million supports child care & development programs.

Don’t forget to sign up for Thursday’s NEA Town Hall at nea.org/protect. Read more on activism among Michigan educators at mea.org/protect-our-schools, including a solidarity-building campaign called “LSEA Safe” by the Lansing Schools Education Association.