ACTFL condemns in no uncertain terms the elimination of nearly half of the staff of the United States Department of Education, as announced by the department on direction from the White House on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. We stand beside our members, U.S. educators and administrators, students of language, organizational partners, and multilingual communities across the country in opposing this misguided and shortsighted attempt to decimate an agency that is vital to our nation’s youth.
The U.S. Department of Education provides critical resources, support, and guidance to ensure that all of our children—including the most vulnerable and those disadvantaged—have access to the funding and services they need to grow into engaged participants of our society. Losing close to 2,000 U.S. Department of Education employees since the start of the Trump Administration means that the students and teachers served by this agency will face considerable—and avoidable—challenges in their ability to receive and provide a world-class education.
“This destruction of the Department of Education will remove national accountability that ensures the services and resources that our ACTFL members, their learners, and families rely upon. We are closely monitoring these events and fully support our U.S. Department of Education colleagues in the important work that they do,” said ACTFL Executive Director Lawrence M. Paska, Ph.D., CAE.
The Trump Administration has not veiled its intent to ultimately return the responsibilities of a centralized education agency to the state level. Further cuts to the U.S. Department of Education, which has already been significantly thinned of employees with pauses to some grants and civil rights initiatives prior to this mass elimination, will have devastating effects on the future success of more than a generation of U.S. youth, from pre-Kindergarten to college.
- U.S. Department of Education programs annually support more than 50 million elementary and secondary students nationwide.
- Nearly 12 million K-12 and postsecondary students are enrolled in career and technical education programs—a federally supported subject for the past century.
- 7.5 million special education students (the highest number to date) relied on Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) services in 2022-23.
- One third of U.S. college students receive Pell Grant funding to support their higher education, without which lower-income students may not be able to continue their studies. Likewise, federal grants also provide vital funding to institutions to ensure that universities can build and expand U.S. expertise and capacity for understanding other world regions, cultures, and languages.
ACTFL President Milton Alan Turner shared, “Language learners come from all backgrounds, abilities, and family settings. It is difficult to imagine the dangerous and widespread impact that this action will have on all of our children and their families.”
Along with our partners, ACTFL firmly opposes steps by the White House and U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to return the responsibilities of a national Department of Education to individual states, which would actively prevent millions of children and families from accessing resources critical to their learning and well-being.
Moreover, the misconception that education can simply be returned to the states is false: Education has always been structured at the state level; state and local education agencies often rely on the U.S. Department of Education to support their programs. This falsehood is devastating to our national interests in higher education, the workforce, security, and global interaction.
The U.S. Department of Education provides vital support that enables states to provide essential programs and services to all students, and ensures that the United States has a world-class education system nationwide. The prospect of leaving learners in some states without comprehensive educational support—due to an inability to staff the programs on which they rely—is unacceptable.
We ask the White House to reverse this damaging decision and urge Congress to fulfill its Constitutional duty to ensure that the programs it authorizes and funds through appropriation are maintained and safeguarded. Finally, we ask that the courts resist this attempt to undermine our nation’s educational system by upholding the Constitutional intent of the three equal branches of government.
For more information about ACTFL, please contact headquarters@actfl.org.
Co-signer Organizations to this Statement:
- American Association of University Supervisors, Coordinators, and Directors of Language Programs (AAUSC)
- American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
- American Association for Applied Linguistics
- American Organization of Teachers of Portuguese
- AATSP-WI
- American Council of Teachers of Russian
- Central States Languages For All
- Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools
- Colorado Congress For Language Teachers
- Columbus City Schools
- Command Performance Language Institute
- CT Council of Language Teachers (CT COLT)
- Diplomatic Language Services
- Foreign Language Association of Missouri
- GWATFL
- Illinois Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages
- Michigan World Language Association
- Mississippi Foreign Language Association
- National Committee for Latin and Greek
- National Network for Early Language Learning (NNELL)
- Northeast Conference (NECTFL)
- Pacific Northwest Council for Languages - PNCFL
- PSMLA (PA State Modern Language Association)
- San Francisco Day School
- Small Town and Rural Language Teachers (STaRLT)
- Southern Conference on Language Teaching
- Southwest Conference on Language Teaching
- TESOL International Association
- Utah State University
- Wisconsin Association for Language Teachers (WAFLT)
- Yale University