Minnesota reaches settlement with federal government over education funding
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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison says his office has reached a settlement with the Trump administration to ensure the state receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal education funding.
That’s after the federal government last year threatened to withhold the funding, citing concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion programming in K-12 schools.
Ellison and the attorneys general in more than a dozen other states sued the Trump administration over a federal directive issued last April, which ordered states to certify that they had eliminated DEI programming from K-12 schools. If they didn’t, they risked losing federal education funding.
Ellison and the other attorneys general argued in the lawsuit that the directive was a vague and incorrect interpretation of federal law.
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The settlement reached Friday prevents the federal government from withholding those funds.
Ellison said that will protect $530 million a year in federal education funding in Minnesota.
Ellison said he was “deeply disappointed, though entirely unsurprised” by the attempt to withhold that funding.
“As Minnesotans, we believe that every child, no matter their race, gender, the wealth of their family, or zip code, deserves the best education possible,” Ellison said in a news release announcing the settlement.
That funding goes toward supporting students from low-income families, as well as special education, English language learning and teacher training.
