Raoul Joins Coalition Fighting to Restore Access to Funding that Helps Schools, Teachers, Vulnerable Students Recover from COVID-19
Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul joined a coalition of 17 states on Thursday in filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration to restore access to critical U.S. Department of Education (department) funds that support programs for students across the state, including low-income and unhoused students, and provide funding for other essential school services to address the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on K-12 students.
Raoul and the coalition’s lawsuit comes after the department notified states on March 28 that it was unilaterally ending access to hundreds of millions of dollars in grants from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which the department had previously determined the states could access through March 2026. The department’s sudden change in position and arbitrary termination of states’ access to these funds will cause serious harm to students throughout the country. Illinois alone will lose access to over $77 million in essential funds.
“Congress distributed funding to states and school districts across the country to ensure classrooms have the necessary resources to deal with the unprecedented demands the COVID-19 pandemic created,” Raoul said. “This reckless and illegal decision by the Trump administration to now attempt to take back these already-appropriated funds would hurt vulnerable students the most and could potentially have a catastrophic effect on the budgets of school districts, especially those with limited financial resources.”
To combat the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, ARPA funded three education-related programs to help support states’ school systems and direct more resources to the most vulnerable students. These three programs – Homeless Children and Youth (HCY), Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER), and Emergency Assistance to Nonpublic Schools (EANS) – provide essential resources to help schools and students around the country recover from the lasting impacts of the pandemic.
The three programs also support critical services to help vulnerable students reach their full potential and accelerate academic success while recovering from missed classroom time and other negative effects of the pandemic. ESSER funds support teacher mentoring, statewide instructional coaching and physical maintenance and improvement of school infrastructure. HCY funds are critical to support unhoused youth in Illinois schools, providing food, personal care items, classroom supplies, transportation to and from school, field trip funding and specialized training for teachers who work with unhoused students.
Raoul and the coalition assert in their lawsuit that the department’s arbitrary and abrupt termination of the states’ access to these funds is causing a massive, unexpected budget gap that will hurt students and teachers by cutting off vital education services. If access to this critical funding is not restored, some states will be unable to provide essential public services, pay hundreds of public employees or provide quality education to K-12 students.
Raoul and the coalition argue that the department’s decision to abruptly cut off access to awarded funds violates the Administrative Procedure Act because the decision lacks a reasoned, justified explanation for revoking access to the funds; and the decision is contrary to law because Congress did not intend to limit these appropriated funds to the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, nor did Congress otherwise take action to claw these funds back from states when the federal government declared the pandemic ended in 2023. Raoul and the coalition are seeking a preliminary and permanent court order preventing the department from arbitrarily changing its position so the states can continue to access these essential funds.
Joining Raoul in filing this lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Oregon, along with the governor of Pennsylvania.
