“Flexibility” Is Just Another Word for Abandonment: Why Block-Granting Education Funding Is a Bad Idea

(A version of this article was previously published on the Intellectual Dissatisfaction blog.)

When U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon stopped in South Dakota recently, she brought with her a proposal that sounds reasonable on the surface: shift federal education funding to a block grant system, giving states more "flexibility" over how they spend federal dollars. As a former grant writer who focused specifically in nonprofit childcare — including writing for the 21st Century Community Learning Center federal block grants — I know what that word would really mean in practice. Fewer guarantees, less accountability, and historically, less money over time. Don't be fooled: while education funding might be broken, this is not the way to fix it.

Issue 1: Block Grants Don't Guarantee Money Reaches the Kids Who Need It Most

Block grants are lump sums of federal money given to states with minimal restrictions on how the money gets spent or the methods they use for distribution. Proponents frame this as empowering local decision-makers. In reality, it means there is no guarantee the money reaches the classrooms, kids, or districts that need it most.

Under the current system, programs like Title I are formula-based: funding is calculated based on actual student need — poverty levels, disability status, English learner populations — and flows directly to qualifying schools. That structure exists for a reason. As the Brookings Institution notes, Title I's early years in the 1960s saw segregated districts invest the money in all-white schools, which is precisely what led Congress to attach more strings to ensure the law's "compensatory spirit" was actually followed.[1] Without those protections, a block grant could legally be invested in facilities upgrades or enrichment programs at a district's wealthiest school — not the ones struggling to keep the lights on.

This is not a hypothetical concern for South Dakota, which is heavily reliant on federal funding for education. According to USAFacts, South Dakota schools received approximately $438.8 million in federal funds during the 2021–22 school year, representing about 21.8% of total public school funding — well above the national average of 13.7%.[2] Our rural and tribal schools are among the most dependent on that federal pipeline. The Oglala Lakota County School District received 71.3% of its funding from federal sources that same year.[2] Block-granting that funding hands the state government enormous discretion over whether those dollars find their way to the communities that need them most — or get absorbed into the general budget, like the once-earmarked-for-education video lottery money.

With block grants, states have discretion not only over where the money is spent, but how. Funding might be distributed via a grant process, like the aforementioned 21st Century Learning Center funding. But what kind of districts will have the time and talent resources to apply, especially for a grant with federal dollars attached — which always means more hurdles to jump through? It doesn't take much to see that bigger, wealthier districts would win. Rural and low-income districts get whatever's left.

Block-granting that funding hands the state government enormous discretion over whether those dollars find their way to the communities that need them most.

Issue 2: Block Grant Funding — as a Rule — Goes Away

The word "flexibility" in grant policy has historically been a Trojan horse for defunding. We have receipts.

In 1982, the Reagan administration consolidated 28 education programs into a single block grant called Chapter 2, simultaneously cutting funding from $713.9 million to $418 million. That funding was steadily reduced until the program was eliminated entirely in 2008.[3] More broadly, a 2017 study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that since 2000, funding for the 13 major low-income block grants — covering health, housing, and social services — had fallen by 37% after adjusting for inflation and population growth.[4]

This is not a bug in the design. It's a feature. Block grants are structurally easier to cut because there is no named constituency standing behind them. There is no "IDEA parent" or "Title I school" to call their senator. There's just a number in a budget.

Compare that to targeted programs like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), from which South Dakota received over $18 million in a recent grant cycle.[5] IDEA comes with enforceable rights for students and parents. It mandates that children with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education. Block-grant that funding away, and those rights don't automatically follow. As the National Education Association has noted, states would no longer have to answer to anyone about whether or how they follow the law — and a child's access to services would depend entirely on which state they happened to be born in.[6]

We already have a preview of what instability looks like for South Dakota schools. In the summer of 2025, the Trump administration froze $25.8 million in federal education funds to the state. The South Dakota Education Association reported that districts were "scrambling" to figure out their budgets, with rural schools at risk of cutting staff, eliminating programs, and in some cases potentially closing.[7] Block-granting federal education dollars doesn't make our schools more stable — it makes them permanently vulnerable to that kind of uncertainty. Is that what we want for our teachers and students?

Issue 3: We Have a Moral and Constitutional Obligation to Educate Every Child Equally

This is not just a policy debate. It is a moral one.

Federal education funding exists precisely because states, left to their own devices, have historically failed to educate all children equally. Prior to federal intervention, students with disabilities were routinely excluded from public schools. Schools in low-income communities received a fraction of the resources of wealthier districts. The achievement gap between students of color and white students was treated as a fact of life rather than a policy failure. Federal programs were not designed to meddle with local control — they were designed to correct for the places where local control had produced injustice. Part of the reason why public school advocates such as myself oppose spending public dollars on private schools is because private schools don't have the same obligation to serve every child that public schools do.

The data makes clear this problem hasn't gone away. Before the pandemic, school districts serving the largest proportions of Black, Latino, and Native American students already received about $1,800 less per pupil than those serving fewer students of color — a gap driven largely by the United States' heavy reliance on local property taxes to fund schools.[8] Shifting to block grants, with minimal accountability for how money is spent, would almost certainly deepen that divide.

Former Republican Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, a George W. Bush appointee, has warned that sudden changes to how we fund public schools will be "costly, complicated, and lead to children falling through the cracks."[6] This is not a partisan concern. It is a basic question of whether we believe every child — regardless of zip code, disability status, income level, or tribal affiliation — deserves a real shot at a quality education.

Block-granting federal education dollars away isn't reform. It's abandonment.

So What Should We Do Instead?

Criticizing a bad idea is easy. Here's what good policy actually looks like.

Strengthen, don't dissolve, accountability structures. Programs like Title I and IDEA work — imperfectly, but they work — because they come with meaningful requirements about who gets served and how. Reform should focus on reducing bureaucratic compliance burdens while keeping equity protections intact.

Weight funding formulas for actual need. Other states have shown that it's possible to build funding systems that direct dollars toward the students who need the most support without sacrificing local flexibility. California's Local Control Funding Formula provides supplemental grants for English learners, foster youth, and low-income students, and concentration grants for districts with the highest need.[9] South Dakota could advocate for federal formulas that similarly protect rural and tribal school districts.

Invest more, not less. South Dakota teachers are among the lowest-paid in the nation. Our rural districts are stretched thin. Our tribal schools have faced chronic underfunding for generations. The answer to those problems is not block-granting away the federal dollars they currently depend on. It's fighting for more investment and more stability — not less.

Secretary McMahon's proposal offers states a shiny new word: flexibility. What it actually offers is a mechanism to quietly reduce funding for the students who have the fewest advocates and the most to lose. South Dakota's children deserve better than that.

Sources

1. Brookings Institution — "Block granting federal education funds comes with trade-offs" (2025)
2. USAFacts — "What percentage of public school funding in South Dakota comes from the federal government?" (2025)
3. Texas AFT — "What Are Block Grants?: Flexibility at the Expense of Equity"
4. Wikipedia — "Block grant" (citing CBPP 2017 study)
5. State Regs Today — "Federal Contributions to Education Funding in South Dakota"
6. National Education Association — "Why Block Grants Are Bad News for Students" (2025)
7. South Dakota Searchlight — "South Dakota schools left 'scrambling' after feds withhold $25.8 million in funding" (July 2025)
8. Learning Policy Institute — "Leverage More Adequate and Equitable School Funding"
9. Ibid.