在教育部取消了将近50%的员工周二晚上，教育工作者表达了深切的关注，不仅是对学生的未来，也是对他们自己的未来。
学习政策研究所政策和项目负责人塔拉·基尼周五告诉美国广播公司新闻，裁员将对教师产生“巨大影响”。
她指出，之前资助教师培训项目的联邦资金的损失尤其具有破坏性，尤其是针对有特殊需求的教师、边缘化和多语言学生的项目。
“事实上，这些拨款将能够出去，这意味着我们将有更少的教师接受培训，特别是在全国各地短缺的高需求学科领域，”她说。
“我们将失去辅导员、社会工作者、行为专家——那些为最需要的学生确保安全和稳定的人，”堪萨斯州五年级教师、美国教师联合会堪萨斯州秘书罗伯特·卡斯尔伯里在给美国广播公司新闻的一份声明中说。
伊利诺伊州皮奥里亚公立学校伍德鲁夫职业和技术中心的讲师、皮奥里亚教师联合会成员迈克尔·白利(Michael Brix)说，“我希望政府的这一变化不会让教育工作者倒退几年。
随着唐纳德·特朗普总统预计将签署一项行政命令，提议将教育权力归还给各州，教育部高级官员强调，周二的大规模改革将有助于该部以更具成本效益的方式向各州提供资金。
“我们现在所做的并不奏效，”官员们表示。“事实并非如此，所以现在是改变的时候了，这就是今晚要开始的。”
但是Kini说，这种削减将加剧美国已经普遍存在的教师短缺和资金缺乏的问题。
康涅狄格州纽黑文市的特殊教育教师、纽黑文教师联合会副主席詹妮弗·格雷夫斯说:“康涅狄格州的学校资金已经严重不足。“我们真的真的很努力，一直在赤字模式下工作，不仅支持普通教育学生，而且特别支持我们最弱势的人群——我们的多语言学习者和残疾学生。”
因此，教师可能会变得更加超负荷工作，难以满足学生的需求，Kini推测，班级可以合并，提供更少的个性化关注。
“或者他们可能会完全取消一些像选修课这样的课程，因为他们没有老师来教，”她继续说道。“他们可能会给班级配备代课老师或长期代课老师...他们没有接受过这方面的培训，这些选项都不利于学生的学习。”
田纳西州橡树岭三年级数学和科学教师迈克·卡维拉(Mike Carvella)在周五的一次集会上告诉美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)，私立学校如何拒绝具有个性化教育计划(IEP)的学生，导致他们涌入公立学校系统，并随后影响教师。
“这将使更多患有IEP的孩子进入更多资金不足的公立学校，并给公立学校教师和公立学区带来更多压力，以教育那些已经被边缘化和已经有学习问题的孩子，”他说。
Kini提到了疫情冠状病毒，在这种情况下，教师面临短缺，被迫承担“更多的负担”,同时还要应付自己的责任。
她还强调了联邦资助项目对于向边缘化学生分配资源的重要性。
“残疾人教育法案(IDEA)为特殊教育教师的教师培训和职业发展提供资金，这是将受到影响的一大笔联邦资金。这将影响特殊教育职位的数量，”Kini说。“对低收入学生的第一项资助和对多语种学生的第三项资助也是如此。”
IDEA是一部确保残疾儿童接受免费公共教育的法律，包括特殊教育和其他资源。
能源部承诺，它将继续提供所有法定项目，包括为特殊需要和弱势学生提供资金，配方奶粉资金，学生贷款和低收入学生的佩尔助学金。
然而，消息人士告诉美国广播公司新闻，大部分力量的减少影响了民权和联邦学生援助办公室，实际上终止了该部门的许多员工，他们的任务是调查学校内的歧视，并帮助全国学生实现高等教育。
Kini谈到了OCR的裁员，强调学生将不会受到非法歧视的保护，并解释了这将如何迫使教师承担额外的责任，“发挥更多的监督作用。”
当被问及教学的未来时，Kini对年轻人寻求以教育为职业的可能性表示悲观。
“这可能有一点猜测，但我认为对今天的年轻人来说，这将是一个合理的结论，看看教育的不确定性正在发生什么，特别是美国教育部的削减，然后说，‘你知道吗?“对我来说，这似乎不是一个稳定的职业选择，”基尼说。
吉姆·瓦德是一名退休教育工作者，也是国家教育协会的退休员工，他从密苏里州的圣路易斯来到华盛顿特区，参加周五在教育部总部外举行的#EDMatters集会，他向美国广播公司新闻强调，学生仍然是最重要的优先事项。
沃德说:“今天在这里的所有敬业的教育工作者都在那些教室里服务，因为他们关心每一个学生的需求，而不仅仅是那些看起来像他们的学生——尽管他们的劳动力也非常多样化——这在一些更排外的私立学校中你可能看不到。”
堪萨斯州的洛里·斯特拉顿也参加了集会，她告诉美国广播公司新闻说，周五出席对她来说是多么“有意义”。
“我当老师已经34年了。我的大多数儿子都从事教育工作。我丈夫从事教育工作。我家大多数人都从事教育工作。这是我们的事。你知道，我们是信徒，”她说。“我们为支持公立学校的学生奉献了一生，我觉得这是美国的价值观。我觉得没有比支持教育更重要的民主美国价值观了。”
Department of Education cuts expected to have 'huge impacts' on teachers
Following the Department of Education's gutting ofnearly 50% of its workforceTuesday evening, educators have expressed deep concern -- not only for students' futures but for their own as well.
Tara Kini, chief of policy and programs at the Learning Policy Institute, told ABC News on Friday the job cuts will have "huge impacts" on teachers.
She pointed to the loss of federal money that previously funded teacher training programs as particularly devastating, especially for programs for teachers of special needs, marginalized and multilingual students.
"The fact that those grants will be able to go out the door means that we're going to have fewer teachers trained, particularly for high-need subject areas where there are shortages all over the country," she said.
"We will lose counselors, social workers, behavior specialists -- people who ensure safety and stability for students who need it most," Robert Castleberry, a fifth grade teacher in Kansas and the American Federation of Teachers' Kansas secretary, said in a statement to ABC News.
"I hope this change by the government doesn't set educators back years while our states are working to try and figure out how to distribute all those funds," said Michael Brix, an instructor at the Peoria Public Schools' Woodruff Career and Technical Center in Illinois and a member of the Peoria Federation of Teachers.
As President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order proposing to return education power to states, senior Department of Education officials stressed the massive reforms on Tuesday are going to help the department get funding to states in a more cost-efficient way.
"What we are doing now is not working," the officials said. "It's just not, so it’s time for change and that's what’s starting tonight."
But Kini said the cuts this will exacerbate preexisting issues of teacher shortages and lack of funding that has already been prevalent in America.
"Our schools are already grossly underfunded in Connecticut," said Jennifer Graves, special education teacher in New Haven, Connecticut, and vice president of New Haven Federation of Teachers. "We are really, really struggling already and constantly working in a deficit model to support not only general education students but especially our most vulnerable populations -- our multilingual learners and our students with disabilities."
As a result, teachers could become more overworked and struggle to accommodate student demands, with Kini speculating that classes could get combined and offer less individualized attention.
"Or they may cut some courses like electives altogether because they don't have teachers to teach it," she continued. "They may staff classes with substitute teachers or long-term substitute teachers ... who aren't trained for the job, and none of those options are good for student learning."
Mike Carvella, a third grade math and science teacher in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, told ABC News during a rally on Friday how students with individualized education plans, or IEPs, can be denied by private schools, causing them to flood the public school system and subsequently affect teachers.
"That's going to put more kids with IEPs into more underfunded public schools and put more pressure on public school teachers and public school districts to educate kids who are already marginalized and already have learning problems," he said.
Kini noted the coronavirus pandemic in which teachers faced shortages and were forced to pick up "more of the burden" while simultaneously juggling their own responsibilities.
She also emphasized how vital federal funding programs are for allocating resources to marginalized students.
"The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funds teacher training and professional development for special education teachers, and that's a huge chunk of federal funding that's going to be impacted. It's going to impact the numbers of special education positions," Kini said. "The same is true for Title 1 funding for low-income students and Title 3 funding for multilingual students."
IDEA is a law that ensures free public education to children with disabilities, including special education and other resources.
The DOE promised that it would continue delivering all statutory programs, including funding for special needs and disadvantaged students, formula funding, student loans and Pell Grants for low-income students.
Yet sources told ABC News that most of the reduction in force affected the Offices for Civil Rights and Federal Student Aid, effectively terminating many of the department's employees who are tasked with investigating discrimination within schools and helping the nation's students achieve higher education.
Kini spoke to the job cuts at OCR, emphasizing that students will not be protected from unlawful discrimination and explaining how this would consequently force teachers to pick up an additional responsibility and "play more of that watchdog role."
When asked about the future of teaching, Kini expressed a bleak outlook over the likelihood of young people seeking to pursue education as a career.
"It would be a little bit of speculation there, but I think it would be a reasonable conclusion for a young person today to look at what's happening with the uncertainty in education, and particularly with the cuts to the U.S. Department of Education, and say, 'You know what? That doesn't seem like a stable career choice for me right now,'" Kini said.
Jim Ward, a retired educator and retired National Education Association employee who traveled from St. Louis, Missouri, to Washington, D.C., for Friday's #EDMatters Rally outside the department's headquarters, emphasized to ABC News how students remain the most important priority.
"All the dedicated educators that are here today are serving in those classrooms because they care about the needs of every single student, not just the ones that look like them -- although their workforce is quite diverse, too -- which you might not see in some of the more exclusive private schools," Ward said.
Lori Stratton of Kansas also attended the rally, telling ABC News how "meaningful" it was for her to be present on Friday.
"I've been a teacher for 34 years. Most of my sons are in education. My husband's in education. Most of my family's in education. This is our business. You know, we are believers," she said. "We have dedicated our lives to supporting students in public schools, and I feel like it's an American value. I feel like there is not a bigger democratic American value than supporting education."
