John,

Nutrition assistance, Head Start, federal funds for education, and even safe baby formula would all be on the chopping block if the architects of the highly controversial Project 2025 have their way.

On our recent webinar, Lily Klam, Director of Education Policy for First Focus on Children stated:

“They propose taking away students’ access to summer meals and preschool lunches. They propose deregulating baby formula, eliminating Head Start entirely, getting rid of the Department of Education, privatizing public school funds, and defunding Title I over a 10-year period, which is the largest source of federal education funding. These authors claim that these policies protect our children when they really would increase child hunger, decrease educational opportunity, and decrease early learning for our families.”¹

Head Start is a critical program that supports the healthy development of preschool children living in poverty and their parents. Since its inception, Head Start has served almost 40 million children and served more than 833,000 children and pregnant people in 2022.²

Decades of evidence has proven that Head Start programs increase educational attainment and help reduce poverty, Project 2025 proposes eliminating Head Start in its entirety.

As we’ve said before, extremists in Congress are already trying to introduce parts of Project 2025 in small pieces. In the FY2024 Appropriations budget, a $750 million funding cut to Head Start and Early Head start was introduced and failed in the larger House budget. Had this cut been allowed to pass, it would have meant 80,000 fewer children and their families would have access to Head Start and Early Head Start programs.³

These draconian cuts deepen socioeconomic inequality and reduce the chances for generations of children and families to escape poverty. Our children have suffered enough. Tell Congress to reject any and all attempts to slash funding for Head Start and other critical education programs.

If eliminating Head Start programs isn’t enough, Project 2025 calls for eliminating the Department of Education entirely. The Department of Education was established in 1979 and has worked to close educational gaps and set federal standards for what is taught in schools across the country. Project 2025 also proposes redirecting funds intended for public K-12 education and would allow them to be diverted to private and religiously affiliated schools.⁴

The plan calls for cutting 6% of teachers—worsening a teaching shortage that already negatively impacts rural and low-income communities. A 6% cut equals 3.2 million public school teachers, which would affect the outcomes for millions of students across the country.⁵ Of course not all of these cuts would be felt equally. High poverty and rural states such as Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona would lose nearly 10% of teaching jobs, while Louisiana would lose 12%.⁶

Across the nation, school systems in poor, rural, and working class communities have not had the resources to provide a first-class education for their children. The federal government has tried, if imperfectly, to make up some of the resource gap. Project 2025 would dramatically widen the gap in education between affluent and low-income communities, leaving millions of children behind.

Send a letter to your members of Congress telling them to reject any and all proposals to cut education funding.

Thank you for all you do,

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, CHN Action

¹ Project 2025 would eviscerate federal funds for public schools, eliminate Head Start, cut nutrition assistance programs, and more
² Head Start’s Model: Nationwide, Comprehensive, Multi-Generational
³ Head Start Program Facts: Fiscal Year 2022
⁴ FY24 House Funding Level Will Deprive a Generation of American Children the Opportunity to Succeed in School and in Life (Updated)
⁵ Project 2025’s Elimination of Title I Funding Would Hurt Students and Decimate Teaching Positions in Local Schools
⁶ Public elementary and secondary teachers, by level and state or jurisdiction: Selected years, fall 2000 through fall 2022