(The Center Square) – California Attorney General Rob Bonta, along with 22 other state attorneys general and the governor of Kentucky, is pushing back on a new federal rule that could upend grant funding to California schools.
In a Sept. 23 letter to the U.S. Department of Education, Bonta and the other state officials criticized a proposed federal rule that would give the federal government broader authority to make decisions about federally-funded taxpayer grants. The proposal could allow for similar actions in the future, Bonta and other officials wrote in the letter. They also urged the department to withdraw that rule.
“The proposed rule would broadly restructure the Department of Education’s grantmaking, as it would unlawfully alter the conditions and requirements applicable to billions of dollars in formula and discretionary grants,” the attorneys general wrote in the letter.
The California Attorney General’s Office and the U.S. Department of Education did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment before publication time on Thursday.
According to the letter, one of the conditions for grant recipients to continue to receive grant funding is to comply with all executive orders issued by the president. To comply with that rule, those who apply for grants would have to constantly search for new executive orders, determine if those executive orders apply to activities related to applying for grants and then attempt to comply with those executive orders. Those conditions exacerbate compliance costs for recipients, the letter warned.
Other conditions imposed by the proposed rule include adding vague restrictions on grant recipients’ policies on employee’s political views, allowing the U.S. Department of Education to stop funding projects even if grant recipients are fully compliant and disrupting states’ reliance on dependable education grant funding from the federal government, according to the letter.
“The Trump Administration continues to disregard Congress’s authority in its relentless attempts to seize the power of the purse and leverage federal funding to advance its hateful policy priorities,” Bonta said in a press release. “Its latest target is vital funding for our children, teachers, and schools. In California, protecting our students’ educational future is a top priority. We will not allow the U.S. Department of Education to overstep its authority and impose unlawful, discriminatory conditions on education funding.”
The state attorneys general of Illinois, New York, Washington State, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky joined Bonta in signing the letter.
All of them, including Bonta, are Democrats.
The push back on the new federal rule change proposals follow other instances of the federal government policy changes regarding grants. In addition to the now-restored $3 trillion in taxpayer-funded federal grant funds frozen in 2025, the federal government also terminated grants received by certain state-run programs and imposed new conditions on grant funding to advance federal policies, according to the California Attorney General’s office.
However, federal funds don’t always improve the achievement and performance of students, said Lance Izumi, senior director of the Center for Education at the Pasadena-based Pacific Research Institute.
“On the most recent [Program for International Student Assessment] international tests, U.S. reading and math scores hit their lowest mark in a quarter century,” Izumi told The Center Square on Thursday. “This decline occurred while education at the federal and state levels have skyrocketed. It is telling that Bonta and his fellow blue-state attorneys general do not show that all the federally funded state education spending they want restored will actually raise student achievement. They can’t because it hasn’t.”
Izumi added that the public should ask why taxpayers should continue to subsidize government education spending that doesn’t produce results.
“The answer is that they shouldn’t,” Izumi said.
Members of the California Assembly Education Committee and the state Senate Education Committee were unavailable to comment for this story. Public education organizations also did not respond to The Center Square. The California Department of Education did not make anyone available for an interview on Thursday before publication time.
