This week, W/A’s Anna Kimsey Edwards, David DeSchryver, and Hillary Rinaldi are filling in for Ben with a timely update on federal education funding.

On Tuesday, Congress passed—and President Trump signed—the latest funding package by a narrow 217-214 vote, ending a brief partial government shutdown caused by a lapse in appropriations. The package includes $79 billion for the U.S. Department of Education through September 30.

The compromise maintains level funding for core K-12 and higher education programs, including:

It also preserves funding for after-school programs, career and technical education, and other key federal supports. Crucially for states and districts, the bill requires the Department to obligate formula grants by their statutory deadlines, including the typical July 1 timing for Title I allocations—an effort to prevent a repeat of last year’s Office of Management and Budget freeze

While the bill does not include statutory prohibitions on transferring departmental responsibilities, the explanatory language asserts that the Education Department lacks authority to shift its programs wholesale under prior interagency agreements—a clear signal from Congress rejecting the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink or dismantle the agency through executive action. It also directs ED to provide biweekly briefings to lawmakers on implementation of any such agreements.

The bill’s language represents a compromise: Democrats had sought explicit legislative blocks on transfers of programs and staff, while the Trump administration argued report language was nonbinding.

The Labor–HHS–ED appropriations conference report highlights the critical, but seemingly dormant, ESEA Section 1003 regarding school improvement. Beginning on page 268 of the Senate Committee Report, Congress directs ED to elevate compliance around school support and improvement. (Remember: the detailed funding tables included in House and Senate reports are “read into” the statute itself as a way to mitigate OMB disruptions.)

ED has spent the last year moving away from heavy-handed oversight of school improvement, especially compliance-driven approaches tied to identification, intervention models, and state monitoring. Yet, Congress is moving in the opposite direction, reaffirming that school improvement is not optional and is not merely a technical assistance exercise, but a core accountability function of the agency under ESEA.

Whether this translates into sustained enforcement or remains largely aspirational remains to be seen—but the signal is unmistakable. School improvement oversight is back as a congressional priority (though it never went away as a legal requirement). 

The broader funding package also ends the partial shutdown triggered by a dispute over Homeland Security funding, but leaves DHS on a short-term funding cliff in mid-February, setting the stage for further negotiations around immigration enforcement reforms.

For the education sector, the result is continued certainty for federal program funding in FY 2026, coupled with continued oversight of the administration’s structural priorities. However, the underlying policy debates around federal roles in education, department authority, and interagency transfers remain very much alive going into the spring appropriations cycle.

As 2026 legislative sessions get underway, early childhood education is once again surfacing as a bipartisan priority across statehouses—but with a noticeably sharper focus. Rather than sweeping new expansions, governors and legislators are emphasizing  access, affordability, and system stability, and working to solve implementation challenges that have constrained progress in recent years.

In this year’s State of the State addresses, half of governors who have spoken to date referenced early childhood education or child care, often framing these programs as key components of their state’s  economic infrastructure. Across red and blue states alike, early learning is increasingly tied to workforce participation, family affordability, and long-term economic competitiveness.

States like Kentucky and Massachusetts explicitly linked pre-K access to labor force participation and parent earnings; South Carolina and Vermont emphasized universal or expanded pre-K as part of broader education reform agendas to increase preparedness for K-12; and Indiana and New York lamented high costs of childcare. Even where rhetoric is ambitious, however, governors are also acknowledging constraints—from educator shortages to provider sustainability—that complicate rapid expansion.

Early legislative activity reinforces this pattern. Bills gaining traction in 2026 tend to focus on instructional support, workforce quality, and system coordination, rather than new universal pre-K programs. From Mississippi’s push to expand early learning collaboratives statewide to Alabama’s proposed limits on screen time in early learning settings, lawmakers appear focused on strengthening the quality and coherence of existing systems before scaling access further.

State budgets offer a clearer picture of how rhetoric translates into action: 

As legislative sessions advance, the most consequential developments may not be headline-grabbing expansions, but quieter shifts toward implementation.  For state leaders, providers, and partners, the opportunity—and the challenge—will be translating sustained political attention into durable systems that support educators, ensure quality, and scale effectively.  

We’re excited to share that registration is now open for the 2026 Solutions Summit, co-hosted by ISTE+ASCD and Whiteboard Advisors, taking place alongside the ISTELive + ASCD Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida.

The Solutions Summit will be held on Sunday, June 28, 2026, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and will bring together education technology leaders, innovators, and experts for a day of learning, collaboration, and connection. Designed specifically for edtech company leaders, this is a space to share best practices, workshop new ideas, and engage with peers who are shaping the future of teaching and learning.

Why attend? The Solutions Summit offers an unparalleled opportunity to:

To date, 35 governors have given their annual “State of the State” address—and almost every single one brought up education.

The most talked about issues are early childhood, funding for K-12, higher education and college access. Many have also highlighted their administration's efforts to increase teacher salaries, expand school choice, bolster CTE, and ban cell phones from schools. 

This week's addresses included:

Go deeper: Read our team’s summaries of this week’s “State of the State” addresses, as well as our in-depth analysis of the first 30 speeches, on the W/A blog.

On Thursday, the Education Department issued updated guidance on prayer and religious expression in public K-12 schools, rejecting what it describes as “the familiar but legally unsound metaphor of a ‘wall of separation’ between religious faith and public schools.”

Legal challenges to the new guidance are expected. At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Trump remarked that the Education Department’s new guidance is a “big deal,” and that “the Democrats will sue us [over the guidance], but we’ll win it.” No lawsuits have been filed yet.

Check out W/A Jobs, which features 3,587 career opportunities from 314 organizations across the education industry. A few roles that caught our eye over the past week: