Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

11. Department of Education · Minor · Needs Congress

Update Title I of ESEA to make funds portable to families

Attempted

350 11. Department of Education

“Members of Congress and the White House should consider a similar update to Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).”

What has happened

  1. Attempted

    Acting on Executive Order 14191, the Department wrote to states explaining how to route Title I money toward parent-chosen services: up to three percent of a state's allocation can go to local agencies as direct student services under ESEA section 1003A, paying for tutoring, advanced courses, dual enrolment and personalized learning, and section 1003A(d) requires districts to give parents “adequate outreach, time, and information” so they can make a meaningful choice. That is an executive workaround, which playbook §3 logs as `attempted`: Title I itself is unchanged, the funds move to districts rather than to families, and only one state was using the flexibility when the letter went out. No bill in the 119th Congress would amend Title I to make the money portable.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • One negative search covered this ask and #877.
  • Leveled deliberately apart from #877 on the same instrument: this Quote asks that Title I be updated so funds follow the child, which the letter pursues by administrative means; #877 asks for accounts, which do not exist. Confirmed on review, 2026-09-01: the difference is not drift but the rule that executive action routing around a statute is attempted — the same letter routes around this ask’s statutory object, which is attempted, and does not create the object #877 names at all.
  • Checked 2026-10-14. Open. The event’s last sentence (“No bill in the 119th Congress would amend Title I to make the money portable”) may no longer hold. H.R. 10801 was introduced on 2026-10-13 and referred to Education and Workforce and to Ways and Means. Its long title: “To direct the Secretary of the Treasury to carry out a program under which Federal funds for elementary and secondary education are either provided directly to parents to cover certain educational expenses or approved by parents for distribution to the public school their child attends”. That is portability to families. A bill that has only been introduced is not started, and the event concerns the executive letter, so the Status stays attempted either way. The dated note is not rewritten. Whether the bill amends or draws on ESEA Title I, Part A will be clear once its text is posted; if it does, this note supersedes the event’s last sentence.
Action
other
Object
Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
ID
876