Pennsylvania educators in Brentwood Borough School District are sounding the alarm over a conservative policy blueprint they say could strip nearly $3 billion a year from the state's public schools. The warning comes from the Pennsylvania State Education Association, whose leaders say Project 2025 calls for phasing out federal education funding entirely over the next decade, threatening programs that serve low-income students, students with disabilities, and kids who rely on school meals.
Aaron Chapin, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, has said Project 2025 policies could reduce Pennsylvania's federal education funding by $3 billion every year, with Allegheny County alone standing to lose more than $250 million. According to CBS News, Project 2025 is a more than 900-page conservative policy blueprint authored by President Trump's now budget chief, though Trump said during his campaign that he had nothing to do with it. The Trump administration had completed more than 50% of Project 2025's agenda as of February 2026, according to the Center for Progressive Reform.
Separate reporting from fox56.com lays out how PSEA arrives at similarly staggering numbers. The union says the proposal would phase out federal education funding over a 10-year period, which it estimates could cost Pennsylvania public schools nearly $3 billion annually, including about $197 million in Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional District. Of that district total, PSEA projects $40.2 million would come from Title I, $61.8 million from special education funding through IDEA, $9.5 million from Medicaid, and $66.7 million from school lunch programs.
Where the $3 Billion Figure Comes From
PSEA has pointed to a specific page of the document as the basis for its alarm. In a news release, the union said Page 350 of Project 2025 explicitly calls for the full phaseout of federal education funding over a 10-year period, which it says would amount to a loss of nearly $3 billion statewide. That same union review found Pennsylvania received about $1.6 billion in federal education funding from the U.S. Department of Education during the 2022-23 fiscal year, with $578 million going to Title I programs and $428 million supporting special education services through IDEA.
The threatened funds, PSEA says, support schools and students broadly, including students needing special education, students in communities with high levels of poverty, and kids who depend on access to free and low-cost school meals. Those warnings were echoed Monday when local educators joined PSEA leaders in South Abington Township to raise concerns about the plan's potential effects on public-school funding, the organization said.
Brentwood Educators Say They've Seen This Before
In Brentwood Borough School District, educators are advocating for preserving quality education for Pennsylvania families, framing the fight in personal terms. Suzanne Ailes, who has worked as a teacher in Brentwood for 27 years, has watched the district absorb funding cuts before. Pennsylvania school districts were almost gutted overnight after Gov. Tom Corbett made significant reductions to education funding in 2011, and class sizes grew while student programs lost resources in the aftermath, according to CBS News reporting.
That history is contested on the exact dollar figure. PSEA has said Corbett cut $1 billion in funding for public education in 2011, while a report from poconorecord.com put the Legislature's cuts at about $900 million, or more than 10 percent of public-education spending. Whatever the precise number, the aftermath was measurable: a survey of 294 Pennsylvania school districts found 70% increased average class sizes above the prior year's level, 44% reduced elective courses, and more than a third cut or eliminated tutoring and extra-help programs. Pocono Mountain School District alone eliminated more than 120 jobs that year, per the same survey.
Superintendent Warns Taxpayers Can't Fill the Gap
Brentwood Superintendent Amy Burch has said local taxpayers already carry the burden of school funding and cannot reasonably be expected to replace federal funding losses through higher school taxes. Burch has also warned that school districts will face difficult choices about meeting student needs with fewer resources if the cuts proceed, even as student needs are expanding each year to include more in-depth services, according to CBS News.
Union leaders have raised a related concern that cuts to federal education staff could delay how quickly money reaches school districts in the first place, according to cbsnews.com. Separately, PSEA has warned that withholding federal funding could force schools to slash reading and math supports along with summer and after-school programs, per a statement posted to psea.org. Educators in Mechanicsburg raised similar alarms at a rally covered by wgal.com, warning that a funding loss could mean larger class sizes, hungrier students, and reduced access to needed school services.
CBS News reports the administration hinted at more budget cuts in the past week, adding urgency to the educators' push. With the Pennsylvania State Education Association representing about 177,000 active and retired educators, school employees, and health care workers statewide, Chapin and others say they want to spread the word about what's at stake ahead of the midterm elections. As PSEA frames it, the funding reductions under consideration would take away dollars that could otherwise help students thrive and develop into future leaders.
