The US Department of Education has spent $1,002,522,304.81 in taxpayer dollars funding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, according to a report released last Thursday from Parents Defending Education (PDE). This includes more than $21.5 million in taxpayer dollars funding DEI programs in North Carolina’s Montgomery County schools.
“DEI is the woke addiction that the Biden-Harris administration simply cannot quit,” Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, R-NC8, chair of the Education and the Workforce Committee, said in a statement. “PDE’s new report is jaw-dropping, and it confirms that this administration was more concerned about contorting the minds of America’s future leaders, rather than educating them. Fortunately for parents, students, and hardworking taxpayers, DEI, like the rest of this administration, is being bagged up and placed on the curb come January – it’s time to take out the trash.”
The $1 billion total includes committed funding and disbursed dollars, as most grants are spread over several years. The funding was spread across 42 states and Washington DC. PDE breaks down the funding into three categories in the report: DEI hiring ($489,883,797.81), DEI programming ($343,337,286), and DEI-based mental health/social-emotional learning (SEL) ($169, 301,221). The hiring category funds race-based recruiting, training, and hiring practices. The programming category funds DEI programs and training, discipline including restorative practices, and youth activism. The final category funds DEI-based mental health and SEL training and programs.
One example of a DEI program is in Montgomery County, where over $21.5 million was awarded in a 2023 grant for a program known as Teacher and Principal Effectiveness Acceleration in Montgomery (TEAM). This program includes a Teacher Affinity Group (TAG).
“As part of our Diversity and Inclusion Plan, we established district-wide TAG groups for Black and Hispanic teachers who meet monthly to discuss mutual concerns and provide support for one another,” according to the program.
Additionally, Montgomery County schools’ professional development (PD) plan includes monthly training from a university professor, “Teaching in Color.”
“(…) designed to build teachers and school leaders’ ability to support diverse students through equitable instruction and disciplinary practices to increase student achievement and decrease incidences of inequitable disciplinary practices,” according to the program.
According to the report, more than 162 school districts, universities, and nonprofits received grants totaling more than $1 billion. Other grant recipients in North Carolina include Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, and other prominent North Carolina universities.
“Given the fact that half of North Carolina students can’t read or perform math at grade level, this news should cause outrage,” Brian Balfour, VP of Research at the John Locke Foundation, told the Carolina Journal. “It’s absurd that tax dollars would go to funding these politically-charged programs when public schools are failing at their most basic responsibility. This report provides yet more evidence that government schooling has been converted into a political training exercise rather than an educational one.”
President-Elect Donald Trump vowed in 2023 under Agenda 47 to close the Department of Education and return all education-related work to the state level.
“We spend more money per pupil, by three times, than any other nation. And yet we’re absolutely at the bottom,” said Trump. “We’re one of the worst. So you can’t do worse. We’re going to end education coming out of Washington D.C. We’re going to close it up — all those buildings all over the place and yet people that in many cases hate our children. We’re going to send it all back to the States.”