Betsy DeVos Eyes Federal Education Grants to Put Guns in Schools
WASHINGTON — The Education Department is considering whether to allow states to access federal funding set aside for academic enrichment and student services to purchase guns for educators, according to multiple people with knowledge of the plan.
Such a move would reverse a longstanding position taken by the federal government that it should not pay to outfit schools with weapons. And it would also undermine efforts by Congress to restrict the use of federal funding on guns. As recently as March, Congress passed a school safety bill that allocated $50 million a year to local school districts, but expressly prohibited the use of the money for firearms.
But the department is eyeing a program in federal education law, the Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants, that makes no mention of prohibiting weapons purchases. That omission would allow the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, to use her discretion to approve or deny any state or district plans to use grant funding for firearms and firearm training, unless Congress clarifies the law or bans such funding through legislative action.
“The department is constantly considering and evaluating policy issues, particularly issues related to school safety,” said Liz Hill, a spokeswoman for the Education Department. “The secretary nor the department issues opinions on hypothetical scenarios.”
The $1 billion student support program, part of the Every Student Succeeds Act, is intended for academic and enrichment opportunities in the country’s poorest schools and calls for school districts to use the money toward three goals: providing a well-rounded education, improving school conditions for learning and improving the use of technology for digital literacy.
Tapping that fund for the purchase of weaponry spurred swift action in Congress Thursday morning. Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, introduced an amendment to a massive funding bill up for a final vote as soon as Thursday afternoon that would block the Department of Education from allowing school districts to using federal funds to purchase firearms. The spending bill in the final stages of consideration funds the Education Department, along with most other social programs.
“I’m introducing legislation today to block the arming of teachers, and I do so knowing that earlier this year, Democrats and Republicans in Congress came together to pass a bill that expressly opposed putting guns in the hands of teachers,” Mr. Murphy said. “Congress doesn’t think this is a good idea. Parents don’t think this is a good idea. Teachers don’t think this is a good idea.”
The ranking Democrat on the House Education Committee, Representative Robert C. Scott of Virginia, said granting state requests to use federal funds for firearms would be “openly violating the spirit of the law as well as common sense about gun safety.”
“Redirecting that money to arm teachers and school staff will recklessly endanger the safety of both students and educators, while robbing underserved students of the support and opportunity they deserve,” Mr. Scott said.
But the fate of Mr. Murphy’s amendment is uncertain. The Republicans who created the fund that would be tapped were hesitant to curb the flexibility that it offers local governments.
“I’m not a fan of arming teachers, but the safe schools block grant for many years has allowed states to make the decision about how to use those federal dollars to make schools safer for children,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, the Tennessee Republican who was one of the chief architects of the new education law.
A spokeswoman for the House Education Committee said the committee’s chairwoman, Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, believes the grants “were intentionally designed to give states and local school districts the ability to determine and implement policies to serve their communities.”
Department officials acknowledged that carrying out the proposal would mark the first time that a federal agency has authorized the purchase of weapons without a congressional mandate, according to people familiar with the discussions. And while no such restrictions exist in the federal education law, it could undermine the grant program’s adoption of “drug and violence prevention,” which defines a safe school environment as free of weapons.
In its research, the Education Department has determined that the gun purchases could fall under improving school conditions, people familiar with the department’s thinking said. Under the current guidelines for that part of the grant, the department encourages schools to increase access to mental health counseling, establish dropout prevention programs, reduce suspensions and expulsions and improve re-entry programs for students transitioning from the juvenile justice system.
But the department began exploring whether to expand the use of the support grants after the school shootings in Parkland, Fla., and Santa Fe, Tex., prompted states to inquire about alternative uses of the funding.
Administration officials confirmed Thursday that Texas, a state that allows teachers to be armed, was among the school systems that inquired about whether it could use funding for its firearms program.
A spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency did not respond to questions posed by The Times last week about whether the state communicated with the department about spending its funding. But she pointed to the state’s website, which promotes the $62.1 million in additional student support grant funding, and encourages districts to “prioritize increased spending on allowable school safety training and activities.”
Department officials were considering whether to issue guidance on the funding before the start of the new school year, but have been weighing the political and legal ramifications, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The Trump administration’s call to arm educators has faced overwhelming criticism from educators, lawmakers and law enforcement officials. That opposition only hardened on Thursday.
“We knew Betsy DeVos would try to do the bidding of the National Rifle Association and the gun manufacturers, but to even consider diverting resources used to support poor kids to flood schools with more guns is beyond the recklessness we believed she was willing to pursue,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, fumed, “Teachers don’t want guns. They know it makes them a target if, God forbid, a shooter comes into the school. And now, Secretary DeVos wants to take federal funds away from instruction so that the school district can buy guns for teachers. What is that all about? What recklessness. What absurdity.”
The measure would also break from decades-old practice in how funding is doled out for the purposes of school security.
Guidance for grants distributed by the Homeland Security Department that are intended for “school preparedness,” for example, notes that weapons and ammunition are not permitted. And after the Parkland shooting, Congress added a rule prohibiting the use of grants for firearms or firearm training in the Stop School Violence Act, under which the Justice Department will grant funds to school districts.
In weighing the proposal, the Education Department has also taken into account that school shootings were not a consideration when Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, according to people familiar with the discussions. Three of the remaining architects of the law — Representative Robert C. Scott, Democrat of Virginia, and Senators Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, and Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington State — have all opposed the idea of arming teachers.
The student support grant was created from funds from other programs that were collapsed in the Every Student Succeeds Act that addressed issues like mental health, violence prevention, bullying and harassment.
The Trump administration has twice moved to eliminate the grant program from its budget. But as Congress drafted a spending bill in the months after the Parkland shooting, advocates pointed to the program as emblematic of a successful approach to school safety. Congress instead increased funding for the grants by $700 million in the bill passed this year.
After the Parkland shooting, the Trump administration convened a federal commission on school safety, led by Ms. DeVos, to examine topics like mental and behavioral health resources, building security and the role of law enforcement in schools.
The commission has held several public hearings where educators and advocates from across the country have asked for expanded support staff and services, including school counselors, and additional security measures. Members of the commission have also visited school districts, like in rural Arkansas, where armed employees can be found at schools in areas not easily reached by law enforcement. The commission plans to issue recommendations by the end of the year.
In June, Ms. DeVos said the commission would not consider the role of guns in school shootings, but she later indicated that the panel would look narrowly at specific issues, including age limits for firearm purchases.
Last month, Ms. DeVos’s assistant secretary for the office of elementary and secondary education, Jason Botel, reiterated that point in a congressional hearing.
That prompted Representative Donald M. Payne Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, to question the Education Department. In a letter to Mr. Botel, he asked if the department was planning to arm teachers.
But the department issued a statement saying that it did not plan to do so because “this is a function appropriately reserved for the states.”
Next Article Previous Article