$50M literacy grant is at risk
Administration may cancel NJ funding
By: Mary Ann Koruth
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... It is uncertain whether a five-year, $50 million K-12 grant awarded to New Jersey's public schools will stay funded amid the federal government shutdown and the Trump administration's efforts to effectively close the U.S. Department of Education.
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The Murphy administration released $13.5 million in federal grant funding in October [2025] to more than 100 public and charter schools to support literacy education and teachers training. But continuing those grants for the next four years depends on federal funding staying in place, the state said when announcing the grants.
..... Pending the availability of federal funds," the Comprehensive Literacy State Development or CLSD, grant program will continue for the next four years, the state said.
..... "I would take that as a warning to districts to be cautious that it's not guaranteed funding," said Kayla Patrick, a senior fellow with the Century Foundation, a Washington-based progressive think tank. Patrick headed the K-12 portfolio at the U.S., Education Department during the Biden administration.
..... Although states like New Jersey would expect to get their grants funded every year, the reality is that it is no longer assured, Patrick said.
..... "I think now that we see wide-scale cancellations across the department more and more states and districts are considering the risk that the federal government might not want to fund these grants in the future," she said.
..... The state 'could not speculate on whether the federal government will discontinue the literacy grant program," said Michael Yaple, a spokesperson with the state Education Department.
..... The grants coincide with a state-level push to tackle stagnant reading performance among fourth graders since 2022, and to improve early literacy by passing new laws and creating the Office of Learning Equity and Academic Recovery.
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The Bogota school district received a $50,000 RISE grant to train middle and high school English and general education teachers who teach "students who continue to struggle with basic reading fluency,: said Samuel Chiang, the district's director of training and evaluation.
.... Newly trained teachers will use action plans and intervention groups to "assist students with targeted reading intervention instruction," he said. "We are training our general and special education middle and high school English teachers in vocabulary routines, comprehension routings and structured writing instruction.
..... The grants will also cover supplies and materials and pay for teachers to attend workshops out of normal working hours.
..... The CLSD program was cerated by federal law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, in 2015 and began awarding grants in 2019. It falls under the Education Department's discretionary grants.
..... Employees in the Office of Special Education, the federal office administering the individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, which administers the CLSD grant, received layoff notices during the ongoing federal shutdown. Several hundred employees in the Office for Civil Rights were laid off in March. [2025]
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The CLSD grant would stay in place in the current version of the federal budget proposed by Republicans - but the Republicans and Democrats in Congress are in a deadlock over whether to include Obamacare subsidies, which Democrats support and Republicans oppose.
..... However, President Donald Trump's executive order in March [2025] to close the federal Education Department could still affect the grant.
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A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to reinstate a $1 billion grant for school-based mental health services that it eliminated as part of tis anti-DIE and gender ideology platform.
..... If the budget currently proposed by Congress passes, the Department of Education would have money to continue funding the New Jersey grant/ "I think the caveat here is in the Trump administration's budget. they essentially zeroed out this program because they're proposing a complete overhaul of K-12 funding that would consolidate funding into one port," Patrick said.
..... Trump has a separate budget proposal to consolidate several programs, including discretionary grants. and hand those large tranches of money to states to disburse as they see fit, Patrick said.
..... Eighteen K-12 programs would fall into a single Simplified Funding Program -a block grant to states that would throw discretionary grant programs and formula funding into one pot," Patrick said with few guardrails to prevent misuse.
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"There would not be a particular dollar amount going to this grant program if the Trump administration were able to proceed with tis prosed budget," she said.
..... Supporters of trump's recommendations say these moves would reduce bureaucratic waste and dirt funds to classrooms more efficiently.
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The federal government's press team is on furlough due to the shutdown, it said in a response to a request for comment.
..... New Jersey's $13.6 million grant is disbursed in several parts.
..... The $6 million COACH grant will help 41 districts and charter schools hire literacy coaches. The $1 million RISE grant covers reading intervention for middle and high schoolers in 31 districts. The $5 million IMPACT grant cover high-quality development. The $1.6 million LIFT grant will cerate programs that developed home-based literacy habits and encourage family involvement in literacy development of children form newborns to age 3.
.... Three charter schools in paternoster and the Clifton district won about $150,000 each in grants to cover the costs of hiring literacy coaches. The Wallington, Bergenfield, Englewood and Little Ferry school districts in Bergen County and the Netcon school district in Morris County received RISE grants. Hackensack and Bergenfield each won $200,00 in professional development IMPACT grants. The Moonchie school district won $19,000 in a LIFT grant.