COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is cautiously optimistic about what will happen to Ohio now that President Donald Trump started dismantling the U.S. Department of Education.
On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order starting the process to defund and shut down the Department of Education. Congress will need to sign onto this and decide how federal funds are distributed.
DeWine attended this event, saying Friday that he was invited by the president.
"If you look from a governor's point of view, the most important thing is for some of the bureaucracy and the red tape to be eliminated so that the dollars that are coming back from the federal government — that we can more efficiently, more effectively utilize them here in the state of Ohio," DeWine said.
Fallout
Education is personal for Kia Woodward. For generations, her family has been involved in public schooling.
"My ancestors fought for the right to be educated," she told me.
She is also a proud mother of high school junior Kylie — who wants to be an attorney. She is applying for a Pell Grant to pay for college.
"We're not independently wealthy," she said. "I just think it's gonna be twice as hard for her."
The federal department provides roughly $910 million in Pell Grants for underprivileged students. Overall, it provides $1.5 billion to Ohio schools through programs like Title 1 to help low-income and special needs families.
RELATED: What happens in Ohio if the U.S. Dept. of Education is defunded?
But she is concerned about her daughter's future because of Trump's plans to shut down the education agency.
"We're going to be returning education very simply back to the states where it belongs," Trump said during his press conference. "We're going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible."
The president believes that states like Ohio will know how to educate their students the best. And he even gave a shoutout to DeWine, who is typically on the opposite side of the GOP spectrum — being mild-mannered, believing in vaccinations and correcting misinformation about Springfield conspiracy theories about Haitian immigrants, to name a few.
"The most important thing for me is the ability for Ohio to deal with Ohio's challenges that are unique to Ohio," DeWine said.
When asked if he would have done that if he were president, DeWine avoided the question by saying that he isn't the president, so he can't answer.
He continued, explaining that "there's a lot of things that are still not known," about the executive order.
"I'm sure every governor of every state probably has the same attitude — what we don't know is a lot of things," he said. "We don't know — will the amount stay the same? We don't know whether it will come back in any kind of different form."
He said that in Ohio, if the money is received by the state, he will make sure that Title 1 and IDEA are priorities.
"I certainly believe that Title 1, for example, which is focused on our most poorest children — if we are given that money we're certainly gonna focus on those children," DeWine said. "Children with a disability, we're certainly gonna focus on them as well."
He emphasized that there may be conditions on the money.
"As you know, a very high priority of me as governor — education, the most important thing we can do," he said. "Our goal is for every Ohioan to be able to live up to their God-given potential, which means removing barriers such as health challenges but also means making sure that every person is well educated and has all the opportunities so they can live up to their full potential."
Still, he is advocating for the full amount of dollars.
"The amount of money coming back from the federal government, again, we hope that is not cut," he said.
Woodward had previously believed that DeWine would help protect funding for public schools, but his budget this year also cuts about $100 million from their funding — while providing half a billion for the private school voucher system often called "school choice."
Just last year, the GOP leadership in Ohio sent roughly $1 billion in public dollars to private schools. Families in Ohio can get thousands of dollars to send their children to a nonpublic school. This year, House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) is looking to slash at least $650 million in public education spending in this General Assembly's budget, arguing that private schools are better than public.
For a further in-depth recap of education funding, click here.
Trump and his new education secretary, Linda McMahon, are focusing on shifting funding priorities to school choice or selecting alternative options for public schools. Federal funding will open up to private schools, and there will be grants that enable families to pursue faith-based education.
"We get $1.5 billion in funding from the Department of Education," I said to the governor. "If it comes back to Ohio, how will you ensure that goes to public education?"
"Well, first of all, we'll have to see what the president does, we'll have to see what Congress does," he responded. "I can just assure you that if these are dollars that are supposed to be for education, we will use every penny for education. That will not be a problem with this government."
Through a continued back and forth with the governor, I asked about the possibility that federal funding will be cut, as well as the state.
"Speaker Huffman has indicated that he wants to move forward with giving more money to private schools," I said. "How are public schools going to move forward with this?"
"This is now a time for people to weigh in with their legislators," he responded. "We believe in the state, in parents being best teachers... But it's always a balance. It's always a balance, how much money goes into the vouchers, how much money goes into the public schools."
"Do you trust the lawmakers to give money to public schools," I asked Woodward.
"I would say no," she responded. "I don't trust that they'll be fair with a pot of money."
Trump said Pell Grants will still be available to students. Woodward doesn’t believe him.
"Every parent wants the next generation to do better and have a better time than they had, and I feel like it's gonna be 10 times worse for her and that's what makes me very sad and scared and frightened because it's not fair," the mother said. "I feel like I've let her down somehow in my generation because this shouldn't be happening in this country."
Through tears, Woodward said her only hope is that the next four years will go quickly.
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