The administration announced it would move remaining Department of Education staff out of the LBJ headquarters building—which has served as the Department's home for 40 years—in the latest step of its effort to dissolve the agency without Congressional approval. Ranking Member Bobby Scott objected, noting the move is not a bureaucratic reduction but a symbolic and operational step in a broader effort to diminish the federal role in ensuring equal access to education.

A House Judiciary Subcommittee convened a hearing directly aimed at revisiting Plyler v. Doe—the 1982 Supreme Court decision guaranteeing K–12 public education access regardless of immigration status—with at least six states having introduced legislation designed to challenge or lay groundwork for overturning the precedent. The hearing reflects meaningful support among House majority members for undermining a foundational access guarantee in public education, with consequences well beyond immigration policy.

The Senate HELP Committee continued its scrutiny of foreign financial relationships with American universities, raising concerns that foreign governments—particularly China—may exploit university partnerships and research funding to gain access to sensitive technologies and intellectual property. The hearing came weeks after the Department launched its new HEA Section 117 reporting portal and transferred administration of the program to the State Department.

The Senate passed the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act by unanimous consent, blocking collection of personal data from anyone under 17 without consent and limiting targeted advertising to minors—while the House companion bill was pulled from markup as staff-level bipartisan negotiations reached "substantial progress." The bills are part of a larger legislative push to update and improve online safety protections for students and youth.

The President's 1-hour-47-minute State of the Union address largely bypassed education policy, offering no substantive education agenda for the coming year beyond brief references to parents' rights and gender identity. Congress, meanwhile, introduced a package of bills increasing oversight and accountability for child care block grants and held hearings on CTE and AI in schools.

Congress was on recess last week; the notable development was a letter from Senators Warren, Sanders, Murray, and Baldwin calling on GAO to open an investigation into the Department's use of interagency agreements to transfer grant programs to other federal agencies without congressional approval. The Senators expressed concern that the transfers delayed crucial funding, created administrative inefficiencies, increased costs, and compromised technical assistance quality for states and grantees.

With appropriations largely settled, Congress resumed its focus on education, youth, and workforce issues, introducing proposals on K–12 school safety, foster youth housing and legal services, higher education affordability, and WIOA flexibility. Committee hearings examined literacy instruction, education-related civil rights issues, child care fraud, and foreign influence in nonprofits.

On February 4, the President signed H.R. 7148 into law, funding the Department of Education at approximately $79 billion through FY2026—a Congressional rejection of the administration's proposed deep cuts, though the law does not include significant new guardrails against the Department's ongoing restructuring efforts. Congress has until February 10 to negotiate separate DHS funding as part of the same legislative package.

The federal government was again partially shut down after the Senate stripped long-term DHS funding from the consolidated appropriations bill—which includes Education funding—opting for a two-week continuing resolution for DHS amid ongoing uproar over ICE enforcement, and sending the amended bill back to the House with a January 30 deadline looming. The Senate separately passed H.R. 7148, the consolidated appropriations bill, by 71–29 with significant amendments, ending that particular funding lapse.

The House passed both the consolidated Education appropriations bill and the DHS funding bill last week, but Senate floor action was upended by mounting outrage over ICE enforcement in Minnesota and nationally—putting the entire funding package on a collision course with a January 30 lapse. The Senate was out of session for the week, leaving the education funding timeline directly dependent on resolution of the DHS funding dispute.

The Senate Appropriations Committee released conferenced spending bills providing $18.4 billion for Title I, $15.2 billion for IDEA, and a maximum Pell award of $7,395—along with language directly limiting the Department's authority to transfer funds outside of ED and an explanatory statement calling the IAA strategy unprecedented and improper. The package signals meaningful Congressional disapproval of the administration's program transfer approach, even if enforcement mechanisms remain limited.

During the first session week of the new year, Congress introduced a range of education-related legislation while appropriators continued negotiating the remaining funding bills covering Labor, HHS, and Education—with the current CR set to expire and no deal yet in sight. The week also included a House Education and Workforce Committee markup on two bills related to pregnant students' rights.

Congress ended 2025 in a holding pattern, with appropriations unresolved, no legislative response to the Department's interagency agreements, and significant open questions about the year ahead—including what Congress will do, if anything, as the administration continues to restructure ED without statutory authority. Education stakeholders heading into 2026 face compounding uncertainty across funding, program administration, and federal oversight.

The House passed the Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act, the Senate passed the Ensuring VetSuccess on Campus Act, and the House Education and Workforce Committee advanced four higher education transparency bills—while the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee marked up eighteen bills addressing student and youth interactions with social media, data, and AI, signaling an intensified congressional push on digital safety governance. Separately, the Department convened negotiated rulemaking on Workforce Pell.

The House passed three bills targeting foreign influence—primarily from China and the Chinese Communist Party—in K–12 public schools, including measures requiring parental notice of foreign entity involvement, prohibiting school contracts with the Chinese government, and cutting federal funding for schools that receive Chinese government support. The week's activity came alongside the Department's rollout of a new HEA Section 117 foreign-gift disclosure portal, signaling accelerating federal scrutiny of foreign influence across both K–12 and higher education.

With the shutdown resolved, Congress returned to a broad legislative agenda spanning K-12 nutrition, student mental health, loan transparency, civil rights protections, and online safety for minors—including substantive hearings on the future of college, CTE pathways, and services for foster youth. The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee simultaneously advanced a package of eighteen bills targeting student and youth interactions with social media, data, and artificial intelligence.

After 44 days, the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history ended when the Senate passed H.R. 5371 by 60–40 and the House approved it 229–209—with provisions restoring back pay to affected employees, reversing RIFs initiated during the shutdown, and pausing further reductions through January 30. The President signed the bill into law that evening.

On Day 41 of the shutdown, a bipartisan group of Senators announced a deal to fund the government through January 30—while Head Start preschools began to close after November 1 federal grant payments failed to arrive and 1 in 8 Americans faced disruption from the ongoing SNAP litigation. The funding deal still faced procedural hurdles in both chambers and did not include the ACA premium tax credit extension Democrats had sought.

Thirty-three days into the shutdown, Congress continued to fail on continuing resolution votes while Head Start preschools began to close after November 1 federal grant payments did not arrive—and courts stepped in to force continued SNAP disbursements to recipients in several states. Both chambers introduced bills to address the downstream harms of the shutdown, though none advanced.

With the government shutdown entering its third week—at 19 days, the third-longest in U.S. history—the Senate continued to fail on procedural votes to advance a continuing resolution as the federal judiciary announced its funding would be exhausted by October 20. The longest shutdown on record (35 days, 2018–19) remained ahead as negotiations stalled.