Samuel Carlson was always interested in education. But he might not have become a special education teacher if not for the St. Paul Urban Teacher Residency program.
“It lowered literally every single bar to entry,” he said.
The grow-your-own program allows St. Paul Public Schools staff to obtain a teaching license from the University of St. Thomas while working in schools — with little cost to participants. Programs like these have received bipartisan support from the Minnesota Legislature as the state works to address its teacher shortage by both increasing and diversifying the pool of educators.
But on Feb. 7, Carlson and his classmates realized they could no longer count on the financial support they’d been promised. The U.S. Department of Education announced plans to terminate the grant that supported the program, as part of its efforts to eliminate diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility initiatives throughout the federal government.
Carlson, who’s now a student teacher resident at Maxfield Elementary School, suddenly has to figure out how to pay for tuition over the summer. Until a few weeks ago, he’d been promised that his tuition would be covered.
“It’s a complete wrench,” he said. “I see it as giving someone a leg up, promising it, and then as they’re putting their foot down, pulling away the stair.”
The $6.8 million Supporting Effective Educator Development grant at the University of St. Thomas was one of at least three federal teacher preparation grants in Minnesota that the Trump administration has rescinded in recent weeks. A second grant at the University of St. Thomas to prepare charter school teachers also received a notice of termination.
The University of Minnesota lost a Teacher Quality Partnership grant to train special education teachers in rural, urban, and suburban districts. Both the University of St. Thomas and the University of Minnesota are exploring their options for appeal.
Together, the three grants total nearly $12 million. If the universities had been able to complete the scope of work outlined by the grant proposals, they would have trained more than 500 teachers throughout the state, many of them in special education.
Universities push back
The Trump administration announced it had cut more than $600 million in “divisive teacher training grants” on topics like “critical race theory” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
But for university leaders and their students, this characterization misses the mark.
“We don’t view it as a DEI initiative,” St. Thomas President Rob Vischer told the Minnesota Senate Education Finance Committee last week. “We view it as a teacher pipeline initiative. There’s no preferences or quotas. As everything at the University of St. Thomas is, it was open to all.”
At least 60% of the students receiving funds from St. Thomas’ SEED grant are white, according to data provided by university officials.
“Decision-makers like Elon Musk and his young acolytes are doing database searches and identifying grants that use the word diversity or inclusion or equity, and then just unilaterally canceling those grants because that word appears in their description,” Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., told Sahan Journal. “That’s what’s creating this chaos and lack of accountability.”
The federal cuts to teacher preparation grants come as Minnesota has been struggling to fill a teacher shortage, especially in special education roles. According to a 2023 state report, 95% of Minnesota school districts reported difficulty filling teaching positions. The three licensure areas where teacher vacancies were hardest to fill were all in special education fields. That same year, the federal government warned Minnesota that it was failing to adequately train its special education teachers.
‘Honestly, a real crisis’
For students enrolled in these teacher preparation programs, those terminations mean the sudden loss of promised scholarship funding, and questions about their future in education. And for schools, hiring qualified teachers could get even harder.
“It’s honestly a real crisis,” said Kelsey Johnson, the elementary principal in the Warren-Alvarado-Oslo school district. “If we don’t have special education teachers, I don’t know what we would do. We’re not following the law if we don’t have them.”
Hiring can be a challenge in Johnson’s district, particularly when it comes to special education teachers. The northwestern Minnesota school district, near the North Dakota and Canadian borders, comprises the rural communities of Warren, Alvarado and Oslo, with a combined population of 2,200.
Johnson describes her school as a “welcoming environment” with a “small-town feel.” But younger college graduates often prefer to live in larger communities with a more varied social scene — which means Johnson needs to get creative to staff her school district. So she welcomed the chance to partner with the University of Minnesota to train her district’s paraprofessionals to become special education teachers.
But earlier this month, that grant opportunity was also terminated. Like the St. Thomas programs, it had been flagged as a diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative.
Johnson, whose district is 84% white, said she was not familiar with the federal government’s rationale for terminating the program. But she expressed frustration with politics interfering with her students’ needs.
“To not have more special education staff,” Johnson said, “that’s not good for kids.”
‘This could have been a solution’
The primary purpose of the teacher preparation grants, as St. Thomas and the U saw them, was to address Minnesota’s teacher shortage.
“We’re very, very clear that the absolute priority of the grant is to prepare more effective teachers, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” said Amy Smith, dean of the School of Education at the University of St. Thomas.
“There remains a critical shortage of special education teachers across the state of Minnesota,” said Danaya Franke, director of NXT GEN Teach at the University of Minnesota, speaking on behalf of the project. “This could have been a solution. Or, excuse me, I’ll restate. This will be a solution.”
Both Franke and Smith said their universities were supportive of continuing their work, whether or not their appeals were successful. But without the federal grants, they would have to prioritize funding differently.
At St. Thomas, the SEED grant supported students like Carlson in teacher residency programs in Minneapolis Public Schools and St. Paul Public Schools, as well as “work and learn” students working in school districts across the state. These students have been assured their spring semester bills will not change. But if the appeal is not successful, they will have to foot the bill for their summer tuition — which previously would have been covered.
St. Thomas’ second federal grant focused on training special education teachers in charter schools. The 21 student teachers in the grant’s final cohort recently learned that they lost their financial support. Though St. Thomas has assured them their tuition bills won’t change, they lost their living wage stipend.
To make the math work, some of the charter schools are now moving their student teachers into their own classrooms, rather than allowing them to continue training alongside a licensed teacher, said Lynn Stansberry Brusnahan, a professor of special education at the University of St. Thomas.
“They’re a full-time student, now they’re a full-time teacher. It’s not the model they signed up for,” she said. “It’s just a lot of abrupt news to take in. And they’re also thinking about, how am I going to pay my summer tuition?”
The University of Minnesota just received approval for its federal grant in October, and planned to start its first cohort this fall, partnering with seven school districts across the state: Hopkins, Richfield, Columbia Heights, North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale, Duluth, Morris, and Warren-Alvarado-Oslo.
“We all know that there’s tremendous teacher shortages in our city areas,” Franke said. “When you start to talk to folks in our rural communities, it’s even worse.”
Franke said she still hoped to launch her first cohort this fall. But the loss of the grant could put more burden on the partnering school districts.
“With the grant, there was a lot of support for districts,” Franke said. “It made it more accessible for folks from a really small rural community to jump onto a project that otherwise would cost them more than they could afford, in time or in money. So by having the grant, we could take away some of the barriers that were put on districts to be able to participate.”
The program would continue to seek and leverage other sources of funding, she said.
Elected officials weigh in
Sen. Smith told Sahan Journal she found it “incredibly infuriating” that cuts to special education programs were happening under the guise of cuts to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Inclusion is the point of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, she said.
“All children, regardless of their abilities, should have the right to be educated in a public school setting,” she said. “That’s what this is all about.”
Smith said the Trump administration has been approaching these cuts in a “haphazard and chaotic way,” leaving many grant recipients unclear whether their funding has been temporarily paused or permanently frozen.
Legal appeals would take time, she said. “In the meantime, people’s lives are being thrown into chaos, and the teachers that our schools need are not going to be there.”
Some lawmakers of both parties expressed surprise about the abruptness of the cuts at St. Thomas during a Feb. 18 hearing in the Minnesota Senate Education Finance Committee. In that hearing, St. Thomas faculty members explained they had written the grant to align with the priorities of former President Joe Biden’s administration, such as educator diversity and unbiased learning environments.
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Sen. Jason Rarick, R-Pine City, said he thought the Trump administration’s intent would be to make changes to grants, “not to just pull funding.”
“Have you been given any opportunities to re-look at your program, resubmit an application that meets the standards of this current administration in order to keep those grants in place?” he asked Vischer, the St. Thomas president.
“The first communication we received was the termination notice,” Vischer replied. “There hasn’t been any follow-up communication that I’m aware of. And we would welcome the opportunity.”
‘Economic stability is a big thing for me right now’
At lunch on Tuesday, a group of Dougherty Family College students gathered in the Maxfield classroom set aside for the University of St. Thomas. Dougherty Family College is a two-year program at St. Thomas for students with demonstrated academic strengths and financial need. As part of the program, students receive paid internships that allow them to explore different careers.
The SEED grant allowed them to explore the possibility of a career in education. It paid for their internships at Maxfield, and also allowed the option of a scholarship for the final two years of their bachelor’s degree in education. The partnership also allows Maxfield kids to see themselves reflected in college students and develop relationships with “big kids” who provide them with additional one-on-one attention, said Leslie Hitchens, Maxfield’s principal.
St. Thomas has assured the Dougherty Family College students, too, that their funding for this semester won’t change. But the university can’t promise them a scholarship for the final two years of their bachelor’s degree anymore. And for some of the students, that changes how they feel about becoming teachers.
Leah Jones has always known she was interested in science. Through the Maxfield internship, she considered becoming a science teacher to help students of color gain an interest in STEM.
But without the scholarship, becoming a teacher looks less appealing to Jones.
“I would say it does affect my decision a lot,” she said. “I like being in education, but I know that with science I could do more.”
Emelyn Valencia said the cuts to scholarship funding for teachers made her worry about the viability of a teaching career.
“Economic stability is a big thing for me right now while choosing a profession,” she said. “It brings you down and it makes you think that maybe you should look into other career fields, because this one doesn’t seem secure, even though it’s so important.”
For LaTrell Love, the internship at Maxfield showed him how much he liked working with kids. He decided to major in special education and pursue a four-year degree at St. Thomas.
But he knew his scholarship could be at risk after Trump was reelected. So he joined the military to help pay for his education.
Love plans to start officer candidate school for the National Guard this summer. He is glad to be able to serve his country and pay for his education. But he wishes the circumstances were different.
“This whole entire internship and experience was the main contributor as to why I’m going into special education as a major,” Love said. But he’d been promised his education would be paid for — and now that promise had been revoked.
A feeling of ‘ickiness’
Samuel Carlson, the student teacher resident at Maxfield, is committed to finishing his program. But if he’d known a year ago the federal financial support would be yanked, he might never have started it. He worries about some of his classmates, who are single parents. And the attacks on inclusion have left him with a feeling of “ickiness.”
Carlson sees himself in his students. He attended St. Paul Public Schools when he was their age. He went to the same rec centers and participated in the same programs. And he knows he is a more effective teacher because he comes from the same community they do.
“Local teachers are necessary for teaching locally,” he said. “It increases the passion of children. You can see how they don’t want to work for nobody, but when they see you as somebody, the work finally starts to change.”
It’s the same philosophy undergirding the teacher preparation programs for school staff in rural and suburban communities: that schools need teachers rooted in their communities. So for Carlson, the attacks on DEI ring hollow.
“I see it as just a straight-up attack on education,” Carlson said. “DEI is its own thing. But at the end of the day, it’s language to describe opening access and lowering barriers. That’s really all it is.”
Clarification: This story has been updated to add all seven of the school districts partnering with the University of Minnesota teacher training program.
