State and Federal Update: November 25, 2025

FEDERAL UPDATE

Trump Administration Shifts K-12, Postsecondary Education Portfolios to DOL

On November 18, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced that it had concluded interagency agreements with the Departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services, and State to transfer many of its core functions—from K-12 education to foreign medical accreditation—to those agencies. These moves represent another step in the Trump administration’s determination to effectively dismantle ED, which can only be officially shut down by an act of Congress. Earlier this year, ED reduced staff by nearly 2,000 workers, and concluded a previous agreement with the Department of Labor (DOL) for that agency to assume responsibility for adult education and family literacy programs funded under Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Title II.

Of most immediate interest to the workforce community, DOL now will be responsible for K-12 and postsecondary education programs. Specifically, DOL’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) will take on this portfolio in addition to its oversight of the federal workforce system, unemployment insurance, and much more. Just the K-12 programs formerly run by ED that ETA will now manage serve 26 million children, on top of the 130,000 young people that ETA previously served, a shift that one former ETA administrator compares to “having a frog carry a camel on its back.” Overall, DOL’s staff count already had fallen by nearly 20 percent over the first few months of the second Trump term. 

Notwithstanding the administration’s pledge that these actions will “break up the federal education bureaucracy,” it seems likely that moving ED programs to ETA will further slow things down around both education and ETA’s previous portfolio. Adding to the challenge, ETA does not have a leader in place: Florida administrator Henry Mack III was nominated early this year and cleared the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, but the full Senate has not taken up his confirmation. It is not clear what this might mean for the prospects of WIOA reauthorization or other big moves on workforce development, but logic suggests the agency will not be looking to further stretch its capacity with additional major new initiatives. 

Workforce Reauthorization Back on the Table? 

While we continue to await a FY26 Labor-HHS-Education funding bill that will set allocations for WIOA and other workforce initiatives, sources on Capitol Hill indicate that workforce reauthorization is once again gaining momentum within Congress. House of Representatives Education and Welfare Committee Chair Tim Walberg (R-MI) and Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-VA) are both interested in returning to the issue, with last year’s near-miss attempt at reauthorization—the A Stronger Workforce for America Act (ASWA)—as the starting point. 

A bipartisan measure primarily negotiated between then-Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Scott, ASWA passed the House last year by a vote of 378 to 26. Among its key provisions were a 50 percent training requirement for all Title I Adult and Dislocated Worker funding streams, with up to 8 percent allowable for supportive services; additional state-level authority for governors to add 10 percent to the established 15 percent statewide set-aside under WIOA, and new authority to propose changes to local workforce development areas; shifts in local Workforce Development Board composition; a higher required level of youth work experience for WIOA Title I Youth funding; and more latitude for local areas to support incumbent worker training and transition jobs. ASWA was initially included in the December 2024 House Continuing Resolution (CR), but was left out of the final measure after sharp criticism from then-President-elect Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk at the sprawling nature of the CR. 

While ASWA is a starting point, any new bill will have a few important differences. Two areas to watch are the fate of Job Corps, which the administration attempted to kill but the committee is looking to reform and the mechanics of the interagency agreement between DOL and the Department of Education (ED). At the same time, it sounds like there will be a limit to how much of ASWA is open for renegotiation. The 50 percent training requirement is “unlikely to move,” though there might be some latitude to negotiate for how much supportive services can count against that standard. 

Even if the House Committee marks up a new bill, however, there are reasons to be skeptical that reauthorization will make it to the finish line in 2026. For one thing, Congress’s priority remains completing the 2026 budget and keeping the government funded, which the recent resolution to the shutdown addressed only through January 30. How quickly and smoothly the budget is resolved will influence both timing and tone for the rest of 2026, but Congress will have limited time to work, given the compressed schedule of a midterm campaign year. Nor is it clear that the Senate is interested in reauthorization, and the position of the administration—which has hinted at support for an ASWA-like approach in its workforce blueprint, yet also called for gutting the system in its initial budget proposal—is unclear. Finally, as noted above, the DOL’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is facing a massive administrative challenge in taking on the K-12 and postsecondary education portfolios previously managed by ED, a dynamic that could prompt legislators to hold off. As always, NYATEP will continue to monitor the situation and share updates as we have them. 

NYATEP will continue to monitor events as they unfold and share details to our members as soon as possible. If you have an immediate questions or concerns, please contact David Fischer, Interim Executive Director, at [email protected].

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