I dropped out of high school two weeks before the start of my senior year. It wasn’t planned. A few failed classes turned into a quiet slide out of the system. Like too many students, I fell through the cracks.
A few weeks later, I got a job with a mobile veterinary clinic serving low-income neighborhoods across the mid-Atlantic. We’d set up in strip mall parking lots and Tractor Supply back rooms, vaccinating and microchipping dozens of pets each shift. I was 18, wrestling 120-pound German shepherds and coming home with dirt and blood on my scrubs. One day, a bite sent me to the ER for sutures up my side. Still, I loved it.
Then things slowed down. As my friends applied to college, one thing became increasingly clear: Without a degree, the road ahead would be narrower, steeper and far less forgiving. Finishing school felt like the difference between having choices and getting left behind.
So I hit the books. I relied on public libraries and free online resources that entire year. I earned my GED in the basement of a community college and spent the next few months reading whatever I could get my hands on: vintage paperbacks, old textbooks, open-access PDFs. Eventually, I started poking through Supreme Court opinions. The more I read, the more engrossed I became. I was captivated by the stakes of it all, especially the idea that law, when done right, could be a support system.
I applied to nearly two dozen colleges. One said yes, and I started over.
I studied relentlessly, graduated at the top of my class and went on to Harvard Law School. As a practicing attorney, one of my first major cases was representing a student with learning disabilities.
Courtesy of Ryan W. Powers
This girl was in seventh grade and had an individualized education plan. Under federal law, the school district was required to provide targeted reading help, one-on-one tutoring and regular check-ins to help her stay on track. Instead, administrators terminated her mandated behavioral support plan and rolled back her test-taking accommodations. My job was to work with the Department of Education to make the district follow the law.
When I first took on her case, the DOE still had the will and the resources to hold schools accountable. It felt like the kind of fight where the system, if pushed, could still work. For me, it was deeply personal: a chance to turn my own experiences into something useful.
But the legal landscape shifted sharply with the return of the Trump administration, and I found myself with a front-row seat to an unsettling reality.
In May, the Trump administration released its FY 2026 budget proposal. The plan calls for a $12 billion cut to the DOE — about 15% of the Department’s total. A central feature is the consolidation of 18 competitive and formula grant programs, including those serving English learners and migrant students, from $6.5 billion into a $2 billion “K-12 Simplified Funding Program.” That figure represents a roughly 70% cut from current levels, effectively shrinking targeted investments in vulnerable student populations.
The budget negatively impacts programs that fund education research, preschool access and workforce training — gutting the data, early-intervention and career-readiness efforts that help close learning gaps. Without these programs, the DOE leaves struggling schools with fewer resources and less accountability.
Simultaneously, Trump has unleashed multiple executive orders to suppress federal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. These orders dismantle DEI programming across the federal government, withdraw federal recognition of transgender identities and ban “gender ideology” instruction in K-12 schools while authorizing prosecution of educators supporting transgender students.
Taken together, these measures strip away targeted funding streams, dismantle enforcement infrastructure and narrow the pathways that have historically helped disenfranchised students overcome systemic barriers.
For students, that impact will be immediate and structural. Deep budget cuts and program consolidations have left the DOE without the staff or resources to keep pace. Backlogs will grow, and the pressure on school districts to follow IEPs will evaporate. That means canceled therapy sessions, long evaluation delays or the quiet removal of key accommodations. Low-income and rural students, heavily reliant on federal funding, will feel the shift hardest. A missed tutoring session in middle school can cascade into failing grades and limited options years later.
Courtesy of Ryan W. Powers
I know what it means to rely on public education systems. Free libraries, subsidized tutoring programs and early-intervention services carried me to my GED. Without them, I might never have made it to college, let alone law school. For the seventh-grade student I represented, the difference between the DOE I knew and the DOE she faces now is stark. Every month of backlog is another month without the supports she needs, and we have allowed those delays to become the norm.
It’s not just about students with learning disabilities. It’s about what happens when political leaders charged with enforcing rights are hostile to them — and the protections that once felt guaranteed slowly lose their power. What should be guaranteed in law is no longer carried out in practice.
For the student I represented, the stakes weren’t abstract. They were the ability to read at grade level, to communicate, to have a real shot at a future. That case isn’t over, but the fight has changed. And for millions of students in Trump’s America, it’s only getting harder to win.
Ryan W. Powers is a legal analyst and former Big Law attorney, licensed to practice in New York and Washington, D.C. He currently writes a weekly newsletter on democracy, dissent and the law, which you can find here.
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