But now, some offices that handled the hundreds of inquiries that pour in each month — from parents, reporters and watchdog groups — have either been eliminated or have no remaining employees, according to a by the agency’s inspector general.

A FOIA group within the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, for example, had eight employees before President Donald Trump took charge in January 2025. After staff reductions, none remained, the report showed. 

Those cuts have further jammed an already clogged system. A review by Âé¶čŸ«Æ· of publicly available shows that out of the more than 4,900 requests the Education Department has received since February 2025, only 3% have been granted in full or in part as of last week. The department doesn’t carry the largest backlog of requests, according to . But its own annual , released earlier this year, said it was unable to reduce a backlog that makes up over 86% of pending requests. 

Officials blamed their lack of responsiveness on an increase in requests, the department’s downsizing and the 43-day government shutdown last year. Experts, including a former FOIA official, say the administration’s push to eliminate the department has especially hampered the public’s ability to understand the inner workings of the agency.

“The people who remain at the Department of Education are either not subject matter experts in the relevant issue or they’re massively overworked trying desperately to do the jobs of all of their departed coworkers,” said Jill Siegelbaum, who spent 15 years as the agency’s senior FOIA attorney. 

With the department offloading key offices to other agencies, hunting down records could become even more difficult, she said. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who will take responsibility for special education, has also .

“No one is going to have any idea what agency has which responsive records,” said Siegelbaum, now a partner with Sligo Law Group. “All of this adds up to a nightmare for FOIA requesters.”

Those include parents whose children aren’t receiving the services they’re entitled to, news outlets covering fast-moving stories in their local schools and student loan borrowers trying to make sense of what they owe after all the changes to in recent years.

The requests frequently become .

In one example, a reporter from the New Bedford Light in Massachusetts asked for civil rights data from the local school district in 2021. The request is still pending, but the reporter has since moved on, according to the outlet’s executive editor.

In early 2023, Callie Oettinger, a special education advocate in Virginia, requested documents from the Office for Civil Rights related to its oversight of Fairfax County Public Schools during the pandemic. After an OCR investigation, to make up for the services students with disabilities didn’t receive during school closures. 

Oettinger wanted to ensure OCR was holding the district accountable, but two years later, she hasn’t received a response. She recently talked to a mom who is still trying to get services for her child as part of that agreement. 

“We’re six years past COVID,” she said. “Kids needed help years ago.” 

In March 2025, Âé¶čŸ«Æ· asked for submissions to the department’s short-lived tip line for examples of diversity, equity and inclusion activity in public schools. The department had to shut down the portal as the result of litigation, but the request is still pending. In all, Âé¶čŸ«Æ· has submitted 20 requests since the current administration took office. Seventeen have not been processed and three cases were closed because they were duplicates. A separate request to the Office of Inspector General was fulfilled within four weeks. 

FOIA wasn’t meant for “historical purposes,” said Jon Maier, senior litigation counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “It’s a public disclosure statute that’s designed to get information into the hands of the American public.” 

The left-leaning watchdog group sued seeking records from the Department of Government Efficiency, which oversaw widespread layoffs and cancelled contracts. Requesters can sue if they haven’t received a response in 20-30 days. The department’s current wait time for simple requests , but many take much longer.

“That these preposterous delays are acceptable goes directly against the purpose of FOIA,” Maier said. The backlog is only likely to grow. “When the government isn’t telling you what it’s doing there will only be more FOIA requests.”

‘Ignoring FOIA officers’

In addition to tallying the staff cuts, the inspector general’s office hoped to evaluate the agency’s ability to process requests. But the department refused to turn over all the information its internal watchdog requested and declined to “permit unrestricted access to its staff,” said Catherine Grant, a spokeswoman for that office. “We were unable to make definitive determinations in several areas, including major activities,” like FOIA requests.

In the largest share of open cases, roughly 41% of them, a FOIA officer has sent the request to the office that is likely to have the records, but is still waiting, often months later, for a response.

Lauren Harper, an expert on government secrecy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, wasn’t surprised. 

If the department is “stonewalling the inspector general’s office, it’s an extremely safe bet that they’re absolutely ignoring FOIA officers who are asking for information,” she said. 

The logs also show:

• Since February 2025, 37% of FOIA requests have been closed, but the majority of those were either withdrawn or were invalid requests to begin with. 

• During the current Trump administration’s first 16 months in office, the department received an average of 295 requests per month. During that same window under President Joe Biden, from February 2021 through May 2022, the department received an average of 185 requests a month. 

• Many requests submitted during the Biden administration and even Trump’s first term still haven’t been processed. For fiscal year 2023, 23% are stuck in that “request for docs sent” category. 

‘Find funding elsewhere’

Problems with the federal government’s FOIA system are longstanding. The law, which turned 60 on July 4, has always been “underfunded,” Siegelbaum said. 

“Congress doesn’t appropriate funding for FOIA, so you have to find funding elsewhere,” she said. “Sometimes it has to struggle to get attention, to get the appropriate resources, both in terms of money and staff at the Department of Education.”

Comparing the handling of FOIA requests from one administration to the next isn’t a simple math problem. Each new team inherits requests that were still pending when the department changed hands. Clearing out the backlog was a priority for Mitchell Zais, former deputy education secretary during Trump’s first term.

“As I recall, we were able to hire some temporary staff,” he said in an email. “As a consequence, we made significant progress, but not as much as I would have liked.”

In 2024, the conservative Defense of Freedom Institute, where Zais is a board member, analyzed the department’s FOIA logs, concluding that the response rate was higher during the first three years of Trump’s first term than during the same period under Biden, 67% to 48%. 

The analysis also showed that during Zais’ tenure, the department was quicker to respond to liberal groups it disagreed with, like American Oversight and the Center for American Progress, than the Biden administration was to conservative advocates and think tanks, including Parents Defending Education and the America First Policy Institute.

Zais suggested that while he was there, some requests “were made with an eye toward harassing the department 
 rather than generally seeking information that could be legitimately used for any positive purpose.”

But Harper, at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, that whether or liberal groups are flooding the system, the onus is on the government to respond in a more timely manner. The current administration, she said, has been especially hostile toward releasing information, and staff working on FOIA requests have been among the first to go at agencies the administration is “interested in eliminating.”

Last year, the administration put in the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave before shutting down the agency entirely. Trump has the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which for releasing a memo about .

In addition to mass firings at the Education Department, active litigation contributes to the growing backlog of requests, officials said. According to its FOIA report, the agency is facing 57 FOIA-related lawsuits, which have “negatively impacted the department’s ability to keep pace with other requests.” Last week, civil rights groups filed two more FOIA-related lawsuits, one about the department’s failure to release data on cases and another seeking .

ProPublica in February for failing to release information including civil rights investigations. In April, the to the complaint, acknowledged it received the requests and said its search for records is “ongoing.”

‘Proactively’ posting records

Harper gave the department credit for posting up-to-date FOIA logs, something other agencies haven’t always done. The department, however, between December 2023 and mid-2025.

Officials reported that they’ve taken actions to improve turnaround times on requests, like training staff across the agency and “proactively” posting frequently requested records. These include student loan data and a list of involving accusations of antisemitism.

As McMahon moves forward with splitting up the department, spokeswoman Savannah Newhouse said the agency is “complying with all applicable laws and looks forward to restoring excellence in American education through these critical partnerships.”

, agencies that are “reorganizing, terminating or transferring offices or functions” have to work with the National Archives and Records Administration and the receiving agency to ensure records don’t get lost in the process. 

“This all requires a lot of communication,” Harper said. She emphasized that the National Archives hasn’t been spared from or . “Restructuring has not happened on the scale that it’s happening now. It’s truly a perfect storm.”

Between 2006 and 2020, 1.4% of schools with a grant from the Charter Schools Program closed, compared to 2.3% of schools without the funding. And within 12 years, schools with a grant were about half as likely to close as those without one. 

But echoing the results of on the program, the Government Accountability Office found that states awarded about $152 million in grants to 638 charter schools that closed or never opened — representing about 14% of those that received grants. 

Even so, charter school supporters welcomed the GAO’s main takeaway.

“This finding only underscores the need to increase funding for the [Charter Schools Program] so that more charter schools have access to start-up funds and planning grants,” said Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. 

The report is the latest to respond to questions from policymakers about the program’s effectiveness as the Biden administration moves to implement tighter rules for grantees. Charter supporters argue the updated regulations, which seek to create more racially balanced schools and increase transparency, would limit growth. But critics say grant recipients waste taxpayer dollars when they close or never open. asked for both the GAO report and an earlier one from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General. 

The Inspector General found that charter operators opened about half of the schools that they promised. Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, wrote in an that the report also drew attention to “sloppy record keeping and weak oversight” of the program. 

The GAO focused on the sustainability of schools that opened, comparing similar schools that received grants with those that did not. 

It found that the pattern of grant-receiving schools remaining open longer was consistent regardless of grade levels and student poverty and whether the schools were urban, suburban or rural. The results also held true in the three states that received the most funding from the program — California, Florida and Texas.

California saw a more dramatic spike in schools closing after nine years if they didn’t receive a grant. Ana Tintocalis, spokeswoman for the California Charter School Association, attributed the difference to additional quality measures that grant recipients must meet to receive funding. 

Increased closure rates, she added, also likely stem from demographic shifts and the high cost of living and working in the state. 

“The biggest reasons for closures across the state tend to be difficulty securing facilities and low enrollment, which impact our urban schools the most,” she said.

When GAO researchers interviewed officials in seven states, they found financial mismanagement and a lack of community support were also among the top reasons why charter schools close, whether or not they receive a federal grant.

A year ago, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers released highlighting how states have used grant funds to support school districts, mayor’s offices, nonprofits and other institutions that approve and renew charter school applications. 

Karega Rausch, president and CEO of the organization, said the GAO’s report reflects“meaningful changes” in policies since then that have “led to increased accountability.” 

In some cases, that means stopping a planned charter from opening,” he said, and “closing an existing charter school that doesn’t live up to their promises to students, communities and taxpayers.”

They’ve been busy.

“Business is booming,” Kori Smith, an assistant special agent in charge, told district officials at a conference earlier this year on oversight of federal programs. 

He offered hypothetical examples of fraud and abuse of relief funds meant for pandemic recovery — for example, the purchase of 700 Chromebooks when a district only needed 500, or stockpiling masks and other protective gear at staff members’ homes. 

One actual investigation, turned over to the Department of Justice, led to of two Louisiana Christian University students who stole the identities of nine students and used their names to obtain in emergency aid intended for housing, tuition and food. In a more outlandish example unconnected to education, a Texas man is serving prison time for bilking that helped businesses pay their employees during lockdown out of almost $25 million and using some of it to buy a Bentley convertible.  

“We think it’s going to get worse,” Smith said. “It’s a lot of money that was unexpected.” 

Indictments for defrauding the government make headlines. But they’re also just one lever in the complicated machinery of oversight districts face as they spend an unprecedented $122 billion from the American Rescue Plan. Districts face increased scrutiny from federal and state officials as they move from planning how to use the relief funds to signing contracts. But fear of audits has had an unintended consequence, some experts say: Districts are proceeding cautiously to spend funds meant to fix urgent problems.

“As compelling as it is to ask ‘Will this help our kids?’ the next question is ‘What will the auditors say about it?’” said Sheara Krvaric, co-founder of the Federal Education Group, a law firm specializing in federal K-12 programs.

That means Education Secretary Miguel Cardona’s frequent calls for districts to use the funds as soon as possible to address student learning loss and other needs sometimes fall on deaf ears.

For example, some districts have been reluctant to spend relief funds on non-academic programs, like sports and physical education “even though there is pretty convincing evidence it helps with learning loss,” Krvaric said.

And despite severe staff shortages and turnover, some districts have opted not to use relief funds on retention bonuses or other incentives to keep teachers “because their states have signaled that would be unallowable,” she said. “This is despite clear guidance from [the Education Department] that it is allowable.”

Those contradictions give district and state officials extra reason to be on their guard. “There’s a ton of confusion still about what you can spend the money on,” she said.

Meanwhile, auditors with the independent Office of Inspector General aren’t necessarily digging for subtlety. Just , they cited Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt’s office for failing to keep more than $650,000 in relief funds from being spent on arcade games, Christmas trees and 131 sets of cookware. The state set up an $8 million program to offer $1,500 grants to low-income families and contracted with ClassWallet, an online payment platform for educators, to run the program. 

Auditors said the purchases didn’t meet the standard for “emergency educational services” and called on the state to return the funds spent on the “unallowable” items. In a response, the state blamed ClassWallet for the “deficiencies” and said it has improved oversight. 

‘A moving target’

A year ago, parents, teachers and community members were invited to advise districts on how they should spend the considerable federal windfall. But as auditors dig into the details, many parents accuse districts of stashing the money away and continue to clamor for increased and other opportunities for their children to catch up. 

Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, argues that many parents haven’t seen these funds benefit their children. She meets every two weeks with Cardona or his staff, where the use of relief funds comes up frequently.

“He wants districts to be acting with urgency,” she said, ‘“but they are saying, ‘We don’t know what to do.’ ”

By law, districts can’t just hold onto the money. They have to obligate it by the end of September, 2024. While the department has said it will consider some extensions, their approval is not guaranteed.

At the same time, the rules, which require districts receiving at least $750,000 in federal funds to undergo an audit, are shifting rapidly. 

“I’m talking total reversal. It literally is a moving target,” said Bonnie Graham, a partner with Brustein & Manasevit, a law firm specializing in federal education policy. “School districts are in a tough spot. You can’t afford to make a mistake.”

In 2020, the Biden administration’s Office of Management and Budget districts were not required to track employees’ hours charged to Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief — known as ESSER. The 2021 and 2022 versions of the document said the . 

Districts are also allowed to use relief funds to pay themselves back for money they spent at the start of the pandemic, but their documentation often doesn’t go back that far, said Cathy Harlow, manager of an accounting firm in Pennsylvania that conducts district audits.

A former superintendent for the Tyrone Area School District — situated midway between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia — she sympathizes with districts.

“Our firm leans on the side of leniency,” she said. “We’re holding districts accountable, but understanding that the landscape has been changing rapidly as they’re going through it.”

‘New territory’ 

Sometimes audits don’t tell the whole story.

The inspector general’s office also reviewed how the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education used to connect more students to the internet. 

Due to a clerical error, the state didn’t reach all eligible districts, showed. What it didn’t show was that officials used ESSER funds to cover the rest. 

“We just had to make peace with it,” said Chris Neale, the department’s assistant commissioner. “We know there will be a ton of auditing that has never gone on before. It’s new territory for everyone.”

That’s particularly true for smaller districts and charter networks, which normally don’t spend enough federal funds to trigger an audit. The Colorado Charter School Institute has some charter management organizations facing the process for the first time.

“The question that I get from CMOs is, ‘Do we really have to do this?’” said Andi Denton, director of finance and operations. Most, she added, just don’t want to spend the $10,000 or so to pay an accounting firm to complete it. She reminds them they’ve gotten “a lot of money.”

As districts and charters apply for relief funds, some state officials are kicking those requests back for more information before approving them. 

In Georgia, for example, the state audit department initially rejected districts’ requests to use relief funds to cover salaries. They interpreted the law to mean those funds could only be used to make up for a drop in state revenue, said Matt Cardoza, a spokesman at the Georgia Department of Education.

To clear up the confusion, federal officials sent a letter explaining that using relief funds to pay staff is “not dependent on a shortfall in state and local funding.”

Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, said some officials might not have kept up with the “twists and turns” in messages from the education department about “allowable” expenses. 

Relief funds for education, the law says, are meant to “prevent, prepare for and respond to” COVID. The most recent from the department says districts should use the funds to “emerge stronger post-pandemic” and address needs exacerbated by COVID. 

Districts are now submitting reimbursement requests to their state education departments, which typically turn around approvals quickly — except for a few questionable items.

“A couple districts asked for pressure washers to clean sidewalks. It’s very hard to connect that to COVID,” Cardoza said. “We don’t try to be so over the top [that] they can’t spend their money, but we’re trying to keep them from being audited.”