Up First from NPR - School Funding, Venezuelan Deportation Hearing, Key Bridge Inspection

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

President Trump shuts down the Department of Education, leaving federal funding for schools in limbo. A judge demands answers from the Trump administration after Venezuelan migrants were deported despite a court order. And, Maryland failed to inspect the Francis Scott Key Bridge before its collapse last year, raising concerns about other bridges nationwide. Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Nicole Cohen, Anna Yukhananov, Luis Clemens, Alice Woelfle and Mohamad ElBardicy.It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.We get engineering support from Simon-Laslo Janssen, and our technical director is Stacey Abbott.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

President Trump is trying to shut down the Department of Education. We're going to be returning education very simply back to the states where it belongs. How will the move impact rural and low-income students? I'm Amartinez, that's Laila Fadl, and this is Up First from NPR News. A judge wants answers from the Trump administration on why it deported more than 200 Venezuelan migrants after a court order said stop. What will the government say when they're forced to explain? And a new report found that if Maryland had done needed assessments on the Francis Scott

Key Bridge, it could have prevented its collapse last year. These bridge owners need to be looking at recent vessel traffic. Things have changed over time. What can other places learn from this disaster? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day. Public media counts on your support to ensure that the reporting and programs you depend on thrive.

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President Trump is using his executive power to try and shut down the U.S. Department of Education. We're going to be returning education very simply back to the states where it belongs and this is a very popular thing to do but much more importantly it's a common sense thing to do. It's not popular though with a majority of Americans. That's according to a recent NPR PBS News Marist poll. The administration has promised that certain federal education grants,

including for low income and rural schools, would be preserved. But by this evening, many of the workers who help get that money to those schools will be out of a job. NPR education reporter Janaki Mehta has been following the story and joins us now. Hey, Janaki. Hey, Laila. So Janaki, let's start with the executive action President Trump signed yesterday that aims to eliminate the Education Department. And we expected this, but can the president just eliminate the Department of Education?

No, that actually requires an act of Congress. The action essentially tells the Secretary of Education to take all steps towards eliminating the department to the maximum extent possible under the law. And like I said, it does require Congress, but we've already seen the Trump administration move towards that goal by cutting the department workforce nearly in half. Many of the department's employees are going to have their last day today before being put on administrative leave. So even without an act of Congress, the steps begin now.

And your reporting has found that nearly the entire staff of the Education Department's data agency is being laid off. What exactly does that agency do? Yeah, so the National Center for Education Statistics, or NCES, has been the central source of data about education in the US for more than 150 years. At the start of this year, more than a hundred people were working there, and after today just three NCES staff will remain. That's according to multiple employees at NCES and an internal email we've reviewed. And nearly all the data experts responsible for determining whether schools qualify for certain federal grants will soon be out of jobs.

So this data agency being eliminated, what does it mean for schools? So part of what NCES works on are what does it mean for schools? So part of what NCES works on are known as formula grants for schools. Things like Title 1 which goes to low-income schools and also funding for rural schools through the Rural Education Achievement Program. Those are just two examples but if there aren't data people crunching these numbers, employees tell us it's going to be really hard for schools to get that money. I talked to Amy Price-Azano, who leads the Center for Rural Education at Virginia Tech,

and she said, it's important to remember the students on the other side of this money. When we talk about percents and all of this, we forget that that's a real kid. And so how will those kids have everything that they need to be successful in school, to be safe in school. And I should say we did reach out to the Ed Department for comment on all of this, and they did not reply. What kind of things do schools use that money for? Yeah, so formula grants are actually really flexible. Once states and districts get these grants from the Ed Department, they primarily get to choose

what to do with it. Like Title I or rural school grants could be used to pay school staff salaries, transportation costs, technology, really the nuts and bolts of what makes a school a school. And that's part of why programs like Title I or these rural school grants are such bipartisan golden children, you know, they let local leaders

do what best serves the unique needs of their students. So how soon will schools feel the pain of this data being gone? Yeah I've spoken to employees at NCES who have worked on both grants for rural schools and on Title I and they all tell me they're pretty confident districts will get the money they expect for the next school year but they're really worried about what's gonna happen after that. Like if business was as usual, NCES staff would be hard at work right now gathering the data for the 2026-27 school year, and that is going to be a lot harder with just

three employees. And I should add, Lela, NCES doesn't work alone when it comes to Title I. It works closely with the US Census Bureau, but we learned earlier this week that the Trump administration is starting to shrink that agency too. And that could certainly further complicate the distribution of Title I funding. NPR education reporter Janaki Mehta. Thank you, Janaki. Thank you. At a hearing today, US District Judge James Boasberg will try to get answers from the Department of Justice about Venezuelan migrants deported to El Salvador.

President Trump has called for Boasberg to be impeached after he stopped the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to immediately deport the Venezuelans suspected of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, but planes still left the U.S. carrying over 200 people to El Salvador. Now the judge wants the government to prove that they did not ignore his order. NPR's immigration policy reporter Jimena Bustillo has been following all this and joins me now. Hi Jimena. Good morning.

Jimena, let's just take a step back here and break down why there's been such a reaction to Trump using this power to deport these men. Well, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, and this is a presidential power that has only been previously used during times of war. It allows the government to deport people without going through the regular immigration process, which can take years. Now two groups, the ACLU and Democracy Forward, caught wind that he was going to do this and preemptively sued last weekend. They

argued that the administration should not use the act to deport five Venezuelan men that they represent. They later broadened their request to apply to anyone potentially covered by the Alien Enemies Act under Trump's invocation. The judge agreed to pause deportation under the act for two weeks. But while this was all playing out in court, three planes left the US carrying over 100 people the White House says were deported under the act. The Trump administration is alleging that these members are Trenderagua, a Venezuelan gang, but in court filings

earlier this week, immigration officials also said that many of those removed under the act do not have criminal records in the United States. And as noted, they were taken to El Salvador. Okay. So the judge tried to stop these deportations or pause them for two weeks. There were some new filings in the case yesterday. What did they show? Yesterday the DOJ had to file additional details about the flights, but Boasberg says that they, quote, again evaded its obligations. He said that Trump's cabinet secretaries are deciding

whether to refuse to provide evidence. The executive branch has the power to not give judges information they want if officials say it will harm national security or foreign relations. But Boasberg says the government filings are,, woefully insufficient because they're still deliberating whether to invoke this so-called state secrets privilege. And what is the judge trying to learn now?

He's trying to understand if the administration disobeyed his orders, which did call for planes to be turned around. Trump officials have underscored that they did not disobey orders. Still, they've doubled down on their criticism of the original order and have even called to impeach Boasberg. And what does Boasberg want the government to do now? What are the next steps? He's asking the government today to explain any of its discussions about invoking this privilege of state secrets, and they must make a final decision by March 25th. Justice Department spokesperson said the department sees the questions from Boasberg as, quote,

inappropriate judicial overreach. And more of this might be discussed in a hearing this afternoon. Now, this is one case of many around President Trump's actions. Just zoom out a little bit. What has this week shown us about the legal challenges the Trump administration is facing? This case is not the only one that has attracted strong words from judges. And ultimately, the Trump administration is using laws that have not been tested for decades and stretching that executive power. Many of those questions are ending up in courts across the country, including with results that may not favor Trump's interpretation. We can't expect more of these challenges to work their way up the judicial system and even end up in the Supreme Court.

All right. Thanks, Jimanna. Thank you. And Piers, Jimanna, it was to you. Maryland failed to conduct crucial assessments of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which could have prevented its collapse last year. That's according to a new report by the National Transportation Safety Board on the collapse of the bridge following a collision with a cargo ship. And the board says there are other bridges at risk.

Scott Massioni from Member Station WIPR joins me to talk about this. Good morning, Scott. Good morning. So what could Maryland have done to better prepare itself for this kind of disaster? Well, there's quite a few things that certain industry standards says they could have done those industry standards were started in the early 1990s and Maryland just really didn't conduct the assessments that they were supposed to in terms of what those industry standards set as according to the NTSB they say that lack of oversight could have been a big factor in the collision.

The NTSB also noted that it conducted its own survey and found the bridge was 30 times over that risk threshold that was set by those industry standards. And also, just as a reminder, a cargo ship named the Dali rammed into the Key Bridge this time last year in March, causing its collapse and also the death of six people. What sort of things do these assessments entail? They look at things like vessel traffic, vessel transit speeds, loading characteristics, a lot of those sorts of attributes. And over the years ships have gotten bigger and bigger and the bridges have gotten older, which means they need to adapt by putting things up like dolphins, which are these sort of concrete barriers that keep ships from actually getting

to the bridge and ramming into them. So these industry standards have asked these bridge owners to take these extra precautions to avoid collapse. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homidy noted how those changes in vessel sizes have really made the industry completely different and had bridges really have to look at what they're doing in terms of that sort of thing. These bridge owners need to be looking at recent vessel traffic. Things have changed over time.

Vessels have gotten bigger, heavier. At one point in the 1950s, we had vessels that had just 800 containers on them. Now we're talking 24,000 containers. What about other bridges across the nation? The NTSB noted that Maryland specifically hasn't conducted these assessments on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which spans 17.6 miles. It's the fourth largest bridge in the United States, according to LYNKTH. It also identified 68 other bridges across the country that weren't built to the needs

and specifications of this company. NTSB is strongly urging those bridge owners right now to conduct assessments to report back to the NTSB with remediation plans. And those bridges, they span from California to Washington to New York. They're all over the United States. So this is going to be quite an undertaking for people who own bridges and for different states

and departments of transportation. That's WYPR's Scott Massione. Thank you, Scott. Thank you. Here's some other news. In the coming days, an NPR team will be reporting in China, and that includes Steve Inskeep. Steve, why now? Well, Leila, because of the trade war that the United States has launched with China, I want to see what this looks like from the other side, how the Chinese are responding to American tariffs, and also a broader new US attitude toward the world, if you think about things like the effort to ban TikTok, to give just one example.

One of the things we're going to be doing is going to this big Chinese business conference. If you've heard of things like the big Davos meeting in Europe, this is the very rough equivalent of that. The China Development Forum, global business people gather, and it's a chance for us to try to listen in and get a sense of what's going on with the economy. So who shows up at a conference like that? International CEOs from Europe, from the United States,

specialists on China and its economy. From what we've heard so far, the Americans are going to be a little sparse, but some will be there. And I'm gonna be listening to the way that business leaders talk about the climate now, and also how the Chinese government tries to position itself as the United States assumes a new role in the world. So what is China's economy like as the US ramps up tariffs?

Well, the big picture is a little bit slower growth than in the past. Real estate prices, the fall in real estate prices are dragging things down. A lot of people don't feel as wealthy because their homes are worth less. Consumer spending is low, consumer confidence is low. At the same time, China's high-tech development is pulling them up. They're dominating industries like electric vehicles. They're being more competitive than people expected in artificial intelligence, on and on. But we want to get at some of the nuances

of how China's economy is growing and how it's changing. And that is what we're going to hear in days to come, along with an NPR team that includes John Ruich and Anthony Kuhn. There's going to be some news out of China. China's president is widely expected, perhaps, to have a meeting with international CEOs and we'll try to follow it all. All right. I'm looking forward to that reporting from you and your team, Steve. Me too. And that's a first for Friday, March 21st.

I'm Laila Faldin. And I'm A. Martinez. With the recent arrest of Philippine ex-president Rodrigo Duterte. This weekend on the Sunday story from Up First, we return to the Philippines that Duterte left behind and examined the aftermath of his brutal war on drugs. That's right here in the Up First podcast this Sunday. And today's episode of Up First was edited by Nicole Cohen, Anna Yucanonov, Luis Clemens, Alice Wolfley and Mohammed Al-Badisi.

It was produced by Ziad Bach, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Simon Laszlo Jansen, and our technical director is Stacey Abbott. Our executive producer is Jay Shaler. And Up First is here for you tomorrow too with Ayesha Roscoe and Scott Simon. Join them on Saturday. Making time for the news is important, but when you need a break, we've got you covered on All Songs Considered, NPR's music podcast.

Think of it like a music discovery show, a well-deserved escape with friends, and yeah, some serious music insight. I'm going to keep it real. I have no idea what the story is about. Hear new episodes of All Songs Considered every Tuesday, wherever you get podcasts. A lot happens in Washington every day, from the White House to Capitol Hill and everywhere in between. That's where we come in. On the NPR Politics Podcast, we keep you up to date on what happens inside Washington and what it means for you and your community. The NPR Politics Podcast, listen wherever you listen. On the Embedded Podcast.

No, no. It's called denying us freedom of speech. It's misinformation. Like so many Americans, my dad has gotten swept up in conspiracy theories. These are not conspiracy theories. These are reality. I spent the year following him down the rabbit hole, trying to get him back. Listen to Alternate Realities on the Embedded Podcast from NPR, all episodes available now.