Last fall, the federal government abruptly canceled funding that states and school districts were using to expand academic opportunities, strengthen public schools, and give families meaningful choices. These cuts did not occur in a vacuum: they are a part of the Trump administration’s determination to reduce the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to a shadow of itself, with only the merest fraction of its previous funding, oversight, and programming. Gutting ED aligns squarely with President Trump’s assertion that Civil Rights-era protections and diversity initiatives have unfairly disadvantaged white Americans, a belief that is now driving an aggressive retreat from pro-diversity and evidenced-based education policy.
There have already been numerous casualties of this campaign. Among them is the Fostering Diverse Schools (FDS) Demonstration Program, which ED launched in 2023 to support districts and states in developing, implementing, and scaling voluntary, locally driven strategies that promote socioeconomic diversity in public schools. The program was designed to improve access to high-quality learning environments and advance educational equity for all students.
Federal support gave them the breathing room to redesign outdated attendance zones, hire much-needed educators, expand course offerings, strengthen extracurricular programs, and invest in staff dedicated to family and community engagement.
Though participation was optional, for the districts that applied, FDS funding was a lifeline. Communities willing to take on the complex, and often politically fraught, work of addressing socioeconomic segregation finally had the resources to do so. Federal support gave them the breathing room to redesign outdated attendance zones, hire much-needed educators, expand course offerings, strengthen extracurricular programs, and invest in staff dedicated to family and community engagement. It was a crucial tool for promoting integration in the communities that needed it most.
With the program terminated three years early, a lot of that progress is now at risk. The loss of funding leaves districts with few alternative resources with which to continue the work they had begun. It also reflects a broader federal retreat from policies designed to address inequity in public education. As the Trump administration steps back, state and local leaders now must decide whether and how they will step in to sustain and protect the work of integration.
What the Fostering Diverse Schools Program Accomplished
Segregation by race and income continues to limit opportunity for millions of children. Congress funded the FDS program in 2023 in order to combat these trends. The program invested in real solutions: it collaborated with districts on strategies to increase socioeconomic diversity, expanded access to rigorous coursework, and reduced the concentrated poverty that undermines student performance.
This was not a partisan experiment or an executive branch initiative. The program itself was the product of sustained advocacy by The Century Foundation and its partners, who worked with Congress and the U.S. Department of Education to secure funding for the program. It then became a bipartisan congressional directive, grounded in decades of research showing that diverse schools raise achievement, improve graduation rates, and strengthen democratic outcomes. Because school systems often mirror housing segregation, local school leaders cannot address these challenges alone. FDS grants were designed to help districts work with families and communities to break long-standing patterns of inequality and build schools that truly serve every child.
Here are some examples of those accomplishments. District names have been withheld to support these communities’ safety. These examples are drawn from the author’s prior work on the program, including reviews of grantee presentations, monitoring of implementation, and conversations with grantees.
Rebuilding School Quality and Community Trust: A Kentucky district used FDS funds to redesign a struggling, under-enrolled middle school into a visual and performing arts magnet rooted in the history and culture of its surrounding community. The district paired arts integration with deep community partnerships, student-led projects, and a school renaming process grounded in local history. Within two years, disciplinary incidents fell by more than 75 percent, school culture improved dramatically, and the school attracted dozens of new out-of-area applicants, reversing years of enrollment decline and rebuilding confidence in a neighborhood school.
Expanding Access through Transportation and Family Engagement: In Tennessee, the grantee used FDS funding to remove transportation barriers that limit family choice and school access. In partnership with the city transit authority and community partners, the district launched a pilot that allows students to ride public transit for free with a library card, expanded bilingual supports on school buses, and redesigned routing and mapping systems to better connect students to schools and programs. These changes increased ridership, reduced access barriers for low-income and multilingual families, and laid the foundation for a county-wide socioeconomic diversity plan that makes neighborhood schools more accessible and attractive to a broader range of families.
Expanding Socioeconomic Diversity through Career Pathways: In Alaska, FDS funding was used to transform neighborhood high schools into hubs of student choice and career preparation, drawing students from different backgrounds into shared programs connected to Alaska’s workforce needs. In just two years, the district saw declines in suspensions, growth in Advanced Placement participation, more freshmen on track to graduate, and a 7-percent rise in graduation readiness as thousands of students gained access to mentorships, apprenticeships, and career coaching. These efforts made neighborhood schools more attractive to families across income levels. But when the Trump administration abruptly canceled the district’s $3 million FDS grant, six classroom career and technical education (CTE) teaching positions were immediately put at risk.
Centering Family Voice: One North Carolina district used FDS funding to modernize school boundaries for the first time in more than thirty years by placing families at the center of the planning process. The district engaged more than 18,000 parents, students, and community members through surveys, listening sessions, and interactive mapping tools, completing over 13,000 surveys and hosting nearly 200 engagement sessions in schools, churches, and community spaces. Family feedback directly shaped new bus routes and school assignments designed to reduce transportation time, increase enrollment in under-enrolled schools, and improve socioeconomic diversity. The process turned what has historically been a contentious exercise into a trust-building, fiscally smart redesign that aligned school access with community priorities and long-term enrollment stability.
Strengthening School Culture to Support Diversity and Choice: Another district used FDS funding to build a fair access framework designed to improve discipline systems, strengthen student supports, and create safer, more welcoming schools across its highest-poverty attendance areas. It succeeded in this by investing in restorative practices, targeted professional learning, and a districtwide audit tool. These gains matter not only for student outcomes, but also for school diversity. Research consistently shows that families consider school culture and safety when choosing schools, and this district’s work demonstrates how fostering a culture of equity and safety can make neighborhood schools more attractive to a broader and more diverse group of families.
These achievements are what we sacrifice by terminating the FDS program. And to what end? The U.S. Department of Education has claimed that it ended the program in order to redirect funds to mental health grants. However, the claim that ED is committed to improving mental health collapses under scrutiny. Last year, the administration canceled more than $1 billion in congressionally approved mental health grants used to hire and train counselors, social workers, and psychologists. The funds needed to sustain FDS grantees amounted to less than 2 percent of what the administration attempted to take away from mental health programs.
Why Federal Grant Programs Like FDS Matter
Cutting funding streams like those FDS provided fundamentally undermines local districts’ ability to ensure a just, equitable education in their communities.These districts already struggle to cover basic services—the budget, flexibility, or resources to take on the deep, systemic challenges that drive inequity are a distant dream without support. Federal discretionary grants exist precisely for this reason: to spur innovation, help districts pilot new ideas, and build capacity by sharing what works nationwide.
By hamstringing districts’ capacity to provide, cuts like the termination of FDS rob local communities of opportunity.
Without federal investments, the solutions that parents and students enjoy and demand never get off the ground. To name but a few, communities lose out on rigorous courses, specialized art programs, dual enrollment, transportation fixes, and family engagement initiatives. By hamstringing districts’ capacity to provide, cuts like the termination of FDS rob local communities of opportunity.
Moreover, federal funding helps to safeguard public schools as a public good. They are the cornerstones of democracy and community well-being, and exist to serve the public interest, not private profit. Yet, as corporate influence grows—through the expansion of voucher programs and private organizations receiving public dollars with little transparency or accountability—the role of federal investment becomes even more vital to ensure schools are meeting the needs of every family. Federal funding is a tool for ensuring that public dollars stay in public schools, strengthening local capacity, upholding civil rights, and meeting the needs of every student to lay the foundation for America’s future.
Policy Recommendations for State and Local Leaders
State and local leaders are being forced to make difficult choices in an environment defined by uncertainty and pressure. Some states and districts are already spending millions of dollars defending lawful education policies and unlawful funding cancellations. In this moment, the future of public education and the country depends on local leadership willing to continue doing what is right, even in the face of threats, legal intimidation, and an unusually unstable federal landscape.
The fight is as worthwhile as it ever was: fostering and defending equity and diversity remains crucial to safeguarding the childhoods our students need, and the adulthoods those students deserve after they’ve left school. Here are some ways that state and local policymakers can step into the vacuum that the loss of programs like FDS has created.
1. Create State-Level Diversity Innovation Funds
States can establish grant programs that mirror the FDS model, supporting districts that voluntarily design plans to expand diversity through community-driven approaches. These funds can be used to support legally permissible strategies to fulfill the promise of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. A small pool of state innovation funds can seed transformative ideas and attract philanthropic match funding. California’s Community Schools Partnership Program shows how state-run grant programs can successfully support district-led equity initiatives at scale.
2. Leverage ESSA and Title I Flexibility
State education agencies can encourage districts to use existing federal formula funds (Title I, Title IV, etc.) for activities that promote diversity and equitable access, such as revising attendance zones, expanding dual-enrollment courses, or improving transportation routes.
3. Implement Automatic Enrollment for Advanced Coursework
To help support intra-school diversity, state and district leaders can look first to advanced coursework opportunities. Research has shown that Black and Latino and students from low-income backgrounds are often excluded from advanced coursework because of systemic barriers in identification and access.
States and districts can adopt automatic enrollment policies to ensure students who meet objective criteria (GPA, test scores, or teacher recommendations) are automatically placed in advanced courses. Schools should also offer wraparound supports that provide mentoring, tutoring, and teacher professional development to help every student succeed. A handful of states have adopted automatic enrollment policies: for example, Illinois law requires districts to automatically enroll students who meet or exceed state standards in English, math, or science into advanced courses, a policy designed to reduce barriers to rigorous learning
4. Encourage Cross-District Collaboration
Regional approaches work. States should facilitate partnerships among neighboring districts to share CTE programs, dual-language programs, and magnet pathways that draw families across lines of race and income.
5. Invest in Data and Community Engagement
Local education agencies should prioritize tools that make enrollment and resource patterns transparent to the public. Participatory mapping, listening sessions, equity audits, and inclusive community design processes can sustain trust and ensure families shape solutions.
6. Embed Diversity Goals in Accountability and Planning
State boards and superintendents should require districts to report on socioeconomic diversity and access to opportunity. Embedding these measures in annual improvement plans signals that integration and equity are essential to quality. Some states include measures in their school report cards.
The Path Forward
The early termination of the Fostering Diverse Schools program, and of so many programs like it, are a grave loss, but such losses need not be the end of our efforts. Rather, they can be a turning point toward stronger, more durable state and local leadership.
Parents, educators, and community leaders have already shown what works. Now governors, legislators, and school boards can build on those lessons so that every child has access to schools that reflect the diversity, opportunity, and promise of our democracy.
Federal grants can spark innovation, but in the end, it’s state and local ownership that creates lasting change. The FDS program proved that integration and equity are achievable when communities lead. Now is the moment for states and districts to seize that promise.
Tags: civil rights act, school diversity, inclusive education
The Termination of the Fostering Diverse Schools Program Is a Call to Action
Last fall, the federal government abruptly canceled funding that states and school districts were using to expand academic opportunities, strengthen public schools, and give families meaningful choices. These cuts did not occur in a vacuum: they are a part of the Trump administration’s determination to reduce the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to a shadow of itself, with only the merest fraction of its previous funding, oversight, and programming. Gutting ED aligns squarely with President Trump’s assertion that Civil Rights-era protections and diversity initiatives have unfairly disadvantaged white Americans, a belief that is now driving an aggressive retreat from pro-diversity and evidenced-based education policy.
There have already been numerous casualties of this campaign. Among them is the Fostering Diverse Schools (FDS) Demonstration Program, which ED launched in 2023 to support districts and states in developing, implementing, and scaling voluntary, locally driven strategies that promote socioeconomic diversity in public schools. The program was designed to improve access to high-quality learning environments and advance educational equity for all students.
Though participation was optional, for the districts that applied, FDS funding was a lifeline. Communities willing to take on the complex, and often politically fraught, work of addressing socioeconomic segregation finally had the resources to do so. Federal support gave them the breathing room to redesign outdated attendance zones, hire much-needed educators, expand course offerings, strengthen extracurricular programs, and invest in staff dedicated to family and community engagement. It was a crucial tool for promoting integration in the communities that needed it most.
With the program terminated three years early, a lot of that progress is now at risk. The loss of funding leaves districts with few alternative resources with which to continue the work they had begun. It also reflects a broader federal retreat from policies designed to address inequity in public education. As the Trump administration steps back, state and local leaders now must decide whether and how they will step in to sustain and protect the work of integration.
What the Fostering Diverse Schools Program Accomplished
Segregation by race and income continues to limit opportunity for millions of children. Congress funded the FDS program in 2023 in order to combat these trends. The program invested in real solutions: it collaborated with districts on strategies to increase socioeconomic diversity, expanded access to rigorous coursework, and reduced the concentrated poverty that undermines student performance.
This was not a partisan experiment or an executive branch initiative. The program itself was the product of sustained advocacy by The Century Foundation and its partners, who worked with Congress and the U.S. Department of Education to secure funding for the program.1 It then became a bipartisan congressional directive, grounded in decades of research showing that diverse schools raise achievement, improve graduation rates, and strengthen democratic outcomes. Because school systems often mirror housing segregation, local school leaders cannot address these challenges alone. FDS grants were designed to help districts work with families and communities to break long-standing patterns of inequality and build schools that truly serve every child.
Here are some examples of those accomplishments. District names have been withheld to support these communities’ safety. These examples are drawn from the author’s prior work on the program, including reviews of grantee presentations, monitoring of implementation, and conversations with grantees.
Rebuilding School Quality and Community Trust: A Kentucky district used FDS funds to redesign a struggling, under-enrolled middle school into a visual and performing arts magnet rooted in the history and culture of its surrounding community. The district paired arts integration with deep community partnerships, student-led projects, and a school renaming process grounded in local history. Within two years, disciplinary incidents fell by more than 75 percent, school culture improved dramatically, and the school attracted dozens of new out-of-area applicants, reversing years of enrollment decline and rebuilding confidence in a neighborhood school.
Expanding Access through Transportation and Family Engagement: In Tennessee, the grantee used FDS funding to remove transportation barriers that limit family choice and school access. In partnership with the city transit authority and community partners, the district launched a pilot that allows students to ride public transit for free with a library card, expanded bilingual supports on school buses, and redesigned routing and mapping systems to better connect students to schools and programs. These changes increased ridership, reduced access barriers for low-income and multilingual families, and laid the foundation for a county-wide socioeconomic diversity plan that makes neighborhood schools more accessible and attractive to a broader range of families.
Expanding Socioeconomic Diversity through Career Pathways: In Alaska, FDS funding was used to transform neighborhood high schools into hubs of student choice and career preparation, drawing students from different backgrounds into shared programs connected to Alaska’s workforce needs. In just two years, the district saw declines in suspensions, growth in Advanced Placement participation, more freshmen on track to graduate, and a 7-percent rise in graduation readiness as thousands of students gained access to mentorships, apprenticeships, and career coaching. These efforts made neighborhood schools more attractive to families across income levels. But when the Trump administration abruptly canceled the district’s $3 million FDS grant, six classroom career and technical education (CTE) teaching positions were immediately put at risk.
Centering Family Voice: One North Carolina district used FDS funding to modernize school boundaries for the first time in more than thirty years by placing families at the center of the planning process. The district engaged more than 18,000 parents, students, and community members through surveys, listening sessions, and interactive mapping tools, completing over 13,000 surveys and hosting nearly 200 engagement sessions in schools, churches, and community spaces. Family feedback directly shaped new bus routes and school assignments designed to reduce transportation time, increase enrollment in under-enrolled schools, and improve socioeconomic diversity. The process turned what has historically been a contentious exercise into a trust-building, fiscally smart redesign that aligned school access with community priorities and long-term enrollment stability.
Strengthening School Culture to Support Diversity and Choice: Another district used FDS funding to build a fair access framework designed to improve discipline systems, strengthen student supports, and create safer, more welcoming schools across its highest-poverty attendance areas. It succeeded in this by investing in restorative practices, targeted professional learning, and a districtwide audit tool. These gains matter not only for student outcomes, but also for school diversity. Research consistently shows that families consider school culture and safety when choosing schools, and this district’s work demonstrates how fostering a culture of equity and safety can make neighborhood schools more attractive to a broader and more diverse group of families.
These achievements are what we sacrifice by terminating the FDS program. And to what end? The U.S. Department of Education has claimed that it ended the program in order to redirect funds to mental health grants. However, the claim that ED is committed to improving mental health collapses under scrutiny. Last year, the administration canceled more than $1 billion in congressionally approved mental health grants used to hire and train counselors, social workers, and psychologists. The funds needed to sustain FDS grantees amounted to less than 2 percent of what the administration attempted to take away from mental health programs.
Why Federal Grant Programs Like FDS Matter
Cutting funding streams like those FDS provided fundamentally undermines local districts’ ability to ensure a just, equitable education in their communities.These districts already struggle to cover basic services—the budget, flexibility, or resources to take on the deep, systemic challenges that drive inequity are a distant dream without support. Federal discretionary grants exist precisely for this reason: to spur innovation, help districts pilot new ideas, and build capacity by sharing what works nationwide.
Without federal investments, the solutions that parents and students enjoy and demand never get off the ground. To name but a few, communities lose out on rigorous courses, specialized art programs, dual enrollment, transportation fixes, and family engagement initiatives. By hamstringing districts’ capacity to provide, cuts like the termination of FDS rob local communities of opportunity.
Moreover, federal funding helps to safeguard public schools as a public good. They are the cornerstones of democracy and community well-being, and exist to serve the public interest, not private profit. Yet, as corporate influence grows—through the expansion of voucher programs and private organizations receiving public dollars with little transparency or accountability—the role of federal investment becomes even more vital to ensure schools are meeting the needs of every family. Federal funding is a tool for ensuring that public dollars stay in public schools, strengthening local capacity, upholding civil rights, and meeting the needs of every student to lay the foundation for America’s future.
Policy Recommendations for State and Local Leaders
State and local leaders are being forced to make difficult choices in an environment defined by uncertainty and pressure. Some states and districts are already spending millions of dollars defending lawful education policies and unlawful funding cancellations. In this moment, the future of public education and the country depends on local leadership willing to continue doing what is right, even in the face of threats, legal intimidation, and an unusually unstable federal landscape.
The fight is as worthwhile as it ever was: fostering and defending equity and diversity remains crucial to safeguarding the childhoods our students need, and the adulthoods those students deserve after they’ve left school. Here are some ways that state and local policymakers can step into the vacuum that the loss of programs like FDS has created.
1. Create State-Level Diversity Innovation Funds
States can establish grant programs that mirror the FDS model, supporting districts that voluntarily design plans to expand diversity through community-driven approaches. These funds can be used to support legally permissible strategies to fulfill the promise of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. A small pool of state innovation funds can seed transformative ideas and attract philanthropic match funding. California’s Community Schools Partnership Program shows how state-run grant programs can successfully support district-led equity initiatives at scale.
2. Leverage ESSA and Title I Flexibility
State education agencies can encourage districts to use existing federal formula funds (Title I, Title IV, etc.) for activities that promote diversity and equitable access, such as revising attendance zones, expanding dual-enrollment courses, or improving transportation routes.
3. Implement Automatic Enrollment for Advanced Coursework
To help support intra-school diversity, state and district leaders can look first to advanced coursework opportunities. Research has shown that Black and Latino and students from low-income backgrounds are often excluded from advanced coursework because of systemic barriers in identification and access.
States and districts can adopt automatic enrollment policies to ensure students who meet objective criteria (GPA, test scores, or teacher recommendations) are automatically placed in advanced courses. Schools should also offer wraparound supports that provide mentoring, tutoring, and teacher professional development to help every student succeed. A handful of states have adopted automatic enrollment policies: for example, Illinois law requires districts to automatically enroll students who meet or exceed state standards in English, math, or science into advanced courses, a policy designed to reduce barriers to rigorous learning
4. Encourage Cross-District Collaboration
Regional approaches work. States should facilitate partnerships among neighboring districts to share CTE programs, dual-language programs, and magnet pathways that draw families across lines of race and income.
5. Invest in Data and Community Engagement
Local education agencies should prioritize tools that make enrollment and resource patterns transparent to the public. Participatory mapping, listening sessions, equity audits, and inclusive community design processes can sustain trust and ensure families shape solutions.
6. Embed Diversity Goals in Accountability and Planning
State boards and superintendents should require districts to report on socioeconomic diversity and access to opportunity. Embedding these measures in annual improvement plans signals that integration and equity are essential to quality. Some states include measures in their school report cards.
The Path Forward
The early termination of the Fostering Diverse Schools program, and of so many programs like it, are a grave loss, but such losses need not be the end of our efforts. Rather, they can be a turning point toward stronger, more durable state and local leadership.
Parents, educators, and community leaders have already shown what works. Now governors, legislators, and school boards can build on those lessons so that every child has access to schools that reflect the diversity, opportunity, and promise of our democracy.
Federal grants can spark innovation, but in the end, it’s state and local ownership that creates lasting change. The FDS program proved that integration and equity are achievable when communities lead. Now is the moment for states and districts to seize that promise.
Notes
Tags: civil rights act, school diversity, inclusive education