Trump promised to end DEI. Then, rural teachers lost money.

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.4 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Montgomery County is a small, rural area in the middle of North Carolina. The county has struggled financially for years, and its school district depends on government grants to survive. This year, the Trump administration cut $600 million in grants to teacher-training programs across the country, and Montgomery County’s $21 million grant was included. The Trump administration says the grants were cut because they were used to train teachers and agencies on diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

Host Elahe Izadi speaks with national reporter Ben Brasch about his reporting on Montgomery County’s schools. He shares why some parents and teachers are frustrated by the Trump administration’s seemingly indiscriminate cuts, and why the elimination of the county’s grant affects the school district’s ability to retain and train quality teachers.

Today’s show was produced by Thomas Lu. It was edited by Ariel Plotnick with help from Reena Flores and mixed by Sean Carter.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Late one night, Jessica Louder suddenly woke up and then checked her email.
0:06.7	At the time, she worked for the school district in Montgomery County, North Carolina.
0:11.2	I remember going to the bathroom, you know how sometimes you're lay back down that you see something on your screen.
0:16.2	You're like, oh, I'll look at it, and then I'll just go back to sleep.
0:18.7	And you just happen to look at your screen?
0:20.5	Yeah.
0:38.3	What was your, what do you think your reaction was? Um. Don't cuss, Jessica. That's Jessica's boss at the time, Wade Allman. The two of them spoke with reporter Ben Brash. You're allowed to cuss? No, I was just disappointed because I knew the impact that it was going to have on our district. What Jessica saw on her screen was an email.
0:41.3	Wade got it to.
0:43.3	It came from Mark Washington at ed.gov.
0:48.3	And it came at 242 and 11 seconds on Tuesday, February 18th, 2025.
1:00.5	The email was about a big funding cut.
1:09.5	The day before, the U.S. Department of Education announced it was cutting more than $600 million in grants they considered wasteful.
1:15.3	They said the grants were being used to train teachers and agencies on diversity, equity,
1:16.1	and inclusion.
1:24.4	For Jessica and Wade, this meant losing $21 million they were counting on to help train and recruit teachers.
1:27.2	Could the district run without grant funding?
1:29.2	And our current state, no.
1:38.7	From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post reports.
1:40.5	I'm Elahe-I-I-I-Ezadi.
1:42.9	It's Monday, September 8th.
1:54.1	Today, how the Trump administration's crusade to root out DEI and government waste affected one rural county, the kind of community President Donald Trump promised to look after.
2:00.9	National reporter Ben Brash shares his reporting about the school district in Montgomery County, North Carolina.
	...

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