California has joined a lawsuit suing the Trump administration for cutting grants designed to combat a nationwide teacher shortage.

Eight states sued the Trump administration for terminating $600 million worth of grants. The termination of grants also eliminated the Supporting Effective Educator Development program, which provided funding for education-focused institutions seeking to increase academic achievement and graduation rates, according to the United States Department of Education website.

“The strategy appears to be to just to make it (Department of Education) unable to do anything … by cutting back on funding and moving key parts of the of the department into other areas,” said Patricia Gándara, a professor emeritus in the department of education and the co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA.

On March 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling on U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to demolish the Department of Education and give federal power over education to the states.

Gándara said states are still waiting to see what judicial action will be taken by the courts, and only Congress has the legal power to shut down the Department of Education.

“The Department of Education has come into existence as a result of congressional action, and only the Congress can really shut it down,” she said. “We’re waiting to see how this all rolls out.”

The Teacher Quality Partnership program – one of the programs eliminated through the termination of grants – funded education institutions with a focus on teacher development programs, according to the Department of Education.

The TQP program began at UCLA Center X – which houses the Teacher Education Program and Principal Leadership Institute – through an $8 million grant for a five-year period and established the Cultivating Excellence Residency program in 2023. The residency program prepares educators for middle school instruction, according to the CE-Residency website.

Imelda Nava-Landeros, the co-director of the TPQ grant at UCLA and TEP faculty advisor, said the program focuses on educators in Title I schools, which are federally designated as schools that have low-income students and high needs.

“The focus on Title I schools has always been inherent in this grant call,” Nava-Landeros said. “Our teachers prepare to teach through their pre-service year in Title I schools and partner areas. They receive a credential and a master’s in 18 months or less.”

Tonikiaa Orange, the co-principal investigator of the TPQ grant at UCLA, said the program received a notification of funding being withheld Feb. 12, but it was able to continue operating due to a March 10 temporary restraining order that reinstated grants in the interim.

The Trump administration’s emergency plea was granted 5-4 by the Supreme Court to cut funding to programs that were being temporarily sustained through the restraining order April 4, according to PBS News.

“It’s a five-year grant, … and we were only in one and a half year,” said Orange, the director of the Principal Leadership Institute. “It makes us walk precariously, when we should be doing things vigorously.”

Emma Hipolito, the director of UCLA TEP and the co-investigator on the grant, said the program was only in its pilot year and now may not see its future potential.

“We have tremendous students, and they were willing. … They joined us as part of this pilot year and have been doing just excellent, excellent work in schools, and we’re beginning to see the fruition of this planning,” Hipolito said. “All of that is in jeopardy.”

Nava-Landeros said she finds it disheartening that their partnerships with community college students may be lost. She added that she only knows of one other program in the state besides the CE-Residency that exclusively focuses on a middle school pathway.

The number of people enrolling in teacher education programs nationwide is declining, Nava-Landeros said. She added that the grants supported the necessity of staffing underserved schools.

“Education – it is a field of innovation. It is a field for transformation, and it really impacts. It has trickle effects on every single thing we think about in our own society,” Orange said. “If we are not paying attention and really investing in what it is we say we most believe in – which is the care and the growth of the folks, the young people that we serve – then we’re doing ourselves a disservice.”

Gándara said good education policy directs resources to those in need – and these cuts counter that.

“We really have to stick with this and just keep coming up with new ways to sue them (Trump administration), to pull back the power that the Congress should be exerting,” she said.