Ep 110 - What Are We Calling Waste? When “Efficiency” Reaches the Classroom

There are certain words politicians love because they arrive pre-approved. Efficiency. Flexibility. Local control. Streamlining. Cutting red tape. Eliminating waste. Nobody hears those words and thinks, “No thanks, I’d prefer a government that costs more and works worse.” They sound sensible before the argument even starts.

When politicians say they’re cutting waste, the real question is what disappears on the other end.

That is exactly why they deserve scrutiny. Political language has a way of becoming much more comfortable once the human consequence has been removed from the sentence. “Reducing regulatory burdens” sounds clean. “Targeting benefits” sounds responsible. “Returning authority to the states” sounds almost patriotic. But policy does not live in press releases. Eventually it lands somewhere. In a classroom. At a lunch table. On a teacher’s paycheck. In a parent’s stack of forms.

And right now, as another school year begins, several Trump administration policies and proposals offer a useful test of what we really mean when we talk about making government smaller and more efficient. The question is not whether Washington can waste money. Of course it can. The question is whether every dollar no longer spent, every rule no longer enforced, and every program no longer funded deserves to be called “waste.”

Start with school lunch. Thousands of schools use a federal option called the Community Eligibility Provision to provide meals to all students without requiring individual families to submit separate applications. One way schools qualify is through the number of students already identified as low-income through programs such as SNAP. Change SNAP eligibility, and you can change the number of students automatically identified. Change that number, and some schools can lose access to universal meal programs.

That is now happening in Houston, where 33 schools are no longer participating in universal free lunch this year. More than 35,000 students attend those schools. Breakfast remains free, but families seeking free or reduced-price lunch must now qualify individually.

There is a legitimate argument for that. Why should taxpayers provide lunch to children whose families can comfortably afford it? Why not target assistance toward those who need it most? That is not an absurd position. Government resources are finite, and universal benefits can spend money on people who do not need the help.

But targeting comes with machinery. Applications. Verification. Processing. Notices. Appeals. Parents who never complete the paperwork. Families who qualify but fall through the cracks. Schools that must determine who gets what instead of simply feeding everyone. Means-testing may reduce benefits paid to higher-income families, but means-testing itself is not free.

That distinction matters. Making a program cheaper by narrowing who receives it is not the same thing as finding a cheaper way to provide the same benefit. One is efficiency. The other is eligibility. Both can be defensible choices, but they are not interchangeable.

Head Start makes that distinction even sharper. Most people think of Head Start as preschool for low-income children. It is that, but historically it has also been much more. Head Start programs include education, nutrition, health and developmental screenings, family services, disability supports, and other services built around the idea that poverty does not affect children in neat little compartments.

The Trump administration is now pursuing major changes to the rules governing Head Start. One proposal targets workforce requirements adopted in 2024, including future wage and benefit standards. The administration argues those rules are too costly and could force programs to serve fewer children. It estimates that eliminating those future requirements could preserve a substantial number of Head Start slots.

That is a real tradeoff. Better wages and benefits can help programs recruit and retain qualified staff. But if Congress does not provide enough money to pay for those improvements while maintaining enrollment, something has to give. Preserve compensation standards and potentially serve fewer children. Loosen the standards and potentially serve more. Or appropriate more money. Governing is full of choices where every option carries a cost.

But again, language matters. If the government “saves” money because a worker receives less compensation than the previous rule would have required, that money has not vanished. The cost has shifted. The federal government spends less. The worker absorbs more. That may still be a policy somebody wants to defend. It is simply not the same thing as discovering waste.

A second Head Start proposal goes much further. The administration wants to eliminate or rewrite more than 1,400 provisions in the current performance standards, arguing that decades of regulation have produced duplication, excessive prescription, and unnecessary administrative burden. And here, the administration does have a point worth taking seriously. Some federal rules duplicate requirements already contained in statute. Some dictate processes local programs might reasonably design for themselves. Genuine red tape exists. Get rid of it.

But an adult-to-child ratio is not paperwork. A class-size limit is not paperwork. A developmental screening is not paperwork. A health requirement is not paperwork. A teacher benefit is not paperwork. If we use the word “bureaucracy” for all of those things, the word stops telling us anything useful.

Imagine a restaurant that cuts staffing from ten servers to seven. Labor costs fall. The same number of customers can technically be seated. On paper, productivity improves. Meanwhile one waiter has 25 tables, somebody has been waiting 40 minutes for mozzarella sticks, and table twelve is considering eating the centerpiece. The restaurant is cheaper to operate. Whether it is more efficient depends on what happened to the service.

That is the Head Start question in miniature. The administration argues that fewer federal requirements could lower per-child costs and allow programs to serve more children. Fine. More access matters. But “we can serve more children” is only half a sentence. The other half is: serve them with what?

If larger groups, fewer staff, shorter hours, reduced services, or lower compensation help make the numbers work, that does not automatically make the policy wrong. It does mean the public deserves to understand the trade. We are not merely removing paperwork. We are changing what the program is required to provide.

The same principle applies to the things surrounding the classroom. Earlier this year, the administration cancelled roughly $168 million in Full-Service Community Schools grants, objecting in part to DEI-related language and priorities contained in some of the funded proposals. That label makes the fight sound ideological, because much of it is. But the grant name itself tells you very little about what disappears when the money disappears.

Those grants funded things like tutoring, after-school programs, mental-health services, family outreach, attendance support, health care, and partnerships with community organizations. The fact that a program funds something socially desirable does not automatically make it effective. If a grant violates federal law, wastes money, or funds programming unrelated to its stated purpose, the government should act. But cancelling a grant does more than delete objectionable language from an application. It removes the money paying for everything attached to it.

That is where political slogans collide with ordinary life. “Full-Service Community Schools Program” sounds like something invented by a committee after six hours in a conference room. “The place my kid goes after school until I get off work” sounds different. Same federal dollars. Different perspective.

And when a state steps in to replace federal funding, Washington can accurately say it spent less. But the cost did not disappear. It moved. Federal taxpayer to state taxpayer. Federal agency to local district. Government to nonprofit. Government to family. Sometimes transferring responsibility is exactly what should happen. But cost shifting is not the same thing as cost elimination.

This is where conservatives and libertarians deserve a serious hearing. Education has historically been primarily a state and local responsibility. Federal money comes with conditions. Regulations can accumulate. Compliance can consume time and staff. Washington can become detached from local reality. One-size-fits-all rules can make experimentation harder. And spending more money does not automatically produce better educational outcomes.

All of that is true enough to matter. There is no progressive principle requiring anyone to defend stupid paperwork. There is no moral virtue in an ineffective federal program merely because it has a noble mission statement. If a regulation is useless, get rid of it. If a program does not work, fix it or end it. If a local government can deliver the same service better, let it.

The problem comes when “local control” becomes the answer before we ask why the federal rule existed. Much of Washington’s involvement in education grew precisely because local control did not always protect everyone equally. Low-income children, disabled students, and children facing discrimination have repeatedly depended on federal law to establish minimum protections that local systems either could not or would not guarantee consistently.

That is the real federalism question. A national standard does not automatically mean Washington runs the classroom. Sometimes it simply means Washington establishes a minimum. States can do more. Communities can innovate. Local programs can exceed the requirement. They just cannot go below it.

A floor is not a ceiling.

That does not prove every federal floor is set at the right level. Some may be too high. Some may be too low. Some may need to disappear entirely. But removing a national minimum deserves more explanation than the word “flexibility.” If fifty states are free to set fifty different standards, variation is not an accidental side effect. Variation is the policy. Sometimes that produces innovation. Sometimes it produces inequality.

So when Washington tells us it has saved money, I want receipts. Not just the number. The mechanism. What changed?

Did the government deliver the same service more cheaply? That is efficiency.

Did it stop providing part of the service? That is a reduction.

Did it make a state, local district, worker, parent, or nonprofit absorb the cost? That is a transfer.

All three might be defensible. But they are not the same achievement, and politicians should not get to wrap all three in the word “waste” and move on.

When they say they cut red tape, ask which rule disappeared. When they say they saved taxpayers money, ask who pays now. When they say they expanded access, ask what people are gaining access to. When they say they returned control to the states, ask what responsibility the states inherited.

None of that is hostility toward smaller government. It is basic accountability.

Government should become more efficient. Pointless regulations should die. Duplicative paperwork should disappear. Local communities should be allowed to solve problems Washington does not need to solve for them. But the test cannot simply be whether the federal spreadsheet got smaller.

Follow the policy all the way down. Past Congress. Past the agency. Past the governor. Past the superintendent. Find the teacher. Find the parent. Find the classroom. Find the lunch table. Find the thing that changed.

Maybe it really was waste. Good. Cut it.

But maybe it was a lunch. A counselor. A screening. A benefit. A smaller classroom. A service that still has to be provided by somebody else.

If that is what we eliminated, politicians should have to say so in plain English.

Tell us what you cut.

Then let us decide whether it was worth cutting.

SOURCES

Title I overview, history, and federal assistance for schools serving low-income students — https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=158

Title I history and purpose under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 — https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/titlei/summary.asp

History of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, including exclusion of children with disabilities before the 1975 law — https://sites.ed.gov/idea/IDEA-History/

IDEA overview, including the federal guarantee of a Free Appropriate Public Education — https://sites.ed.gov/idea/about-idea/

Federal civil-rights protections under Title VI for programs receiving federal financial assistance — https://www.justice.gov/crt/fcs/TitleVI

History of the National School Lunch Program and the National School Lunch Act of 1946 — https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/resource-files/NSLP-program-history.pdf

USDA overview of direct certification for free school meals through SNAP and other assistance programs — https://www.fns.usda.gov/research/direct-certification-national-school-lunch-program-report-congress-state-implementation-progress-1

USDA Community Eligibility Provision information for schools providing universal free meals — https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/cep

USDA information on changes resulting from the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act affecting federal nutrition programs — https://www.fns.usda.gov/resources

Houston ISD ending universal free lunch at 33 schools, affecting more than 35,000 students, following SNAP-related eligibility changes — https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/hisd/article/free-lunch-cuts-kids-hungry-22371829.php

Earlier Houston Chronicle reporting on the 33 schools losing Community Eligibility Provision participation for the 2026–27 school year — https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/hisd/article/free-lunch-programs-22286074.php

Head Start overview, including early learning, health, nutrition, family well-being, and services for children with disabilities — https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/programs/article/head-start-programs

Head Start history, including its origins in 1965 and development as a comprehensive early-childhood program — https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/about-us/article/head-start-history

Head Start Act, including the statutory requirement for comprehensive developmental, health, nutritional, educational, and social services — https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/policy/head-start-act

Current Head Start Program Performance Standards, including health, nutrition, family engagement, disability services, and other requirements — https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/policy/45-cfr-chap-xiii

2024 Head Start final rule establishing new workforce wage, benefit, mental-health, and program-quality requirements — https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/08/21/2024-18279/supporting-the-head-start-workforce-and-consistent-quality-programming

May 2026 Trump administration proposal to remove future Head Start wage and benefit requirements, including the administration's projected savings and enrollment effects — https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/12/2026-09383/restoring-flexibility-to-support-head-start-program-access

August 2026 Trump administration proposal to rescind and replace more than 1,400 Head Start performance-standard provisions, including changes involving staffing ratios, group sizes, service duration, screenings, family services, and local flexibility — https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/07/2026-16134/reducing-federal-burden-for-head-start-programs

2016 Head Start Performance Standards rule, useful for understanding why the modern federal standards were established and the earlier effort to balance quality with regulatory burden — https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/09/06/2016-19748/head-start-performance-standards

U.S. Department of Education overview of the Full-Service Community Schools program and the academic, health, mental-health, family, and out-of-school services it supports — https://www.ed.gov/grants-and-programs/grants-birth-grade-12/school-and-community-improvement-grants/full-service-community-schools-program-fscs

Institute of Education Sciences evaluation of the Full-Service Community Schools program — https://ies.ed.gov/use-work/evaluations/evaluation-full-service-community-schools

Washington Post reporting on the Trump administration's cancellation of approximately $168 million in Full-Service Community Schools grants across 11 states and D.C., including lost after-school, tutoring, mental-health, and care-coordination services and Connecticut's emergency replacement funding — https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2026/02/13/trump-cuts-community-schools/

U.S. Department of Education Full-Service Community Schools grant guidance showing examples of funded medical, dental, vision, mental-health, before-school, after-school, weekend, summer, and academic-support services — https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/2022/07/FSCS_FY2022_NIA_Overview_final.pdf

Example of a Full-Service Community Schools grant in Pennsylvania supporting dental, vision, immunization, asthma, and other community-health services in Allentown — https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/2018/10/U215J180034-UW-of-Greater-Lehigh-Valley-Project-Narrative.pdf

Washington Post reporting on broader Trump administration Education Department cuts, including cancellations of research, data, grants, and education-support contracts and questions about the actual savings claimed — https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/02/13/doge-education-department-cuts/

Washington Post reporting on the Trump administration's 2025 withholding of nearly $7 billion in already appropriated education funding supporting after-school programs, English-language instruction, adult education, and other services — https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/07/02/schools-education-trump-administration-funding-hold/