On Sunday, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, boasted that he was gutting the federal agency tasked with providing foreign aid to its poorest.
“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk, the tech billionaire head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, posted on his social media platform, X.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was established in 1961 to provide foreign assistance to impoverished countries around the world through food aid and humanitarian and economic development work. It is also one of the world’s largest providers of contraception through its family planning program. According to the Congressional Research Service, the agency’s funding in 2023 was about $40 billion, which represented less than 1 percent of the federal budget.
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Beth Schlachter, senior director of U.S. engagement for MSI Reproductive Choices, a global non-governmental organization (NGO) that provides contraception and abortion care, said Musk’s comment made her feel sick.
“You can just hear the cavalier, malicious, cruel approach to it as they’re laughing,” she said, referring to a conversation Musk broadcast earlier in the day on his platform about the cuts. “I can’t get past it. It’s so malicious and disgusting. You have to believe that the cruelty is the point.”
MSI Reproductive Choices doesn’t receive USAID funding, but Schlachter has worked for decades at both the State Department and with NGOs on programs that build up support for sexual and reproductive health rights, maternal care and access to contraception globally. She’s seen the ways USAID funding has saved lives through its family planning initiatives. Now she worries about the immediate fallout for people across the world. She and other experts say women and LGBTQ+ people will face significant and deadly consequences because of an abrupt pause in aid.
“There will be maternal deaths, and there will be unintended pregnancies,” she said.
USAID started its family planning program in 1965 as an anti-population growth initiative, Schlachter said. “[It was] really a racist program to ensure that Black and Brown people had less babies. But it morphed over time into being the backbone of the reproductive health sector within global health.”
Experts say the family planning work, which ranges from sexual education, access to contraceptives, and maternal and infant health, have all been implemented as a way to bolster the human rights of women and girls around the world. By giving people the ability to delay pregnancy into adulthood, and the choice to go to school or have fewer children, they and their families are healthier.
“Ultimately, in planning their families, their children are more prosperous. They themselves are able to work now,” said Onikepe Owolabi, director of international research at the Guttmacher Institute, a Washington-based organization that tracks reproductive health policy.
USAID has been rocked by the Trump administration after an executive order signed on his first day in office halted all foreign funding for 90 days and a stop work order issued on January 24 for all existing foreign assistance awards. While a waiver was issued a week later to continue funding for “life-saving humanitarian assistance,” family planning was specifically excluded from the action. Separate from the executive orders, it was reported by the New York Times on Thursday that nearly all staff from the agency of about 10,000 employees would be let go.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been announced as the acting administrator for the agency — signaling a potential, though according to legal experts not constitutional, move to dissolve the agency’s functions into his department. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
For over a decade, USAID has spent about $600 million annually for its family planning work.
“The good that money has done is unquantifiable,” Owolabi said. She received training through a USAID-funded program for HIV prevention and treatment and family planning while she was a medical student in Nigeria.
She’s seen how that money has led to better maternal health outcomes and helped combat HIV in places like Rwanda and Uganda through training doctors and providing supplies and antiretrovirals to clinics. Now she’s hearing accounts of how that work has been affected.
“Imagine a rural area in Uganda, a small health outpost where women will come with their babies for care, or their pregnancy, or [where a] child can receive immunization, or for family planning counseling,” she said. “The staff can’t work because of the stop work order, the drugs, the medications, the commodities … are no longer available because USAID is one of the largest procurers and suppliers of commodities in this country. So you handicap health workers, you handicap the health system. You hold the logistics and supply chain ransom.”
Demonstrators gathered on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025, to protest the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
As of 2023, 67 percent of contraceptives supplied through USAID went to Africa, where some of the leading causes of death for girls and women are related to pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections like HIV. According to an analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, if no contraceptive care is provided by USAID in 2025, that will lead to about 4.2 million unintended pregnancies and over 8,000 deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth complications.
“Women will die as a result of this decision,” said Rachel Clement, senior director of government relations at PAI, a global advocacy group. “Those people will die from preventable maternal mortality causes.”
Owolabi said even Momentum, a program implemented during the first Trump administration to help women survive childbirth in places like India, Senegal and Nigeria, has been shut down. One of the initiatives under the program was created to reduce maternal and infant mortality by training doctors on how to perform cesarean sections and other types of lifesaving procedures, as well as how to insert and take out intrauterine devices. Without that critical care, “they are exposing women with complicated pregnancies, a majority of who are low income, to die simply because they can’t access it,” she said.
The pause on family planning work has also impacted the United Nations Population Fund, the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency. USAID provides between 40 to 50 percent of the funding that goes to humanitarian work at the UN.
This includes maternal health programs in Afghanistan, where the UN has had a presence for about 40 years. Up until the funding pause, the UN was able to continue providing that care through midwives that worked in rural health clinics in mountainous regions of the country.
“We try to have a midwife in every single one of [the clinics], and we have over 1,700 midwives that are supported by U.S. funds that are mostly frozen right now,” a UN official said.
Prevention and care for HIV is another concern for advocates. While the State Department issued a waiver to continue providing funding for HIV treatment, experts say it’s still not reaching clinics on the ground through programs like the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The global program, known as PEPFAR, has been credited with saving more than 26 million lives through providing access to antiretrovirals, which suppress the virus, and preventing the spread of HIV in 5 million children, according to UNAIDS, the United Nations program on AIDS.
While the State Department funds the program, much of the work is implemented by USAID. According to reporting from The New York Times, no money has been distributed from USAID since the initial freeze on foreign assistance, and stop work orders are still in effect. Groups on the ground are waiting for instructions to restart work, but so far none have been issued. As a result, hundreds of organizations had to halt services, according to The New York Times.
Once someone stops taking antiretrovirals, the virus can become detectable again within a few weeks, making people more likely to transmit it to others. A temporary disruption to the medication can also lead to drug resistance for someone with HIV, making their regimen less effective. PEPFAR also pays for PrEP, a medication that protects those at high risk of contracting HIV. According to the State Department, PEPFAR accounts for 90 percent of PrEP treatment initiations globally.
While advocates say HIV treatments could resume under the State Department program, new executive orders aimed at weeding out “gender ideology” and DEI in the department mean it may not serve those most at risk of exposure to HIV.
“Are they going to allow men who have sex with men? Are they going to include female sex workers, who have the highest risk of HIV transmission, in programming?” Owolabi asked. “Or are they going to impose their values on programming, and thus not going to protect the most at risk?”
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Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.
The Alabama Senate passed a bill Thursday that would require K-12 public schools to broadcast or perform the first stanza of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at least once a week during school hours.
SB 13, sponsored by Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, is a constitutional amendment that would need approval from state voters if passed by both chambers. The bill passed the Senate 25-6 and moved to the House for consideration.
“It’s important that all our children will have the opportunity to hear the national anthem at least once a week,” Allen said on the Senate floor.
Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro (left) speaks with Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale on the floor of the Alabama Senate on April 15, 2025 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, said after the bill’s passage that it potentially violates children’s constitutional rights, particularly free speech.
“When you start talking about fundamental rights. I think that’s going to be something that’s going to be challenged in courts too, in terms of whether or not — the constitutionality of — can you make kids listen to that on a daily basis, who may not want to and refuse,” Singleton said.
He also opposed making it a constitutional amendment, saying it would be “a forever permanent piece of law,” which he said was unnecessary. He said lawmakers should instead be focused on creating jobs and improving education in the state.
“I, too, am America, but do I have to love something that talks about me and the history of my slavery, that degrades me and my people? No, I don’t. So why make children have to sing that in school?” Singleton asked.
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Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.
www.thecentersquare.com – By Lindsey Henderson | ExcelinEd – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-18 11:36:00
Harvard University recently announced a remedial algebra course to address some of the mathematical struggles its incoming students are facing.
This isn’t a reflection on the nation’s oldest and most renowned institution of higher learning. Remedial courses aren’t new. Plenty of colleges and universities offer courses geared toward helping students with precalculus and calculus.
The fact that students at a highly competitive school like Harvard may need help getting caught up in a core subject should be a bright red warning light that our K-12 system is falling behind when it comes to math education.
Looking at the most recent scores from the Nation’s Report Card, we know there has been minimal progress for students catching up from COVID learning loss, and most fourth and eighth graders on last year’s exam still performed below pre-pandemic levels, with a widening gap between disadvantaged students and their more resourced peers.
To ensure future generations are prepared for postsecondary success, we need to look for upstream solutions—state-level math policy that we know will help students build the foundation they need.
State leaders can act now on five essential math policies designed to transform math achievement.
First, we know that countries consistently performing above average on international math assessments spend an average of 60 minutes per day on instructional time. In America, Alabama is the only state actively requiring this instruction length, with Maryland recently passing a similar policy that will be implemented in 2026. If every state required 60 minutes of math instruction a day, students would see stronger outcomes.
Second, the adoption of High-Quality Instructional Materials (HQIM) would ensure students have access to grade level content. Surprisingly, this remains a significant challenge across the country, with some research indicating students spend more than 500 hours per school year on assignments not appropriate for their grade level and expectations.
Next, we know that math coaches are an essential investment for all elementary and secondary schools and can be relied upon to lead professional development, facilitate lesson planning, teach model lessons and observe and provide immediate feedback. States like Alabama and Kentucky have implemented strong math coach programs.
Just as we look to NAEP as a national assessment tool, teachers should be implementing regular assessments in their classrooms that provide valuable student progress information and inform future instruction tactics. When assessments are followed by timely interventions to get students back on track, student learning outcomes can dramatically improve.
Finally, states should consider an automatic enrollment policy that ensures students who are mathematically proficient are promoted into higher-level courses in the next school year.
Automatic enrollment policies have proven to lead to a larger number of students successfully taking higher level math courses, including a higher number of low-income and minority students.
These policy essentials are not theoretical; we are seeing them in action in Alabama. Other states, including Indiana, Iowa and Maryland, are following suit.
And that’s a smart move. Alabama’s comprehensive approach to math policy has resulted in remarkable progress in just two years: it remains one of the only states where fourth grade students are back to pre-pandemic levels of math proficiency on the Nation’s Report Card.
By the time our students graduate from high school, they should be proficient in the math skills they need to succeed in higher education, the military or the workforce. We owe it to them to get them to that level in the K-12 system so they are not playing catch-up in subsequent years.
States can help educators and schools achieve that goal by implementing proactive, research-backed policy solutions that ensure all students build a strong foundation in mathematics.
Lindsey Henderson serves as the Math Policy Director at ExcelinEd.
Fifteen Auburn University community members had their visas revoked this week, according to university officials.
Jennifer Wood Adams, executive director of public affairs at Auburn, said in a statement that the visas were revoked by the Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Student and Exchange Visitor Program, not the university.
She said the university immediately reached out to those with cancelled visas. The university did not identify the students.
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“Auburn’s Office of International Programs immediately contacted each affected individual to provide assistance and support. Our international students and personnel are valued members of our campus community, and we recognize the significant impact that visa or status revocation will have on them,” the statement said.
The statement also said the university will comply with all laws and cooperate with authorities.
“This is a fluid situation, and the university will monitor it closely and assess its implications,” she said.
According to the Associated Press, at least 1,024 students at 160 colleges, universities and university systems have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since late March.
Alireza Doroudi, a University of Alabama graduate student from Iran, was detained in March by ICE. According to the Crimson White, UA’s student news outlet, Doroudi was denied bond on Thursday and now faces deportation.
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Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.
