Federal Workers Speak
Denise M. Joseph Department of Education
Dr. Denise M. Joseph worked at the U.S. Department of Education for nearly a decade. Being part of the Department of Education had long been a goal of hers, because she wanted to have a national impact on education for younger people. Through her work there, she felt that she could help students who might otherwise have fallen through the cracks “feel safe, supported, and valued.”
I first became aware of inequities in education when I was about six and went to a private school. All my neighbors went to the public school, and my parents said my school was better. As a child, I couldn’t understand why they had to go to a school that wasn’t better.
From early on, I wanted to make a big impact on youth. As a pre-teen and teen, I went to the Police Athletic League in Brooklyn, which is like a boys and girls club that does youth programs. Counselors took us to different museums and sites. I wanted to work there but was too young.
My first job, even before graduating from University of Maryland, was working at Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, the parks and recreation system for Prince George’s County, MD, in the College Park Youth Services Center. Then I was a substitute teacher for a few years, and I also taught eighth grade and at University of Maryland. My goal was to learn about education and to work at the Department of Education, using my experience to create policies that would impact students across the country.
It was a privilege to work at the Department of Education for nine years and eight months. My first position was at the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education when John King was Secretary of Education. I started in 2015, the Monday after the Every Student Succeeds Act became law. I helped the states understand what the updated law meant and how it affected them and their schools and districts.
My last position was in the Office of Postsecondary Education in the Management Support Unit. I worked with management supervisors to provide resources for staff who coordinated programs and services across the country supporting students and postsecondary institutions. Our mission was to help all Americans reach postsecondary education. I led a training program for 200 grant managers. We supported such efforts as Upward Bound for high school students from low-income families and many other programs, including ones to improve postsecondary enrollment in rural areas and to support organizations working with gang-involved youth so they could enroll in college.
I helped build a culture of care and ensure that staff had the resources and tools they needed to do their jobs. We managed the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, which went to all eligible federal employees, including 4,000 at the Department of Education. This survey was designed to collect information on workplace conditions in government agencies. I helped analyze the data, and we used the results to do strategic planning for our unit.
I liked helping my colleagues and supporting them. I’m the type of person who did my job and gladly volunteered to jump in with other projects. I helped with panel monitoring and gave presentations across the department on strategic workforce training. I mentored people, and starting my first year, I was selected to be a part of the agency’s leadership program, Pathways to Leadership. The program was designed to help staff as they became leaders at the department. My team’s project in Pathways to Leadership was to create a peer-to-peer learning program, like monthly mini-Ted Talks in which people would share something they loved about their work. That program ran for eight years. We had about 300 people on our listserv, almost 10% of the department. It gave people a place to talk and ask questions they couldn’t ask anyone else. In 2023, a woman said that she would have lost interest in her job during COVID, but made it through because of our program.
I supported people in other ways. I set up an informal mentoring group with a supervisor who had offered to mentor, and we met once a month for two years. We started with five and ended up with 10 to 15. He would offer his lessons and allow people to ask any question about career paths. People really liked it. One person I worked with who was about to get fired instead ended up working there for three more years. Someone else had been at the same pay level for 12 or 13 years. After communicating with me, she was finally promoted. Those are the stories that I love. I really miss working with people and helping out.
Over the last year, a lot of grant programs at public universities that were funded through the Department of Education were cut—and in the middle of the year. In the Office of Postsecondary Education, a program under our purview gave childcare grants so enrolled students with children could get childcare while they were at school. The funding helped parents finish their program and graduate. We have wonderful stories about people who went through it. When the program was cut, people were in the middle of their semester and suddenly didn’t have funding. Getting an education and finishing their degree may have been a lifelong goal.
The funding that used to flow from the federal government to states and public school systems and universities helped students thrive. They didn’t have to worry about where their funding was coming from. Now the buzz is that schools, programs, districts, and states are very concerned about their programs and funding on almost a day-to-day basis. One school I worked with had a $343,000 budget cut. Staff positions were put on hold and contractor hiring was paused. Another school in a neighboring district had cuts of over $500,000. In this case, some staff were let go. The principals noted that they would protect the funding of direct services to students at all costs.
Although there have been huge cuts to federal funding for education, over the last year I’ve noticed that if the budget cuts don’t affect someone directly, they don’t know about them. They don’t know that there’s one less special education teacher or that if a teacher leaves a school, that position can’t be filled. It’s very disheartening. Even for students with disabilities, services won’t be provided, even though Congress put them in place and they’re required by law. Now, because of the cuts, people can’t benefit from the programs, and schools are struggling.
At the department, we helped with accreditation and funding for programs at minority-serving institutions, like tribal colleges and historically black colleges and universities. If we’re not there to look at the grant applications or do the analyses or monitor the institutions, then the institutions don’t get that support.
The Department of Education helps us, as a country, to meet needs like around AI and other technological changes. Without a strong Department of Education, we won’t be able to move forward in education to keep up with these changes and meet needs globally.
When I was put on administrative leave, I put my energy into fighting. I sounded the alarm, telling Congress that this was wrong, that we were wrongly put on administrative leave and were about to be RIFed [Reduction in Force]. I’ve been advocating for myself and my colleagues and to protect the Department of Education. I wrote some op-ed pieces, and I have an education column with Heart and Soul magazine.
People in the current administration didn’t understand what they were cutting. My whole office was abolished. We had a budget person, compliance person, grant system person, audit person. It was a team effort, and we had systems in place. We all worked together to make sure that everything ran smoothly. There were 18 of us; 17 were cut, and one got moved to another office.
The Department of Education was created by Congress. I looked up every statute connected to the main responsibilities of my job. Laws said that what I did needed to be done. Cutting my responsibilities meant cutting things that Congress put in place because they thought that they were important to run the agency.
There was no analysis on how many people were needed to do the work. The department had 4,000 people in January, 2025. There are probably 2,000 now. People left say that it’s horrible. They’re just like machines, just do what they’re told. They’re scared.
My former colleagues who are left say, “No one’s doing what you were doing. We need you back.” I miss my friends at the office and miss seeing them at work. I miss what we did. And I miss the impact that we had.
Since leaving the Department of Education, Denise has been busy teaching, writing, and doing other work related to education and advocacy. She has created lessons for Kodely, which develops innovative K-12 STEM programming, and she’s been teaching a for-credit societal relationship-building course through TerrapinStrong, an onboarding program at University of Maryland. She is running for school board for District 4 in Charles County, MD.