New reporting from the Washington Post highlights how Donald Trump’s cuts to federal funding cancels a $9 million federal grant for a teaching residency program at Virginia Commonwealth University that teaches computer skills to high school students. 

This program is a part of Glenn Youngkin’s “signature effort” to create laboratory schools across the Commonwealth, previously touting the program as “unleashing opportunities and giving parents new options for their kids to learn in innovative and creative ways.” Yet Youngkin is now silent on cuts to the program that he once said would “provide every student in the Commonwealth access to an extraordinary education.”

“It’s truly pathetic that Glenn Youngkin, who has repeatedly touted his signature programs as key to Virginia’s future, won’t stand up to Donald Trump to protect them,” DPVA Chairwoman Susan Swecker said. “His silence in the face of these cuts speaks volumes about where his true priorities lie—more focused on sucking up to Trump than benefiting students across the Commonwealth.”

Washington Post: Trump cuts affect signature Youngkin lab school program in Virginia

• Youngkin, a Republican who has become a close supporter of President Donald Trump, often touts the VCU x CodeRVA school as the flagship for his plan to create alternatives to traditional, public K-12 facilities around Virginia.

• The blow to an initiative so highly touted by the Republican governor highlights the breadth of the changes being rolled out by the Trump administration, which has vowed to drastically cut the federal workforce and programs that are an especially prominent part of Virginia’s economy. 

• While the state’s Democratic lawmakers and members of Congress have called on Youngkin to intervene with Trump, the governor has said several times that the president is doing what he was elected to do.