Title: President-Elect Trump's Education Priorities

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Brigid Bergin: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian today. Coming up on today's show, we'll talk about how residents of the Rockaway Peninsula, myself included, will be dealing with the suspension of the A train for repairs for about four months early next year. There are some alternate options, but it's still going to be really inconvenient and isolating for residents of the Rockaways.

Plus, later in the show, we'll hear about why there's more to know about the mutation of the BRCA or BRCA gene beyond its link with breast cancer. We'll wrap today's show with your stories of how you reconciled after family estrangement. If that's happened to you, how'd you do it? How's it going? We're going to take your calls on that near the end of today's show, but we're going to start things off with a conversation about national politics and education.

President-elect Trump is moving forward aggressively to name new positions in his incoming administration. Earlier this week, he announced longtime ally Linda McMahon as his pick for the US Department of Education. She ran the Small Business Administration in his first term. Now, this pick comes even as Trump has talked about dismantling the Education Department, which was also a key recommendation in Project 2025, that Heritage Foundation book that may help shape the policies of his incoming administration.

What does this mean on the ground, in classrooms and at schools? How will funding be affected? How soon will students, teachers and families in this country experience changes? Joining me now to answer my questions and yours is Erica Meltzer, national editor at Chalkbeat, where she covers education policy and politics. Erica, welcome to WNYC.

Erica Meltzer: Thanks so much for having me.

Brigid Bergin: Erica, as a way into this conversation, let's go broad. Can you give us some background on the role of the US Department of Education? What falls under its purview and what does it do?

Erica Meltzer: Absolutely. Something that I think is important for everyone to understand in this conversation is that most decisions about schools happen at the state and local level. That would continue to be the case, regardless of what happens in Washington. Nonetheless, the Department of Education does a number of important things. They oversee really large programs like Title I, which provides billions of extra dollars every year for high-poverty schools. This pays for things like interventionists and paraprofessionals, keeping class sizes small, and all kinds of things that help kids in pretty tangible ways.

They also run the Accountability System, which has been a little more hands-off in recent years. This is a system that requires schools to administer standardized tests. They look for where students are not being served well and provide support to try and improve education. They serve as a clearinghouse for a lot of research on education. Then on the higher ed side, they're also overseeing the federal financial aid process. They have famously or infamously been very involved in the student loan forgiveness initiative under Biden. There's a lot of things that they do.

Brigid Bergin: This is a very broad mandate and a lot of potential programs that might need to go somewhere else. In Project 2025, as I mentioned, the very first line in that education section says, "Federal education policy should be limited and ultimately the federal Department of Education should be eliminated." What would it take to do that, Erica?

Erica Meltzer: The Department of Education was created by an act of Congress, and it would take an act of Congress to actually get rid of it. Some conservatives have been talking about getting rid of the Department of Education almost as soon as it was created in 1979 by President Carter. It obviously hasn't happened yet. A lot of people think that it would be hard to get enough support, even from Republicans in Congress for this to happen. At the same time, there does seem to be a momentum and an energy around the idea that has not existed in the last 40 years.

Brigid Bergin: Now Trump controls both houses of Congress. An act of Congress seems like a big step that needs a lot of buy-in. Are you getting any sense? You mentioned the momentum, but what are some of the things that you're going to be watching for to see if that momentum is building at all towards something like an act of Congress?

Erica Meltzer: Well, I think to some degree, it's how much we hear Republican lawmakers talking about it. I am hearing from outside of Congress, people starting to talk as if this is a real thing that's really going to happen. But there's also a lot of other things that the administration could be spending political capital on. I think immigration, tariffs, tax policy, healthcare, all of these things could take up a lot of political will.

Then the other thing, of course, is that the margins are very close in both houses. For the time being, we still have a filibuster. If that filibuster goes away, I think it changes the political dynamic.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, we want to know what your questions are about the future of the federal education system under the incoming Trump administration. Are you a parent, a teacher, a student? Do you have questions about how curriculum might change or maybe you had a bad experience applying for Federal Student Aid, so you're actually hopeful about seeing some improvements, or are there civil rights protections that have changed your educational experience so far that you're concerned about losing?

We want to hear what's on your mind about the way education might change under the incoming administration. Give us a call with your stories, your questions at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can call or text that number. Erica, as you mentioned, this is not the first time we've heard conservative policymakers talk about shutting down the Department of Education. Maybe there's more momentum now, but just more broadly speaking, what has made this agency in particular such a lightning rod?

Erica Meltzer: I'm glad you mentioned civil rights protections in your call out to listeners because that was actually one really important function that I neglected to mention. I think that that has been one of the reasons that we've seen so much is a really big tension point between progressives and conservatives and something that changes a lot when we go from a Democratic to a Republican administration.

Under Democrats, we've seen more focus on disparate impact analysis. For example, if a school district has a discipline policy that is neutral on its face, but the result is that a lot more Black boys are being suspended than any other student group, they might attract scrutiny from the Department of Education that would push them to reexamine those practices. Under Republican administration, it tends to be a much more individualized look at was someone's civil rights violated.

The other really big one is Title IX. The Biden and before him, Obama administrations took an approach to Title IX that made it explicit that gender identity was protected and extended a lot more explicit protections to transgender students to use the restroom at school, to be called by their preferred names, and pronouns. The new Title IX regulations are currently enjoined in a large part of the country because of lawsuits from Republican states and from conservative advocacy groups.

We expect that the Trump administration would roll back those protections. We see a very high-profile fight playing out over bathroom access at the Capitol and potentially on other federal properties. That's something that we could see play out at schools if we see a Republican administration take a different approach on Title IX.

Brigid Bergin: I want to take some of our callers. Let's go to Timothy in the Bronx. Timothy, thanks for calling WNYC.

Timothy: I did have a question with regard to Pell Grants and for people who are uninitiated in the audience, Pell Grants are basically designed to enable low-income students to either partially or fully fund their educations. In many cases, for working-class and poor students, it's the only way that they're able to afford education at the tertiary level in any case.

That being said, I'd like to know what your take on the future of Pell Grants is. Possibly expanding them so that more students, more working class and poor eligible students can actually gain access to higher education. Also, with regard to graduate schools, going to professional schools, expanding the program so other people from working-class backgrounds can go into the professions. Again, in many cases, it's the only way that they can afford college in the first place is with the Federal Pell Grants. All right. I'll take your answer off the air.

Brigid Bergin: Timothy, thanks for that question.

Erica Meltzer: That's a great question. The thing that's really important about Pell Grants is that these are grants, they're not loans. The students don't have to pay them back. It is a really important tool for college access. We saw eligibility expand a bit in recent years and I think the amount of the Pell Grant also went up. President-elect Trump on the campaign trail has been, I think, a lot more hostile towards higher education. There's this idea that higher education is indoctrinating students and that it's too "woke." There's been a general hostility towards higher education and in the broader public, questioning the value of a college degree.

Where I'm going with this is I think it does raise questions about whether we would continue to see Pell expand. There's a push to create a form of Pell Grant that could be used not at a two-year or four-year institution, but for short-term credential programs. That has a little bit of bipartisan support. The idea is that people also need financial aid to attend various work training programs.

There's a real concern that if we open up the short-term credential Pell without increasing the overall size of the program, that it's going to really cut back on people's ability to access these grants to attend a four-year university if that's their aspiration. I think there's also some questions about whether some of these training programs have delivered on the high-paying jobs that they're supposed to be delivering for their graduates.

Brigid Bergin: Can you talk just briefly a little bit more? What kind of training programs are we talking about here?

Erica Meltzer: I think there's a variety of things being offered both by-- some of them are at the community college level, but some of them are also being offered by private for-profit colleges. We haven't really gotten into this yet, but the Biden administration cracked down on some shady practices among some private for-profit career colleges. The association that represents these colleges, has been welcoming this new administration as one that they think will have provided less regulation that they believe will be less burdensome.

I think that opens the door again to whether, on the one hand, maybe you want these types of institutions in the mix because they provide a lot of flexibility for students. On the other hand, in the past, some of them have not maybe had the best practices or delivered the best results for their students, so what's the right level of regulation?

Brigid Bergin: Sure. Just as a refresher, doesn't the president-elect have ties to this type of institution?

Erica Meltzer: Yes, he does.

Brigid Bergin: Just reminding our listeners and myself that that is something where there may be a personal stake as well as a policy stake. Since we're on the topic of some higher education funding, I want to get a question in from a listener. The listener writes, "How will this impact my student loans, both new and existing? I'm on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness track with my final approval coming up in four years."

Erica, two big things in that question. Right. The future of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, I think is probably a question unto itself. How do you think, and is there any sense of how this administration may treat student loans? We know that that became really a landmine during the Biden administration.

Erica Meltzer: Absolutely. I'm getting a little bit into speculative territory here. I think the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is probably the safest of the loan forgiveness programs. It wasn't working very well in the past. The Biden administration did a number of things that got where people who were eligible were actually getting their loans forgiven. I think as long as those changes, the bureaucratic side of that keeps working, that should be okay.

I haven't heard a lot of calls to end that program, but a lot of the other loan forgiveness programs have obviously been challenged in court. Some of them have been struck down. Some of them are still in limbo. I think people who are enrolled in the SAVE plan, probably-- This is an income-based repayment program that's pretty generous in terms of lower payments and forgiveness out there at a certain point. That program, I think, is probably pretty endangered. People who have been paying very nominal payments may find themselves back in a situation where they had pretty substantial payments.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners if you're just joining us, I'm Brigid Bergin filling in for Brian Lehrer today. My guest is Erica Meltzer, national editor at Chalkbeat and we are talking about what education may look like under the Trump administration. We've talked about some different programs, jumped around a little bit. Erica, I want to go back for a moment, talk about some federal education programs that might remain popular among lawmakers who are also Trump supporters.

You mentioned Title I funding, which goes to high-poverty schools. Can you talk a little bit more about the types of schools that get that money? Is that a program that you could see being under any sort of threat in this incoming administration?

Erica Meltzer: Title I goes to high-poverty schools. Something that I think is important to remember is that these are city these are schools in large cities, but they are also schools in working-class suburbs and they are schools in rural areas. There are a lot of schools that are represented in Congress by Republicans that receive a lot of Title I funding and really depend on it.

Project 2025 has called for phasing out Title I over a period of 10 years and that the states should step in and provide this funding if they think it's important. I think there's a lot of question about whether states would have the financial capacity to replace this money. It adds up to billions of dollars. There's also been proposals to block granted and just give it to the states with fewer strings attached to distribute as they see fit.

What we're seeing is some Republican governors and education commissioners are welcoming this idea that we'll just get the money and there'll be a lot less bureaucratic strings attached. We think this will actually be fine and this will be better. I don't think we know enough to say if the funding would continue at the same level that it's been at. A lot of people think we should expect pretty austere education budgets for the next couple of years. The Biden administration tried to increase Title I dramatically and was blocked by Republicans in Congress. At this point, I think static funding might be the best-case scenario. It's certainly possible that we could see funding cuts in this area.

Brigid Bergin: Erica, a listener texts, "Can you talk about services for students with disabilities? I became blind at the age of eight and the services I received helped me enormously. I'm concerned about what the Trump administration will do to cut back supports for students with disabilities." Again, you know, we're talking about an incoming administration, so we don't know everything that they plan to do. Based on your reporting so far, what you are hearing from people who work in education policy, to what extent do you have any sense of how this incoming administration might address the issue of support for students with disabilities?

Erica Meltzer: This is a great question. IDEA is the federal law that requires public schools to serve students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment and calls for a certain amount of federal funding to support those services. That law predates the Department of Education. That law would still be in place. At the same time, the federal government has never fully funded IDEA, and the more of the costs go back to the state and local school districts.

There has been some talk about, again, turning IDEA into a block grant, or even potentially one idea that's out there is voucherizing it. I think there is a real question. If parents had that money and could use it for therapy or for tutoring, it might not provide-- especially for students who have more significant needs that require more support. There's a lot of concern that if that were to proceed, it would be very difficult for schools to pool enough money to meet student services, and that parents wouldn't be able to get the same level of service outside of their school environment.

At the same time, we see certain private school choice advocates saying the public schools haven't done a good job and we should be just giving more money to parents to go find a better option outside the public school system. That's an argument that I think has some resonance with Republicans, and I think that's a really important thing to watch.

Then the other thing I think would be what the complaint resolution process looks like. Right now, the federal government does investigations of whether schools are meeting the needs of students with disabilities, and there's been some proposals that would change that. Someone would have to basically sue to get their rights recognized, which I think would put a greater burden on students and their families.

Brigid Bergin: Potentially a lot of shift and a lot of shift back to the individual. Then as we'll talk more about, potentially to the states. Listeners, we are calling out to parents, teachers, students, anyone who may have questions about how the education system may change under the incoming Trump administration. Again, the number is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. I'm seeing those texts come in. We'll read some more of them. My guest is Erica Meltzer, national editor at Chalkbeat. We're going to take a short break, but we'll have much more of your calls and from my guest coming up.

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It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin from the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian today. My guest is Erica Meltzer, national editor at Chalkbeat. We're talking about what's in store for the Department of Education in a new Trump administration. I want to go back for a moment. We're getting a lot of calls about student loans and the SAVE program. Let's go to Susanna in Brooklyn. Susanna, thanks for calling WNYC.

Susanna: Hi. Thank you so much, Brigid, for taking my call, and thank you, Erica. Hi. I just graduated from grad school, which means my student loans were on pause for three years. Then when I graduated, I'm trying to apply for the IDR program, but because that's in question, it's difficult for me to apply for any income-driven repayment program. I'm also just acknowledging that there's a correlation that's going to be happening between the Affordable Care Act and student loan payments. I am a teaching artist. I am a restaurant worker. I don't get health insurance currently through my employment.

Now I have to look towards that as my student loan payments will be increased as well as the tax credit for my health insurance will be significantly decreased or eliminated. There is going to be where once there was a pretty significant amount of relief with the SAVE program and with what the Obama administration started. Now there's going to be a wave of either students opting out or recent grads opting out of health insurance and an enormous cost to their student loan payments the more their income increases.

Brigid Bergin: Susanna, thanks for raising that issue. Erica gets into the complexity of some of these federal policies. We're talking about the intersection there of healthcare policy and education policy. Any reaction to some of the issues Susanna raised?

Erica Meltzer: Depending on exactly how it shakes out, I think we are going to see a lot of people in this position where a large amount of their income is going towards student loan payments and health insurance, or people are going to be uninsured again if in fact we do get rid of the ACA. I think it's important to remember that this was tried in the first Trump administration, was ultimately not successful. I do think it's realistic to worry about what might happen there. Of course, things are much more expensive. Housing costs are higher. I think if this goes forward, there's certainly going to be a lot of people who will feel a pretty significant squeeze.

Brigid Bergin: Erica, we have lots more specific policy areas I want to get into, but I can't let this segment go too far without talking about the president-elect's big announcement this week, Linda McMahon. I mentioned her background as a Trump ally. She ran the Small Business Services Administration. Of course, she may be better known for the very large business she and her husband, Vince McMahon, founded.

WWE commentator: The Bulldog is screaming in Pain. The Bulldog's mouth is bleeding.

Brigid Bergin: That, of course, is the sound of the WWE World Wrestling Entertainment. Erica, she's got a lot of business experience. What kind of education experience does she bring to this position?

Erica Meltzer: She has very little education experience. This was a pretty surprise pick, I think because there were a number of other people whose names were being floated who would both have been very aligned with Trump's outlook and would have brought education experience to the job. She served short term on the Connecticut State Board of Education in 2009. In 2010, this was an appointed position. She left for an unsuccessful Senate bid. She served for quite a while on the board of Sacred Heart University, which is a private Roman Catholic institution. when she was appointed to the Connecticut State Board, she talked about programs that she had done through WWE to have wrestlers encourage students to read and to promote leadership and character, which may not be qualities that people necessarily associate with professional wrestling.

Brigid Bergin: There are a lot of characters in professional wrestling, Erica. I want to keep talking a little bit about the reaction to this pick, but before we move, I want to get a caller in here. I don't want to lose Shelley in Brooklyn who asks a question that I'm sure a lot of our listeners are wondering and that, of course, is related to right here in New York City. Shelley, welcome to WNYC.

Shelley: Hi, there. I am a retired teacher from the New York City Department of Education, and my son is a current teacher. I'm wondering if the National Department of Education is what Trump's plans for to get rid of it. How will this affect the New York City Department of Education for teachers funding and also for students?

Brigid Bergin: Shelley, thanks for that question, Erica. I know it's a big one, but I think that's probably right at the top of mind for a lot of our listeners that if an act of Congress were to move forward and we saw a dismantling of the Department of Education, what would it mean for school districts like the New York City School District?

Erica Meltzer: I think the biggest fear that people have is that there would be a dramatic reduction in federal funding. Nationwide, federal funding is 8% to 10% of education funding. For schools that serve a lot of low-income children, it can be a much higher percentage. It's a really important source of supplemental funding. Exactly what the funding implications would be, would really depend on how they approached it.

There's a lot of things that would continue the way that they always have. There's a lot of decisions that are made at the city and school district level that would continue to be made, but I think there is certainly the potential for a big financial shift onto local entities. This is coming at a time when we have declining enrollment and budget problems. Almost every school district in the country is dealing with some form of these problems.

There is the potential for a double squeeze there. Again, as we've been saying, it really depends on how they structure it. That's the thing that's hard. I think everyone wants to know what's going to happen. There's been more specific proposals from Project 2025. Trump, of course, has said, that's not my plan and what his plan is has been a lot vaguer.

Brigid Bergin: What he did say this week when he announced McMahon's appointment was-- in a message on Truth Social, he said, "WE WILL SEND EDUCATION BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort." You're talking about it. We might see some of these burden shift. How do you interpret that and what are you going to be watching for?

Erica Meltzer: I had two reactions to that. One is that I actually think a lot of education already happens at the states. I think in the aftermath of COVID and people's reactions to school closures and public health measures that were very polarizing, and then a real heating up of some of these culture war issues around schools, education really came to the forefront of people's minds. Then it became more of an issue in the presidential campaign. My first reaction is actually that a lot of it's already at the states. I do think in adding that to his statement, I think it was a suggestion that the Department of Education is going to either that he would like to see it go away or play a much more diminished role.

I do have to note a contradiction within the position that's been put forward by Trump, which is that on the one hand, we want the federal government out of education, and on the other hand, we want the federal government to get woke out of our schools. We want to use federal funding as a lever to control curriculum. Those decisions have always been made at the local level. If you're not going to have a federal role, then I don't really see how they would prevent schools from teaching certain topics that they want to teach, at least in the progressive Democratic-controlled states.

Brigid Bergin: Sure. You have written about some of the tension around potential changes, as you mentioned, getting the diversity, equity, inclusion or, wokeness out of education. Then kind of on the other side of that, this idea of a more patriotic curriculum. Do you have a sense of what that would look like or what people mean when they're talking about that?

Erica Meltzer: There had been this 1776 Commission that was started to counter the 1619 Project that was trying to focus on a more patriotic version of American education. PragerU has also been putting out a lot of videos and learning materials that are being welcomed in some Republican-controlled states. There's an American Birthright social studies curriculum that's been adopted in a few places.

It tends to have more emphasis on sort of the heroes of the American pantheon and downplaying maybe some of the uglier sides of American history or presenting American history as the continual march towards progress and how we talk about that in schools has become a very contested area, I think, as most of our listeners probably know.

Brigid Bergin: Sure.

Erica Meltzer: I think we'd probably be seeing things that would incentivize, like that type of approach that schools should adopt this. It could either be a carrot or a stick to get schools to adopt that type of approach.

Brigid Bergin: Then pivoting back to this announcement this week, what reaction are you seeing among education leaders across the spectrum to the pick of Linda McMahon as education secretary?

Erica Meltzer: I think a lot of people were surprised. I'm seeing on both the right and the left a certain amount of, how can I put it, people saying, I look forward to learning more about Linda McMahon's vision for education or some version of that statement is something that I've seen a lot. Some conservatives have said that they think she has really good administrative skills and that that will be valuable in the department, in whatever form it takes going forward.

She's expressed support for private school choice and people are excited about potentially pushing something forward. When I say people, I mean more on the conservative side, hoping to see a federal tax credit scholarship program that didn't happen in the first Trump administration. On the left, the National Education Association president Becky Pringle called her grossly unqualified and said that the Senate should not confirm her.

There's some stuff that's bubbled up about whether she misrepresented her education background when she applied for the Connecticut State Board of Education 15 years ago. On the other side, we saw American Federation of Teachers. This is the other teachers union president Randi Weingarten said, "We look forward to learning more about her and hopefully working together on things like workforce education, apprenticeships and things that can engage more students and help more students find good paying jobs after college." A more, hey, let's find some commonality. Let's work together type of approach.

Brigid Bergin: A little more measured. You mentioned that there's some question around her educational background. I saw the Washington Post and some other outlets have also reported on some potential other scandals facing McMahon from her time at the WWE. She left the organization about 15 years ago when she started getting more involved in politics. There was a lawsuit filed in October by five men who worked for the company alleging they were sexually abused and suggesting that McMahon and her husband knew about it.

An attorney for Linda McMahon denied she was aware of anything. I'm wondering how much of an issue you think this could be for McMahon given everything else that's going on with some of Trump's appointments.

Erica Meltzer: I think there's been over the years a lot of questions and periodic allegations related to WWE. Most of them she has not been personally implicated in. I think it's important to say that, but in this lawsuit, she is named as someone that these men say knew that they were being abused and did not act to protect them. I think in a different administration with a different suite of cabinet picks, this might be a bigger question.

If we look at the collection of folks that Trump has put forward as potential nominees, I'm not sure how compared to Matt Gaetz, RFK junior, Peter Hegseth. I think there's some appointees that are likely to be a lot more controversial. I do expect if she is formally put forward, that there will be a lot of questions about her experience. I expect that the WWE allegations will come up, but I'm not sure that it's going to be a significant issue for her in the overall context of the Cabinet picks.

Brigid Bergin: Erica, the number of texts for this conversation, I have not been able to read even half of them, but I want to get in a few more before we let you go. There's a theme that I'm seeing from a lot of people, concerns about how changes to the Department of Education could impact other agencies. More specifically, several people are asking about the impact to adult education. One of the listener texts, "As a manager of an adult literacy program at Hunter College, I'm very concerned how cuts to adult education will affect our programs. We are grant funded and although New York State has been a relatively fair partner, they negotiate with the feds for a lot of the grant money." What are your thoughts on the impact on potential cuts to adult education?

Erica Meltzer: I think that's a realistic concern. I will say I don't know a lot about what the potential fate of every single program that the Department of Education oversees will be, but I think it's reasonable to expect that we would have more austere budgets going forward. That could affect a lot of these programs that are maybe less prominent. It becomes easy to--

If you're just someone looking at a spreadsheet to reduce those possibly-- There was a lot of talk on the campaign trail about helping working-class people and less focus on the four-year college graduate. If this administration were to stay true to those promises, maybe that would be a bright spot. I think it's realistic to be concerned about the future of really any federally funded program.

Brigid Bergin: Really briefly, you mentioned that there might be some more momentum around school vouchers. We know that was something that Betsy DeVos was interested in, but stumbled, was not able to make a lot of progress on. What gives you the sense that that might be something that could move forward this time around?

Erica Meltzer: The window even within the Republican Party, I think has shifted quite a bit. There's things that I think when Betsy DeVos was the education secretary around very unregulated private school choice that were seen as radical or out there when she came forward that are now basically policy in about a dozen states. There's bills in both the House and the Senate. Trump has said on the campaign trail that he would sign it.

It feels like just that window of Republican support for this idea has shifted. I think in the previous version, I think that they, if I remember correctly, were going to be taking money away, for example, from Title I to help offset the tax credits. I think that's not part of this bill. It would it would potentially be billions of dollars that would still have to be offset somewhere in the federal budget. I think framing it as a tax credit as opposed to a line item, budget item, I think is also popular, at least with Republicans.

Brigid Bergin: Erica, you have a very busy beat, and I know it's only going to get busier as the year wears on and the new begins, but I want to thank you for taking some time to speak with us. Erica Meltzer is national editor at Chalkbeat, the education news site where she covers education policy and politics. Erica, thanks so much for joining me.

Erica Meltzer: Thanks for having me.

Brigid Bergin: Coming up next, you're going to have to hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach this winter and spring, and it won't be on the A train. Stick around to hear why the MTA says this crucial mode of transportation will have to shut down for months early next year. Stick around.

 

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