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How To Become A Project Manager: A Step-By-Step Guide

Updated: Apr 16, 2024, 10:41am

Project management is among the most valuable skill sets in the current job landscape, but a persistent talent gap in the field means that there are not enough candidates with the right skills to meet the global demand for project managers.

This indicates a talent gap in the project management field, meaning there are not enough candidates with the right skills to meet this high demand.

As such, competent managers who can oversee projects throughout their life cycles are at a premium in the modern workplace. Read on to learn more about how to become a project manager.

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What Is a Project Manager?

According to a 2021 report by the Project Management Institute (PMI), the main professional organization in the industry, employers must hire approximately 2.3 million project management professionals every year to meet demand by 2030. Let’s explore what it takes to succeed in this high-demand occupation.

Skills for Project Managers

• Analysis. Above all else, project managers are decision makers. They must make choices about staffing, budgeting and scheduling. It takes an analytical mind to make these decisions, as project managers must constantly evaluate and reevaluate a project’s unique circumstances to determine the best course of action.
• Communication. Project managers are also delegators who figure out how to best use each team member’s skills to achieve desired outcomes. As such, project managers must effectively communicate with employees and teammates. Effective managers can clearly articulate a project’s goals and each team member’s role in accomplishing those goals.
• Critical thinking. Critical thinking goes hand in hand with analysis. Managers must objectively analyze situations, consider all pertinent information and make the best decision for the overall project.
• Organization. Most projects consist of various moving parts. Project managers must feel comfortable juggling disparate components like scheduling, staffing, budgeting and payroll all while keeping one eye on the project’s ultimate strategic goals.
• People skills. Project managers spend their days interacting with clients, team members and employees. They must be able to motivate people to achieve a shared goal and have empathy to understand their team members.
• Problem solving. Throughout projects, problems inevitably arise. The best project managers can take these obstacles in stride and decide how to overcome them and move forward toward their goals.
• Time management. Project management is all about achieving the desired outputs within the agreed-upon timeframe. The best project managers can keep their projects on schedule even in the face of unforeseen obstacles and issues.

How To Become a Project Manager

Earn a bachelor’s degree.

A project management degree is not always required for jobs and certification in the field. However, it is much easier for bachelor’s degree-holders to earn PMI certification .

Common majors for project managers include bachelor’s degrees in project management , business and related fields. Aspiring project managers who plan to work in a specific field like health services or information technology often pursue a bachelor’s degree in that field.

Determine Your Specialization

Some project managers are generalists who work in all business-related fields and are comfortable executing projects for clients in a variety of industries. However, many project managers choose to focus on fields like construction, real estate, information technology, sustainability and transportation.

Having a defined specialization may make it easier to find jobs in the field.

Pursue Certification

PMI is the primary organization offering professional certifications in project management. The institute offers certifications in a wide variety of specialties.

Many entry-level project managers pursue PMI’s Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)® designation, which demonstrates a foundational skill set in the field.

In addition to the CAPM certification, many professionals pursue the Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification, which demonstrates mastery and excellence in the field. Keep in mind that PMP certification requires 36 to 60 months of professional project management experience depending on your educational background.

PMI’s other certifications also have unique educational and professional requirements, so make sure to check the institute’s website for the most up-to-date information. Also check out our guides on how to get PMP certification and CAPM certification requirements.

Is PMI certification worth it ? For many, it is. According to a 2022 jobs report by PMI , PMP-certified professionals earn 16% more than their uncertified peers.

Project Manager Salary and Job Outlook

Project management specialists in the U.S. earn a median annual salary of $98,580, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics . PMI’s 2021 talent gap report projects that the global economy will have to add 25 million project management professionals to meet demand by 2030.

The talent gap report notes that the most drastic and rapid growth for project management-oriented employees will take place in software development, which can expect a 14% increase in demand for these professionals from 2019 to 2030.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About How To Become a Project Manager

What qualifications do i need to become a project manager.

In most cases, you can pursue entry-level project manager positions if you hold a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field like business or project management. However, employers often prefer to hire candidates who hold PMI certifications, and PMI-certified professionals tend to earn higher salaries than their uncertified peers.

How long does it take to become a project manager?

The time it takes to become a project manager varies by position and by employer. Some companies require project managers to hold four-year bachelor’s degrees, and some don’t require degrees. Others prefer to hire managers with CAPM or PMP certification. PMP certification requires 36 to 60 months of professional project management experience.

Can I become a project manager with no degree?

Yes. You can earn the PMI’s PMP certification—widely considered the gold standard in the industry—with only a high school diploma. However, to qualify, you must have 60 months of professional project manager experience, while bachelor’s degree-holders only need 36 months. You also need either CAPM certification or 35 hours of professional development courses in project management.

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Mikeie Reiland is a writer who has written features for Oxford American, Bitter Southerner, Gravy, and SB Nation, among other publications. He received a James Beard nomination for a feature he wrote in 2023.

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Guide How to Become a Project Manager

If you've got a passion for delegation, organization, and communication, then project management might be just the career for you..

You’ll put those passions and strengths to good use—creating real change within your business or organization.

But what exactly is project management? What role does a project manager play within a business or organization? What skills do you need to be an effective project manager? And how does someone become a project manager, anyway?

Here we explore each of these questions in depth so you have all of the information you need to understand whether or not project management is the career for you and—if it is—how you can turn your dream into reality.

Discover the value of a project management degree.

Looking to advance or start your project management career? A graduate degree could be the key. Download our free guide for insights and tips.

What is Project Management?

Simply put, project management is the art and discipline of managing a project and all of its components from start to finish.

But as anyone who’s ever managed a project will tell you, this simple definition doesn’t capture the full scope of what project managers do.

Project management plays a necessary role in countless industries, from technology and software development to healthcare and pharmaceutical research, business and nonprofit work, construction management, and everything in between.

All projects, regardless of industry, can be broken down into roughly the same five processes, or phases:

• Monitoring and Controlling

Project managers have an essential and indispensable role to play in each of these phases.

Step 1: Initiation

Before any project can begin, it must first be initiated.

During initiation , important groundwork is laid to determine whether or not a project can and should be pursued. This typically involves creating a business case that aims to justify the need (and value) of a project, as well as a feasibility study , which aims to understand how likely the project is to be completed if it is pursued.

Step 2: Planning

Once the project’s sponsors or stakeholders agree that a project should be pursued, the project enters into the planning phase.

It’s during this phase that the full scope of the project is formally drafted and documented. Ideally, this will include a thorough understanding of:

• The project’s scope.
• The project’s objectives and deliverables.
• The tasks necessary to complete each deliverable.
• The schedule for both individual tasks and the entire project.
• The budget, including an understanding of all project costs.
• Any risks associated with the project.
• Allocation of both internal and external resources.
• The project’s stakeholders and communication strategies.
• Project integration and change control processes.

Step 3: Executing

After a full plan is drafted and approved, the project is ready to be executed .

This involves completing the tasks needed to move the project forward, as well as hitting the key milestones documented in the project plan.

Related: Essential Guides for Project Managers 12 Steps to Develop a Project Management Plan What is Cost Estimation in Project Management? How To Develop a Project Scope Statement in 8 Steps How to Avoid 6 Common Constraints in Project Management How to Create a Project Communication Plan Exactly how the project is executed will depend on several factors, including which methodology is used to manage the project. Some of the most popular project management methodologies include: Agile Scrum Lean Waterfall Kanban Six Sigma Related: 3 Top Project Management Methodologies You Should Know How to Identify the Right Project Management Strategy Agile vs. Scrum: What’s the Difference? Easing Into Agile Project Management: How to Get Started Step 4: Monitoring and Controlling

While the project is being executed, progress is also being monitored and controlled to ensure key milestones are being met.

This process typically involves:

• Regular communication between the project team and stakeholders involved in the project.
• Evaluating actual performance to established scope, cost, and schedule baselines.
• Weekly, monthly, and quarterly reporting to both the team and key stakeholders.
• Implementing change control processes to capture the changing realities of the project.
• Ensuring quality control and assurance as the project progresses.
• Cost control and allocation of resources.

Step 5: Closing

After the project has been completed, it must then be closed .

The closing process involves evaluating the project’s results compared to the objectives established in the project plan. It also includes ensuring all administrative tasks are completed, including closing contracts, paying external invoices, reallocating internal resources, and archiving records.

The Role of a Project Manager

While the exact role and responsibilities of a project manager will vary between organizations and industries, most project managers will find themselves responsible for the same general duties.

The most important of these responsibilities include:

• Regularly communicating with team members, usually through a mix of emails, phone calls, daily check-ins, and team meetings, in order to understand the status of the project and the progress being made on tasks.
• Issue identification and resolution to ensure that any roadblocks are addressed and removed so work can continue.
• Budgeting and cost control , including resource management and cost approval, the processing of invoices, and allocation/reallocation of resources as necessary.
• Communication and reporting to key stakeholders to ensure that they understand the progress being made on the project and any issues that develop.
• Team building to help team members focus on specific tasks and remain happy and productive as they work toward project completion.

With so many moving pieces to manage and keep track of, project management can be an incredibly complex field of work. Successful project managers possess a very specific set of skills that allow them to meet the demands of the job. These are known as soft skills and hard skills .

Soft Skills for Project Managers

These are also called people skills or interpersonal skills.

Because so much of project management involves managing people, it’s impossible to overstate just how important it is for project managers to develop and practice their soft skills. Though many believe soft skills are something individuals are born with, this isn’t the case. As with any skill, soft skills can be learned and practiced.

Some of the most powerful soft skills project managers can have include:

• Communication skills: The ability to communicate clearly and effectively is one of the most important skills in project management. Project managers use various tools and platforms to communicate with members of project teams, outside vendors, key stakeholders, and project sponsors. In addition to the basics like speaking and writing, effective communication also includes being able to understand and identify nonverbal cues like body language and tone of voice in order to properly manage teams.
• Leadership skills: Project managers must be able to use their leadership skills to communicate clearly and effectively, inspire, influence, motivate, and build a consensus among their team—especially through periods of high stress.
• Decisiveness: Just as it’s important to weigh the input and views of all team members, a project manager must also be able to summarize the discussion and make a clear decision when necessary to ensure that a project progresses.
• Time management: Project managers must be able to manage the time and efforts of their team members effectively to ensure all tasks are completed, key project milestones are hit, and the project moves along according to schedule. This involves having the foresight to anticipate challenges, building in adequate buffer time between tasks, and being able to reallocate resources as necessary.
• Conflict resolution: Throughout a project, there are bound to be situations when tensions flare and conflicts arise. This can happen between members of the team or between stakeholders. A project manager must be skilled at navigating these situations and defusing tensions for the good of the team, stakeholders, and project.

Related: The Critical Role of Communication in Project Management Communicating with Data: Communicate More Effectively with Team Members Multitasking in Project Management: 4 Reasons It Doesn’t Work Hard Skills for Project Managers

Compared to soft skills, hard skills are often much more measurable and quantifiable and tend to relate more to specific processes.

Some of the most important hard skills for project management to develop include:

• Budgeting skills: Every step of the way, project managers are tasked with ensuring a project remains within its allocated budget by controlling costs and adjusting resources as required.
• Risk management: Project management isn’t just about managing people and resources— it’s also about managing risk . Identifying weak areas of the team and project, analyzing the likelihood and impact of a worst-case scenario, and putting contingency plans in place are some of the most important parts of project management.
• Familiarity with data: At the beginning of every project, many key performance indicators (KPIs) will be selected. These metrics will be benchmarked and monitored throughout the project to understand progress and, ultimately, whether or not the project leads to its desired outcome. Project managers are tasked with understanding and analyzing this data, as well as using the data to communicate to both their team members and the project’s key stakeholders.
• Technical expertise: To effectively manage a project, project managers must be proficient in their industry or domain. It is next to impossible to manage a project if you know little to nothing about the specifics involved in bringing it to fruition.

If you’re wondering whether or not a career in project management is for you, consider these statistics recently gathered by the Project Management Institute (PMI):

While the career potential for project managers is already promising, those who specialize in a field can develop a more lucrative career.

In the U.S., the median salary for a project manager is $116,000 across all industries, with most project managers earning between $90,000 and $140,000. Professionals who further pursue  program or portfolio  management, however, often see an increased salary potential compared to more generalist project managers.

Project, Program, and Portfolio Management

At its simplest, project management involves the managing of a single project. But as organizations grow and operations become more complex, it’s not uncommon for multiple projects to be underway at the same time. In these more complex cases, project management may be viewed as three related, but different categories: projects, programs, and portfolios.

• A project is a temporary endeavor with a finite start and end, which is focused on creating a unique product, service, or result for a business.
• A program is a group of projects that are organized and managed in a coordinated way to ensure efficient use of resources and realization of shared objectives.
• A portfolio is a collection of programs and/or projects, which are managed together to achieve an organization’s strategic initiatives. Individual projects fall within programs, which then fall within portfolios.

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• What's the Difference Between Project, Program, and Portfolio Management?

Those who choose to declare an industry-specific specialization will also likely see a positive career impact. Being trained to handle the unique processes, regulations, and best practices of specific industries will help applicants stand out from the competition during hiring processes, and will likely help land them a coveted, specific role within the project management field.

The Different Paths to Becoming a Project Manager

Regardless of your current career, position, or past education, you can become a project manager if you decide it’s the career that you want to pursue. Exactly how you go about achieving this will, of course, depend on your career situation and which path makes the most sense for you.

Related: Building Your Project Management Career Path Generally, most people follow one of two common pathways in becoming a project manager: The most straightforward path for those who know they want to become a project manager is to pursue formal education and training. The second path is more of a do-it-yourself approach. This is often followed by those who find themselves thrust into a project management capacity that they didn’t necessarily plan for. We explore both of these paths below. Pursuing Formal Education

For some people, the decision to become a project manager is a straightforward and conscious one.

Maybe a family member, friend, or acquaintance is a project manager, and you think you’d like the role. Perhaps you’ve spent some time in the workforce working on projects and have decided that you want the opportunity to lead projects instead. Maybe a trusted high school or college advisor told you that project management would be a smart career choice. Whatever the case, you know that you want to become a project manager—you just don’t know how to get there.

If this describes you, pursuing formal education and training in project management is likely the most efficient path to starting your career. Typically, this will entail earning the appropriate certifications and, potentially, an advanced degree .

Earning a Certification

While it’s possible to become a project manager without earning a certification, becoming a certified project manager has several benefits.

Earning your certification demonstrates to potential employers that you have the relevant knowledge, skills, and experience required to work in a project management capacity. It also makes it much easier to transition to a new role at a different organization (should you decide to do so).

By far, the PMP is the most commonly referenced and sought-after project management certification. Based on the methodology outlined in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) , earning this certification will show employers that you have the skills required to manage the demands of most projects. It’s widely seen as the gold standard for project management certificates, particularly in the United States, Canada, and the Middle East.

To earn your PMP, you must first pass a 200-question, multiple-choice exam . To take the exam, you must meet several requirements:

• At least three years of experience working in a project management capacity
• At least 35 hours of formal project management education
• At least five years of experience working in a project management capacity
• 35 hours of formal project management education

Scrum is a project management framework related to Agile. It’s often used to address the unique problems and challenges associated with software development. As such, if your end goal is to work in the software industry, Scrum may be a good choice.

There are currently six Scrum-related certifications offered by the Scrum Alliance:

• Professional Scrum Master
• Professional Scrum Product Owner
• Professional Scrum Developer
• Scaled Professional Scrum
• Professional Scrum with Kanban
• Professional Agile Leadership

Though less common than the PMP (there are currently 418,000 certified scrum professionals globally compared to more than 1,000,000 PMP certification holders ), it is one of the fastest-growing project management certifications.

PRINCE2 is a project management framework that was formulated and developed by the government of the United Kingdom, which emphasizes business justification, defining organization structure, flexibility, and a product-based planning approach. The name itself is an acronym coming from PR ojects IN C ontrolled E nvironments.

Because of its prominence and origin in the U.K., PRINCE2 may be the ideal certification for those working in the U.K. and parts of Europe.

Earning an Advanced Degree

Though a master’s degree in project management isn’t always required for a project manager role, it’s becoming increasingly common. According to a recent report from Burning Glass Labor Insight , 34 percent of project management job postings prefer or require a graduate degree in addition to requiring PMP certification.

Even for job postings that don’t require an advanced degree, earning such a degree can bring many benefits , like making it easier to break into the industry and advancing in your career.

Related: Five Reasons a Master’s in Project Management Is Worth It What Can I Do With a Project Management Degree? If you’re considering earning a master’s degree in project management, you may be wondering what an ideal program looks like. While there are no specific criteria that a degree must meet to provide value, some of the more important criteria you should use to evaluate your options include: Whether or not the faculty members you will be learning from have direct and recent experience working in the industry. Whether or not the program incorporates any kind of experiential learning or co-op experience that can translate into direct, hands-on opportunities. Whether or not the program offers a concentration that relates to the industry you hope to build your career in. Whether or not the program provides networking opportunities for students through industry partnerships and its alumni network. “Falling Into” Project Management

Some individuals find the path to becoming a project manager isn’t quite so straightforward as the path outlined above—largely because it wasn’t a path that they intended to follow. They were hired for one role unrelated to project management (often that of a director, manager, or team lead) and then, over time, found themselves taking on more and more project management responsibilities.

For these “accidental” project managers, a number of unique challenges must be addressed, most of which are tied to a lack of formal project management training. Luckily, some steps can be taken to ease the transition into a project management role, even if it wasn’t the career you originally envisioned.

First and foremost, you should seek to fully and completely understand the task at hand:

• What are the goals and objectives of the project you have been charged with managing?
• What individual tasks, steps, or phases must happen to progress the project forward?
• What resources do you have at your disposal?

Depending on how much experience you already have, it may be possible for you to shore up your weak spots through self-guided learning. There are many resources available that can help you do just that:

• The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) can largely be accessed online and in printed format, helping you learn the basic framework involved in project management. Similar resources exist for PRINCE2 and Scrum .
• Online learning platforms like Pluralsight , Udemy , and Teachable can help you learn the basics for relatively little cost.
• Similarly, intensive training offered directly by the Project Management Institute can be an invaluable source of guidance.

In addition to any self-guided education you pursue, if you have access to mentorship opportunities either inside or outside your organization, it would be wise to leverage it. A trusted mentor (like a supervisor or co-worker) can prove invaluable as you find your footing in your new project management role. They can offer advice and guidance that can help you be successful.

Taking the Next Steps

Once you’ve learned the skills necessary to complete the job at hand, you may find that you truly enjoy the role of project management. If this turns out to be the case, going on to earn a relevant certificate and, eventually, an advanced degree like a master’s in project management can make it much easier to transfer to a similar role in a different organization.

After You’ve Made It

It’s important to note that your education and career development shouldn’t end simply because you’ve landed your first project management role.

By the very nature of the work, project management roles are often temporary. While many larger companies and organizations may employ a full-time project management team or professional, many smaller companies do not, and instead rely on contract workers whose employment ends when the project does.

Luckily, there are steps that you can and should take to ensure your continued employability and relevance. Earning an advanced degree or new certificate, maintaining existing certificates, and staying on top of emerging technologies, trends, and methodologies can all help.

Related: Recommended Additional Reading 6 Project Management Trends Emerging in 2023 What Impact Will Artificial Intelligence Have on Project Management? How Can Project Managers Prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution? Get your free guide on the value of earning your project management degree.

See how earning your degree can open doors, increase your salary, and unlock worldwide opportunities in almost every industry.

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If you’re looking to join a fast-moving, in-demand industry, a career in project management can be a great fit for you. With the Project Management Institute (PMI) recent jobs report projecting a need for 88 million project management professionals before 2027, there’s never been a better time to explore a career as a project manager. Read on to learn more about project manager career paths, educational opportunities, and job titles.

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Top Project Management Careers

*Salary information sourced from Glassdoor, as of October 2023

Why Choose a Career in Project Management?

A career in project management can be an exciting career path for individuals who enjoy coordinating project details, managing team members, and strategizing high-level organizational efforts. According to the PMI Project Management Growth Report, each year approximately 214,000 new project management-related jobs will be created in the United States, with the market requiring over 88 million additional PM jobs before 2027 to meet demand. 

Overall, careers within the project management career field are growing faster than the global average, making it an appealing choice for young professionals and those who are looking to make a career shift. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median pay for a project management specialist is $95,370 per year , 60% higher than the average national salary of $59,428.

Top Project Management Job Titles and Responsibilities

Project coordinator.

Project coordinators typically report to project managers, organizing key project details and coordinating teams, essential resources, and stakeholders. While their day-to-day tasks may vary, their essential goal is to ensure that the project is moving forward smoothly while making the process as easy as possible for everyone involved by managing all of the “moving parts” that make a project happen. 

Some of their key responsibilities include: 

• Taking ownership of project scheduling, budget, and organizational details
• Coordinating team activities, meetings, and activities
• Maintaining and organizing project documents and records

Assistant Project Manager

Assistant project managers report to the project manager and provide support to the project team in a variety of ways, including conducting research, performing administrative tasks, and maintaining meeting notes. Throughout the project lifecycle, assistant project managers provide support in a variety of ways, at the discretion of the project manager.

Some of their key responsibilities include:

• Emailing key stakeholders and team members as needed to facilitate communication
• Conducting admin tasks, such as maintaining meeting notes
• Organizing crucial project documentation for the project manager

Project Manager

The job of the project managers involves taking ownership of the project lifecycle overall by guiding teams and staff, facilitating communication between stakeholders, and monitoring progress toward project goals. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the project manager to ensure that the project is completed successfully and provide support as needed to team members and stakeholders as they complete essential tasks. 

• Establishing and pitching a clear project execution plan, complete with milestones and goals
• Coordinating and executing team meetings and stakeholder discussions
• Holding team members and staff accountable to goals and providing leadership along the way

Program Manager

One of the top project management careers , program managers focus on managing a group of projects within an organization that all aim to meet similar goals, called a project program. In the larger hierarchy of an organization, program managers serve as advisors to project managers within their department, guiding them as needed and providing support. The program manager’s ultimate responsibility is to ensure that projects conducted within their department address larger organizational goals effectively. 

• Coordinating activities and programming across multiple projects within the organizational program
• Monitoring project progress across the program
• Supporting project managers within the program and helping clear project obstacles

Portfolio Manager 

While often confused with program managers, portfolio managers focus on the totality of all projects going on within an organization at a given time, analyzing relationships between them and ensuring their importance to organizational goals. Portfolio managers have the highest level of responsibility in project management careers. While they don’t often have a hands-on role in the completion of projects, they spend a great deal of time relaying information about projects to organizational leadership. 

• Analyzing high-level trends of projects across the organization at large, tying projects back to goals specifically
• Creating a pipeline of future projects and programs
• Communicating the ROI of projects based on the successes and outcomes of organization-wide projects and programs

Read more: What Is a Project Coordinator? Job Description, Skills & Salary

Example of Career Progression for Project Managers

There are a variety of reasons why a project manager might choose to specialize within a specific industry, such as higher pay, preexisting experience, or even just the opportunity to explore a new and exciting field. Specialty project managers focus their experience within a niche field, honing their skills to meet the needs of that particular industry. Here are some of the most notable, fastest-growing industries for project managers: 

Healthcare is the fastest-growing sector for project management jobs, with 17% growth since 2017, according to the Project Management Institute. 

• Healthcare project management professionals frequently work closely with the administrative team within doctors’ offices and hospitals to ensure that the organization is operating at peak efficiency while prioritizing patient well-being.
• Common objectives or projects that project managers undertake within the healthcare industry include: optimizing operations within a hospital, decreasing patient wait times, etc. 
• The average salary of a healthcare-specific project manager is $96,011, according to Glassdoor, 2.59% higher than the average salary for a non-specialized project manager. 

Construction

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 7.6% employment growth for construction managers between 2021 and 2031.

• Construction project managers work alongside engineers and superintendents to ensure construction projects run smoothly and on budget.
• Common objectives or projects that project managers undertake within the construction industry include: completing the renovation of an apartment building, planning the construction of a new building on campus without disrupting existing structures, and outlining the construction of a new neighborhood with a home contractor.
• The average salary of a construction-specific project manager is $111,515, according to Glassdoor, 19.29% higher than the average salary for a non-specialized project manager.

Technology & Software Development

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, new jobs for computer and information systems project managers will grow by 11% from 2020 to 2030.

• Technology and software project managers help manage projects within the information technology and software development industries, ensuring that technical teams have the room to innovate while delivering products to key stakeholders on time.
• Common objectives or projects that project managers undertake within the software development industry include: ensuring that a new software product is delivered on time, overseeing team progress as edits to an existing application are rolled out, and coaching team members throughout the ideation phase of developing a new video game.
• The average salary of a project manager in the technology and software development industry is $114,805, according to Glassdoor, 22.81% higher than the average salary for a non-specialized project manager.

Read more: Scrum Master vs. Project Manager: What’s the Difference?

Common Traits & Skills of Project Managers Professionals

While project managers’ specialties and areas of expertise may vary based on industry and individual project type, project managers as a whole share specific traits and skills:

Strong Leadership Capabilities

Project managers must possess leadership skills to properly guide the teams they oversee, understanding that each unique project requires a different leadership style. Remaining flexible is a key competency while simultaneously prioritizing a servant leadership approach and understanding that the true metric of success as a project leader is the success and confidence of your team members.

Clear Communication Skills

Communication is key when it comes to managing projects, regardless of size or scope. Especially in hybrid and remote teams, prioritizing clear communication should be a top priority for effective project managers. Establishing pre-determined meeting times and facilitated check-ins is a great way to ensure that the flow of two-way communication continues throughout the project lifecycle. 

Thorough & Organized

It goes without saying that an effective project manager needs to be thorough and organized when it comes to staying on top of project details, communicating with key stakeholders, and staying ahead of potential roadblocks. Utilizing note-taking solutions, project management software, and workflow automations can make it easier to stay on top of projects from start to finish. 

Well Versed

Project managers need to understand the full scope of project management methodologies and their potential applications. Having the knowledge and experience to know when and how to deploy a particular project management methodology is essential to running successful projects or managing a multi-project portfolio. 

Agile Problem Solver

Throughout the project lifecycle, things can change in the blink of an eye. A strong project manager is agile, able to adapt to changing situations, and responds quickly in the best interests of the team and the project itself.

Most Common Project Management Certifications

1. certified associate in project management (capm).

The Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) certification is an entry-level certification administered by the Project Management Institute that’s appropriate for new graduates, new project management professionals, and those making a transition into project management for the first time. While the CAPM certification may prepare you for an entry-level position in project management, it can also prepare you to sit for the PMP exam.

Prerequisites and Requirements: 

• Have a secondary degree, such as a high school diploma, GED (general educational development), or global equivalent
• Have at least 23 hours of project management education completed before the exam (PMI’s online Project Management Basics course can help fulfill this requirement)

2. Project Management Professional (PMP)

The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, administered by the Project Management Institute, is widely recognized as the premier certification for project managers worldwide. The PMP certification is best for any project management professional looking to advance their career while highlighting a mastery of key project management concepts. 

Prerequisites and Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree
• 36 months of experience leading projects within the past eight years
• 35 hours of project management education/training or CAPM® certification
• High School or Secondary School Diploma
• 60 months of experience leading projects within the past eight years

3. Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP)

Compared to other certifications, the PfMP certification is best for seasoned project management professionals, and, accordingly, requires the most extensive prerequisites of any project management certification. The Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP) certification, administered by the Project Management Institute, is a certification for executives and senior project managers who are looking to expand their experience in multi-project portfolio management. 

• All applicants must possess a minimum of 96 months of professional business experience within the last 15 years AND
• Secondary degree (high school diploma, associate’s degree, or the global equivalent)
• 84 months of portfolio management experience
• Four-year degree (bachelor’s degree or the global equivalent)
• 48 months of portfolio management experience

Read More: Top Project Management Certifications

Qualifications of Project Managers

To become a project manager, you will need a variety of hard and soft skills, professional experience, project management certifications , and education. According to Zippia, 68% of project managers have a bachelor’s degree, 14% have a master’s, and 11% have an associate degree. However, there are a variety of ways to become a project manager, including obtaining certifications to make a career pivot.

Project Management Exam Preparation

Project management certifications are a critical aspect of a successful career in project management – but obtaining those certifications requires dedicated exam preparation. Depending on your personal experience, the type of certification you’re seeking, and the prerequisites required to apply for the exam itself, it can take anywhere from one to six months to properly prepare for a project management certification exam. 

Each individual project management certification exam follows a unique format with specific question groups, making guided study programs and certification-specific study resources an essential part of exam preparation for project management professionals. Fortunately, there’s a wide variety of qualified exam preparation vendors that offer courses tailored specifically to each certification. 

Master of Project Academy is one of the top providers of project management certification exam prep, with students in over 180 countries and an average first-time pass rate of 99.6% in the certification exams.

Can I shift careers to a role as a project manager?

Believe it or not, you can shift careers into a successful career in project management without going back to school. Many professionals don’t even realize that they have project management experience, from implementing team ideas to managing budgets and other tasks that are lesser-known contributors to project management experience. By attaining certifications, such as a CAPM or PMP certification, and supplemental experience, for example, you can successfully pivot into a new role as a project manager.

What are the best college majors to become a project manager?

While having a bachelor’s degree isn’t a must-have to work as a project manager, it can make becoming a project management professional much easier, as most key certifications require fewer prerequisites for applications with a four-year degree. Some universities have even begun offering project management as a major, with majors such as business administration, accounting, economics, and marketing standing out as top majors for future project managers.

Are there free resources for career project managers?

There are numerous free resources available to support project managers throughout their careers, from free trials of top project management solutions to free seminars and even free certificate test prep courses. Currently, PMI is one of the top providers of free resources, offering users a free KICKOFF course that covers essential PM concepts and even free test prep for PMI-sponsored certifications, such as CAPM and PMP.

How long does it take to become a project manager?

Depending on your level of experience, it can take anywhere from a few months to a year or more to become a project manager. If you have pre-existing experience or highly transferable skills, your transition into project management may take less time compared to someone who is new to the industry. Regardless of your level of experience, obtaining a project management certification can help speed up the process.

Is a Scrum Master a project manager?

While Scrum Masters can be project managers and project managers can be Scrum Masters, the two terms cannot be used interchangeably. Project managers oversee the entirety of the project lifecycle, guiding teams and ensuring a smooth process as tasks are completed, whereas Scrum Masters are responsible for ensuring that teams are adhering to Scrum principles. 

Scrum Masters are also only present within teams operating under the Scrum methodology, whereas project managers can operate within a wide variety of teams implementing any number of project management methodologies and frameworks.

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Project 2025’s Plan to Eliminate Public Schools Has Already Started

P roject 2025, the policy agenda for Former President Trump’s potential first year back in the White House published by the far right conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, has been making waves recently. Some of the many destructive proposals within the agenda include the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education —along with federal education funding and any civil rights protections—and the diversion of public money to private school voucher programs instead.

Make no mistake: The goal is to end public education. But dismantling our public schools isn’t just the plan if Trump is reelected—it is already happening.

We are on the brink of a new wave of public school closures , another step in the decades-long project to divest and dismantle the institution of public school. Disguised as “school choice,” federal, state, local, and private actors have prioritized paying for  private and charter schools, hoarding educational resources for the haves and depleting resources for the have-nots.

The policies that Project 2025 plans to prioritize—government payments to families sending their children to private school and creation of new charter schools that are run like businesses—have expanded in the last few years, starving public school districts that serve all students of already insufficient resources. In the 2023-24 school year, at least 70 school districts, including in San Antonio, Texas , Jackson, Mississippi , and Wichita, Kansas , announced permanent closures of public schools, impacting millions of students. These districts are resorting to the harmful, discriminatory, and ineffective so-called ‘solution’ of closing schools in Black and Latine communities, stripping those communities of their local public schools.

Read More: Everything Biden and Trump Have Said About the Controversial Project 2025

Here’s how it works: Concerned about shrinking enrollments and budget crises, district leaders conclude that they must close schools, often without any evidence or analysis that it would save money—and, indeed, it hasn’t been shown to save money unless coupled with mass layoffs. They hire consultants who come up with “utilization” rates and then recommend closing schools with the lowest rates to “rightsize” the district—their euphemism for their misguided belief that school facility usage should be guided by arbitrary numbers instead of meeting communities where they are.

The problem is that “utilization”—a school’s enrollment over its supposed capacity—is stacked against schools that have experienced historic underfunding and disinvestment in facilities repairs, curricula, extracurricular opportunities, and staff. These same schools disproportionately serve Black and Latine students, English Learner students, students with disabilities, and students living in poverty.

Closing schools is demonstrably harmful—and has real-life impact. Research on the mass urban school closures from 2012 to 2014 overwhelmingly found that academic outcomes suffered , particularly for low-performing students. A May 2024 study from Brown University linked the experience of a school closure to “decreases in post-secondary education attainment, employment, and earnings at ages 25–27.” Additionally, closures force families to travel farther to get to schools that are not in their communities, making it harder to form relationships with staff, join extracurriculars, or get involved in parent organizations.

These communities are also often the first to lose access to the benefits of neighborhood public schools, which act as essential gathering places for social services and community resources like adult education, polling locations, a place to hold community meetings, and access to democratic community control through school board elections.

There are more equitable and educationally sound approaches than the lazy, unjust, self-sabotaging—and all too common—approach of spending money on consultants to tell districts what they have already decided to do: close the schools they value least, relying on metrics that target symptoms of their systemic neglect, and playing into the conservative agenda to make public schools obsolete.

Districts have better options to address budget woes. They can start a community-driven process to reshape the budget, wherein multiple stakeholders—rather than a selected few—play an active role in setting district budget priorities. Districts can also employ community-led assessments of how they use buildings, allowing school communities, particularly those historically marginalized, to request the resources, support, and spaces they need.

At the very least, districts should integrate equity requirements into school closure proposals, for instance, by incorporating community-based equity audits into decision-making. States can also follow California’s lead by requiring and robustly enforcing equity safeguards for any decisions to close schools.

Young people and their communities deserve better than districts repeatedly making the same mistakes. District leaders must stop listening to expensive consultants and closing much-loved and needed schools, and instead, must listen to the communities they serve and focus on solutions that put students first. Local, state and federal governments must fully and equitably fund public schools—schools obligated to take and educate everyone—and stop diverting money to a system of charter and private schools where students and families are forced to compete for a limited pool of high quality resources for a select few.

Project 2025 is not an inevitability—it is a call to action for anyone who cares about public education in this country. Our public school system requires more resources to create better school environments for everyone. We need investment in our public schools—not closures.

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From student debt to Title IX reform, how Project 2025 could alter these people's lives

As the presidential election draws nearer, a conservative roadmap for education reform has some current and former students anxious..

The Republican Party has a long wish list of things it hopes to change about American schools. High on it is abolishing the Education Department and establishing a national “Parents’ Bill of Rights” to give conservatives more control over what their children learn.

But members of the GOP are not all on the same page about how a Republican president should go about overhauling the country's education system.

One much-touted approach to revamping schools occupies a chapter of Project 2025 , the 900-page political blueprint written by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Despite the group's deep ties to his administration, former President Donald Trump, the party’s nominee and standard-bearer, has distanced himself from the agenda, adopting his own, simpler version of a party platform blessed by delegates at the Republican National Convention last week. 

There remains a significant overlap between the two visions of changing how schools run. Both platforms echo long-standing Republican grievances. They accuse colleges of liberal indoctrination. They denounce the steep costs of higher education and bolster the rights of parents over those of children and educators. They recoil at the notion of protecting LGBTQ+ students or backing built-in protections for marginalized communities. 

Though many of these ideas are far from becoming reality, both conservative plans would have real implications for millions of Americans. Project 2025 has already taken an outsize role in the presidential election as Democrats seize on its details to paint a dire picture of the changes that conservatives envision for schools.

As the presidential election draws nearer – and the country's political climate becomes increasingly fraught – students and families in vulnerable circumstances are growing more anxious about how the political fighting could alter their lives.

GOP agenda would deal a major blow to student debt relief

Angel Torrientes lives with her 16-year-old son in a one-bedroom apartment in Covina, California, about 20 miles east of Los Angeles. She gets the bedroom, and “he has his space,” she said. 

She always wanted to find a job where she could help people. That impulse ultimately drew her to nonprofit work, and she graduated in 2018 with a master’s degree in nonprofit management from Antioch University in Los Angeles. She now has two jobs: one is full-time, at a youth services nonprofit, where she helps train employees who work with disadvantaged young people, and the other is a part-time gig at a housing company. 

Affording $2,000 in rent is hard enough on her salary. Paying off the $80,000 she owes in student loan debt makes life even harder. 

But a federal government program intended to help people in mission-oriented jobs like hers has been a lifesaver, she said. Enrolling in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, or PSLF, which was revamped during the Biden administration, lowered her monthly loan payment by hundreds of dollars. 

Project 2025 would end it. Lindsey Burke, the author of the Project 2025 education agenda, has argued that the federal government has abused its debt relief powers, prioritizing public-sector jobs over private-sector ones and unfairly leaving taxpayers on the hook for other people’s degrees. The Heritage Foundation said Burke was unavailable for an interview with USA TODAY. 

Without the financial cushion the loan repayment program has given her, Torrientes said she’s not sure how she would make rent. 

“How do I continue to do everything I need to do if my payments might come back to $500 a month?” she said. “Is the object to keep me poor and then complain when I’m on services?”

Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundation's president, told USA TODAY last week that the group's policy agenda is a necessary solution to the federal government overreach that progressives have implemented.

"Project 2025 is an attempt to restore proper constitutional order to this country," he said.

Proposed changes to special education cause alarm

Mia Charles was scared when she found out her son had autism. Charles, who lives in Brooklyn with her aunt, didn’t know the first thing about the developmental disorder, which affected as many as 1 in 36 youth in 2020, according to federal government estimates from some regions of the U.S.

“It was a big shock,” Charles said. 

The diagnosis came in 2021 when her son, Maverick, was 3. It was about two years after a district court ruled the Trump administration had engaged in an “ illegal delay ” by refusing to enact Obama-era regulations meant to improve racial disparities in special education. 

Project 2025 proposes rescinding those rules completely. It also calls for removing enforcement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a landmark federal law that ensures students with disabilities are entitled to a “free appropriate public education,” by Education Department officials and handing the task to the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Denise Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a disability rights group, acknowledged that the Education Department has historically struggled to ensure that schools are in compliance with IDEA. But shifting enforcement to a different federal agency that lacks the necessary expertise would not be a good move, she said.

“I don’t think they understand the repercussions on kids,” she said. 

Across the country, parents such as Charles feel safer sending their children off to school each day knowing their rights are protected by federal regulations.

“It’s not easy to give our kids to the world,” she said. 

LGBTQ+ students targeted

Via Lipman remembers when she was the only gay student at her high school. Being out in Naples, Florida, during the age of the “Don’t Say Gay” law, as opponents called it, wasn’t easy, she said. 

Whenever the topic of LGBTQ+ people came up in class, she sensed all eyes turn to her. Though she grew up in an accepting family, she felt her school environment becoming less inclusive as homophobic and transphobic rhetoric in the broader culture seeped into everyday interactions.

“You’re very alone,” she said.

Lipman supports the Biden administration's efforts to codify protections for queer and trans students like her. After a yearslong delay, the Education Department this year finalized its rewrite of Title IX, the federal statute that prevents sex-based misconduct in schools that receive federal funding.

The new guidance, set to take effect Aug. 1, would expand the definition of sex in the law to include sexual orientation and gender identity. But in recent weeks, the courts have blocked the Biden administration's rewrite in more than a dozen states and at hundreds of colleges.

Lipman hopes the new guidance will prevail. On Monday the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to curb the lower courts' bans.

Project 2025 veers hard in the other direction. It would allow schools to out LGBTQ+ students to their parents and define sex “to mean only biological sex recognized at birth."

“The next Administration should take particular note of how radical gender ideology is having a devastating effect on school-aged children today,” the policy agenda says.  

Lipman, now a 19-year-old rising sophomore at Stanford University, said her educational experience has changed since she moved to California. She no longer feels so alone. 

She worries, though, about the LGBTQ+ students in communities that aren't as welcoming.

“I’m a little bit jealous of the people in high school who never had to feel that way,” she said. 

Zachary Schermele covers education and breaking news for   USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele .

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Project 2025 would end early education program for low-income Americans

Kamala harris.

Statement: Project 2025 would “end Head Start.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, warned that  Project 2025 , a conservative policy agenda, could spell the end for Head Start, a federally funded program that supports early education and other services for low-income Americans.

During a July 18 campaign event in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Harris  said , "Their Project 2025 agenda would even end Head Start to take away preschool from hundreds of thousands of our children."

Before and after President Joe Biden’s  announcement  July 21 that he would forgo a second term, Democrats have been targeting the conservative policy agenda, saying it promotes proposals that would be unpopular with American voters.

Some Biden-Harris warnings about Project 2025 have  gone too far  in describing what the policy blueprint calls for, including exaggerating claims about its impact on Social Security and abortion policy. Other claims are accurate; much of the plan calls for extensive executive branch overhauls and draws on both long-standing conservative principles, such as tax cuts, and more recent culture war issues, such as LGBTQ issues and diversity, equity and inclusion. Project 2025 lays out recommendations for disbanding the Commerce and Education departments, eliminating certain climate protections and consolidating more power to the president. 

Harris’ claim about ending Head Start, which the Department of Health and Human Services administers, is accurate. On Page 482, the Project 2025 document read, "Eliminate the Head Start program."

What is Head Start?

Two related programs, Head Start and Early Head Start, collectively  provide  free early childhood education, health and nutrition services for infants, toddlers and preschoolers from low-income families. The programs are federally funded but run by local nonprofit organizations and focus on pregnant women and children up to 5 years old.

Head Start  was established  in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society initiative. During the 2022-23 school year, the program  enrolled  about 788,000 children and 13,000 pregnant women. For fiscal 2024, Congress  appropriated  $12.27 billion for the Office of Head Start. About two-thirds of program participants are Black or Latino. 

In 2023, Biden  signed an executive order  calling on the Department of Health and Human Services to reduce Head Start eligibility barriers and to increase pay and benefits for the program’s teachers and staff. 

Lawmakers from both parties have  regularly supported  Head Start since its creation. During his presidency, Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka brought attention to early childhood education and  convened a panel  in Mississippi in 2018 that included a local Head Start official.

Head Start tends to be popular with a wide cross section of voters. A July 2023  poll  by the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies on behalf of the First Five Years Fund, a child care advocacy group, found widespread support for Head Start across party lines. When asked whether funding for Head Start and Early Head Start should increase, 71% of Republicans and 89% of Democrats said yes.

What is Project 2025?

Project 2025 is a presidential transition project led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank with contributions from more than 100 conservative organizations. The foundation released a  900-page guide  in 2023 advocating a range of policies to be instituted after a potential Republican win in November.

In his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has sought to disassociate himself from Project 2025, writing on  Truth Social  that he "knows nothing" about the project and has "no idea" who leads it. However, CNN reported that  at least 140  former Trump administration advisers contributed to the project.

Max Eden, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., drew a distinction between congressional Republicans’ views of Head Start and those of outside conservative groups.

"There's quite a bit of daylight" between conservative think tanks "and the Republican Party proper, much less President Trump," Eden said. "The call to end Head Start is pretty common within the conservative wonk sphere. Heritage has been saying this for many, many years."

What does Project 2025 say about Head Start?

The Project 2025 document proposes that Head Start be eliminated because it is "fraught with scandal and abuse."

"Given its unaddressed crisis of rampant abuse and lack of positive outcomes, this program should be eliminated along with the entire (office that runs it). At the very least, the program’s COVID-19 vaccine and mask requirements should be rescinded," the document says on Page 482. (The Department of Health and Human Services eliminated the  universal masking  and  vaccine  requirements for Head Start programs in January 2023 and June 2023, respectively.) 

The Project 2025 document cited a  Heritage Foundation report  from 2022 that details 1,000 incidents in which children were abused, left unsupervised or released to an unauthorized person while enrolled in Head Start programs. 

It also referred to Heritage Foundation  research  that said Head Start programs do not have lasting positive effects on students’ academic achievement.

How big an impact would ending Head Start have?

Greg J. Duncan, a professor in the University of California, Irvine’s School of Education, told PolitiFact that eliminating Head Start would be a consequential development for low-income families, including the one-third of participants who were dual-language learners, most of them in families that speak primarily Spanish at home.

"By providing no-cost child care services, Head Start helps to support parental employment efforts," Duncan said. "Pre-K programs are a rapidly growing alternative to Head Start, but most pre-K programs have to ration slots owing to high demand. Reducing Head Start slots would undoubtedly increase further the demand for pre-K programs" and cost more for families out of pocket.

Head Start’s effectiveness in improving educational readiness is  more of an open question . 

In 2005, a  report  by agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, found that a year of Head Start improved cognitive skills, but only modestly. A 2010  report  by the same groups showed that by the end of first grade, the effects phased out. And the next  report  in the series, released in 2012, found no effect by the end of elementary school.

Eden pointed to a  2019 study  that "found no statistically significant impacts on earnings and mixed evidence of impacts on other adult outcomes."

Duncan acknowledged that "longer-run benefits of the program on children's developmental trajectories are still being debated."

Duncan added that Head Start has had other positive effects, however, such as increasing parents' involvement with their children, including reading to them and participating in math activities. 

PolitiFact's ruling

Harris said Project 2025 would "end Head Start."

She is correct about what Project 2025 would do with Head Start. The conservative policy blueprint says on Page 482 that it would "Eliminate the Head Start program."

We rate the statement True.

Our sources

• White House,  Remarks by Vice President Harris at a Political Event , July 18, 2024
• Office of Head Start,  Head Start Services , accessed July 22, 2024
• Office of Head Start,  Head Start History , accessed July 22, 2024
• Office of Head Start,  Services Snapshot 2022-2023 , accessed July 22, 2024 
• Head Start Early Childhood Learning & Knowledge Center,  Fiscal Year 2024 (FY 2024) Head Start Funding Increase , accessed July 22, 2024
• White House,  Executive Order on Increasing Access to High-Quality Care and Supporting Caregivers , April 18, 2024
• National Head Start Association,  Presidential History of Head Start , accessed July 22, 2024
• WLOX,  Ivanka Trump visits Gulfport for childhood education discussion , Oct. 25, 2018
• First Five Years Fund,  ​​The First Five Things To Know About: A New Poll Showing Voter Support For Child Care Funding , July 16, 2023
• Project 2025,  Mandate for Leadership , 2023  
• Former President Donald Trump,  Truth Social post , July 11, 2024
• CNN,  Trump claims not to know who is behind Project 2025. A CNN review found at least 140 people who worked for him are involved , July 11, 2024
• Federal Register,  Mitigating the Spread of COVID-19 in Head Start Programs , Jan. 6, 2023
• Federal Register,  Removal of the Vaccine Requirements for Head Start Programs , June 26, 2023
• Heritage Foundation,  Over 1,000 Safety Violations Mar Head Start. Children Deserve Better , Nov. 10, 2022
• Heritage Foundation,  Head Start’s Contagion of Fraud and Abuse , Feb. 28, 2020
• The Brookings Institution,  Does Head Start work? The debate over the Head Start Impact Study, explained , June 14, 2019
• Department of Health and Human Services,  Head Start Impact Study First Year Findings , June 2005
• Department of Health and Human Services,  Head Start Impact Study Final Report , January 2010
• Department of Health and Human Services,  Third Grade Follow-up to the Head Start Impact Study: Final Report , December 21, 2012
• The Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University,  Elusive Longer-Run Impacts of Head Start: Replications Within and Across Cohorts , May 2019
• PolitiFact,  ​​Joe Biden drops out of 2024 presidential race, endorses Kamala Harris. Read his letter here , June 21, 2024
• PolitiFact,  Project 2025: Are Biden campaign warnings about plan for Trump election win correct? , July 12, 2024
• Email interview with Max Eden, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, July 23, 2024
• Email interview with Greg J. Duncan, professor in the University of California-Irvine’s School of Education, July 22, 2024

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What is Project 2025? Is it Trump's plan? What to know about the right-wing plan for a conservative nation

Social media has been abuzz with the ultra-conservative initiative Project 2025. So just what is it?

The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank out of Washington, D.C., launched the 2025 Presidential Transition Project to "assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State."

It is based on a more than 800-page  "Mandate for Leadership,"  published in April 2023 by the Foundation, reimagining the executive branch and as a plan to overhaul multiple federal government agencies, including the FBI, Department of Justice and Department of Education, and that isn't even talking about the want to ban certain words from the legislature and what jobs in the federal government will be appointed.

All of this is intended to be the playbook for the next conservative president to follow .

Here's what we know about Project 2025 and what it could mean for the 2024 presidential election.

What is Project 2025?

For many it is being referred to as just Project 2025, and it has become a hot topic among celebrities, political figures, media and on social media in recent weeks.

The  "Mandate for Leadership" outlines conservative agendas that would mean the repeal of parts of initiatives President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama brought forth during their tenure at the White House, including student debt forgiveness and the Affordable Care Act. Beyond that, the deportation of undocumented immigrants is high up on Project 2025's to-do list.

There is also a section of this plan that appears to undo LGBTQ+ rights in multiple different areas, including banning people with HIV or those who are transgender from serving in the military, rescinding regulations  that bar discrimination “on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics,” and also seems to oppose same-sex marriage and gay couples adopting children by seeking to "maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family."

Here are just some other items that Project 2025 entails:

• Passing sweeping tax cuts and changes to the tax code which will impact those with lower incomes while benefiting those with a higher income .
• Reversal of DEI programs
• Development of new nuclear weapons and building of more nuclear power plants
• Dismantling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration due to it being "one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”
• Ending Head Start and dismantling the Education Department
• Outlawing pornography

Why are people worried about Project 2025?

One of the main things in this playbook? The reinstatement of a  Trump executive order  augmenting a president's power to hire and fire federal officials by replacing civil servants with political appointees throughout government.

Project 2025 has been “pre-screening the ideologies” of thousands to become part of the federal government once a conservative takes office to have, “a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists."

Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation leadership have also called this group "conservative warriors," and enacted imagery of them marching into Washington, D.C., like an army.

While the Heritage Foundation's nearly 900-page mandate is a blueprint for a far-right way of "taking back control" of the federal government, it is also the rhetoric that is coming from people like the group's president, Kevin Roberts.

“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless ― if the left allows it to be,” Roberts  said  on a conservative media outlet called Real America’s Voice.

"Project 2025 should scare every single American," said President Joe Biden, in a speech slamming former President Donald Trump for having any part of Project 2025. "It would give Trump limitless power over our daily lives and let him use the presidency to enact 'revenge' on his enemies, ban abortion nationwide and punish women who have an abortion, and gut the checks and balances that make America the greatest democracy in the world."

Is Project 2025 part of Trump's plan if he wins the 2024 presidential election?

Though the plan's organizers want Trump to follow Project 2025 if he wins the November election ― it even has his name in different areas throughout the plan ― the businessman turned politician has tried to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation after Biden slammed him in the press for being affiliated with the group.

Trump took to his Truth social media account in an attempt to lead the narrative away from his affiliation with Heritage Foundation writing. "I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them."

In a post early Thursday morning he wrote, " I know nothing about Project 2025. I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it. The Radical Left Democrats are having a field day, however, trying to hook me into whatever policies are stated or said. It is pure disinformation on their part. By now, after all of these years, everyone knows where I stand on EVERYTHING! DJT"

And while Trump denies knowing the people who are "in charge of it," some are members of his previous staff.

• Russ Vought (Project 2025 writer) headed the Office of Management and Budget under Trump
• John McEntee (senior adviser for Project 2025) was the director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office under Trump
• Paul Dans (head of Project 2025 team), former Trump staffer
• Spencer Chretien (head of Project 2025 team), former Trump staffer
• Troup Hemnway (head of Project 2025 team), former Trump staffer

Project 2025 said it “does not speak for any candidate or campaign” in a  July 5 post on X , formerly Twitter. Its playbook is comprised of suggestions the coalition believes will benefit the "next conservative president."

Who is involved with Project 2025?

The Heritage Foundation has pulled together 100 coalition partners of conservative groups in the country. Here are the partners of Project 2025 reported by the Heritage Foundation:

• 1792 Exchange
• American Accountability Foundation 
• American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists
• Alabama Policy Institute 
• Alliance Defending Freedom 
• ACLJ Action
• American Commitment
• American Compass 
• American Cornerstone Institute
• The American Conservative
• American Council of Trustees and Alumni
• American Family Association
• America First Legal 
• American Juris Link
• American Legislative Exchange Council 
• The American Main Street Initiative 
• American Moment 
• American Principles Project 
• The American Family Project
• The American Redistricting Project
• Americans United for Life
• AMAC Action
• California Family Council
• Centennial Institute
• Center for a Secure Free Society
• Center for Equal Opportunity 
• Center for Family and Human Rights 
• Center for Immigration Studies 
• Center for Military Readiness
• Center for Renewing America 
• Citizens Against Government Waste
• The Claremont Institute 
• Coalition for a Prosperous America
• Competitive Enterprise Institute 
• Concerned Women for America 
• Conservative Partnership Institute
• Defense of Freedom Institute
• Discovery Institute
• Eagle Forum
• Ethics and Public Policy Center
• Fairer America
• Family Policy Alliance 
• Family Research Council 
• Feds for Freedom
• First Liberty Institute
• For America
• Forge Leadership Network 
• Foundation for American Innovation
• Foundation for Defense of Democracies
• Foundation for Government Accountability 
• Freedom’s Journal Institute
• The Frederick Douglass Foundation
• Calvert Task Group
• The Heartland Institute
• The Heritage Foundation
• MacArthur Society of West Point Graduates
• Hillsdale College 
• Honest Elections Project
• Independent Women’s Forum 
• Institute for Education Reform
• Institute for Energy Research 
• Institute for the American Worker 
• The Institute for Women’s Health
• Intercollegiate Studies Institute
• Dr. James Dobson Family Institute
• The James Madison Institute 
• Job Creators Network
• Keystone Policy
• The Leadership Institute 
• League of American Workers
• Liberty University 
• Mackinac Center for Public Policy
• The Malone Institute
• Media Research Center
• Mississippi Center for Public Policy
• Moms for Liberty
• Mountain States Policy Center
• National Association of Scholars
• National Center for Public Policy Research
• Native Americans for Sovereignty and Preservation
• Noah Webster Educational Foundation
• Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs
• Project 21 Black Leadership Network
• Pacific Research Institute
• The Palm Beach Freedom Institute
• Palmetto Promise
• Patrick Henry College
• The Patriot Foundation Trust
• Personnel Policy Operations
• Public Interest Legal Foundation
• Recovery for America Now Foundation
• Republicans Overseas Foundation
• Stop Abusive and Violent Environments
• Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services
• Students for Life of America
• Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America
• Tea Party Patriots
• Texas Public Policy Foundation
• Teneo Network
• Turning Point USA
• Young America’s Foundation

USA TODAY contributed to this report.

Center for American Progress

Project 2025’s Elimination of Title I Funding Would Hurt Students and Decimate Teaching Positions in Local Schools

Project 2025 would decimate more than 180,000 teacher positions and negatively affect the academic outcomes of 2.8 million vulnerable students across the country.

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Project 2025: Exposing the Far-Right Assault on America

This article is part of a series from the Center for American Progress exposing how the sweeping Project 2025 policy agenda would harm all Americans. This new authoritarian playbook, published by the Heritage Foundation, would destroy the 250-year-old system of checks and balances upon which U.S. democracy has relied and give far-right politicians, judges, and corporations more control over Americans’ lives.

Since its establishment, the U.S. Department of Education has led the nation’s efforts to improve and advance elementary and secondary education. When Congress passed the Department of Education Organization Act in 1979 to establish the agency, it defined one of its core functions, in part, as follows: “to strengthen the Federal commitment to ensuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual.”

Now, the far-right authoritarian playbook known as Project 2025 puts that mission at risk. It proposes dismantling the key role of the federal government to increase access and close the educational opportunity gap, especially in communities with lower property values, since a large portion of the country’s K-12 system is funded with local property taxes. In doing so, the playbook creates intentional harm on today’s children and generations to come. One of Project 2025’s most extreme plans includes abolishing the U.S. Department of Education—the only federal agency that is mandated to ensure equal opportunity and accountability and to fund states and school districts for elementary and secondary education.

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The policy proposals of Project 2025 undermine public education, a fundamental pillar of our democracy. Specifically, they recommend that the next far-right administration redirect taxpayer dollars intended for K-12 public education to fund private and religious schools for the wealthy; roll back Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex; eradicate Head Start ; block student debt cancellation programs and increase monthly payments for student loan borrowers ; censor anti-racist curricula that teach tolerance in schools; and eliminate school nutrition programs, particularly for children experiencing food insecurity during the summer when they lack access to school meals.

Moreover, Project 2025 proposes disinvestments in programs that support states in meeting the academic needs of the nation’s most vulnerable students, including students with disabilities served by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and low-income students at Title I-eligible schools.

Title I supports low-income students and nearly 2 in 3 public schools

Title I, Part A of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) obligates supplemental federal funding to states to ensure that all children, regardless of their income status, receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education. Title I was created in response to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 was signed into law by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. In enacting Title I, Congress recognized that students in high-poverty schools have greater educational needs—which continues to be a reality—and states lacked the resources to close this divide; therefore, federal aid was required to provide the academic services and opportunity necessary for these students.

Since its inception, Title I has been a critical program to address chronic funding and opportunity gaps between students experiencing high poverty and their more affluent peers.

More than half of the nation’s public schools serve a high concentration of low-income students, with 63 percent of traditional public schools and 62 percent of public charter schools in the 2021-22 school year identifying as Title I-eligible. Since its inception, Title I has been a critical program to address chronic funding and opportunity gaps between students experiencing high poverty and their more affluent peers. Despite its impact, Title I has experienced significantly low levels of funding over the years.

Title I supports the teacher workforce

Title I funding is critical to hiring and retaining well-prepared teachers in schools. During the 2023-24 school year, every state in the country reported a teacher shortage in one or more subject area. But high-poverty schools are at a double disadvantage when it comes to teacher shortages: Recent research shows that turnover rates are higher at high-poverty schools (29 percent) than at schools with lower concentrations of poverty (19 percent). Indeed, teachers are leaving high-poverty schools at alarmingly high rates due to poor working conditions and unmanageable workloads.

During the 2023-2024 school year, every state in the country reported a teacher shortage in one or more subject areas.

Title I provides necessary resources for districts to support and incentivize teachers in hard-to-staff schools that serve a higher percentage of low-income students and students of color. In order to close the achievement gap between high-poverty and wealthier schools, districts need more federal aid through Title I and other programs to support early-career teachers and retain outstanding teachers who make up the “ Irreplaceables ,” due to their high performance and success.

Project 2025 would worsen current teacher shortages by eliminating nearly 6 percent of the workforce

Project 2025 would decimate more than 180,000 teacher positions and negatively affect the academic outcomes of 2.8 million vulnerable students across the country. The loss of 180,000 teacher positions represents 5.64 percent of the teacher workforce nationally, which is roughly 3.2 million public school teachers . Table 1 illustrates the loss of teacher positions and affected students in each state as a result of phasing out Title I funding. At least 5 percent of teacher positions in 32 of the 50 states would be lost if federal Title I aid were eliminated. In some states, such as Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Nevada, and Florida, nearly 10 percent teacher jobs would be lost. Louisiana would experience the greatest impact, with more than 12 percent of teaching positions eliminated.

Project 2025’s proposal to phase out Title I reverses national efforts to retain teachers , including legislation to increase teacher pay—a contributing factor to retention. Today, the average teacher salary in the majority of states is below the minimum living wage, and teachers are being paid 5 percent less than what they were a decade ago when adjusted for inflation.

Title I funding directly benefits teachers and students in suburban, rural, and urban schools across the country. Districts use this funding to provide direct student support services and to hire and retain teachers. Project 2025’s proposal to eliminate Title I funding would lead to the loss of teacher positions, high teacher-to-student ratios, and a lack of school-based programs and quality instruction. This would be devastating to local schools, students, families, and communities.

Teaching is the only profession that prepares workers of every industry. Teachers, and the students they serve, must receive adequate support in preparation to entering the workforce, supporting the social and emotional development of future generations, and being informed citizens our democracy can rely on.

Methodology

The analysis in Table 1 used official fiscal year 2023 spending data from the U.S. Department of Education to demonstrate individual state and national funding implications if the federal “Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies” were to be eliminated, which Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership proposes happen over 10 years.

To calculate the funding-cut equivalent of teacher jobs as a result of this proposal, the authors divided the most recent average teacher salary from the 2021-22 school year, according to state figures from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), by the percentage of total compensation that goes toward wages and salaries associated with primary, secondary, and special education school teachers, according to U.S. Department of Labor data , to get the total employer cost for employing public K-12 school teachers. The authors then divided the total Title I dollar amount that each state receives from the U.S. Department of Education by the above sum. To calculate the percentage of the teacher workforce represented by that figure, the authors divided the funding-cut equivalent of teacher jobs for each state by the total number of public K-12 teachers in the state as of 2022, which is the latest available data from NCES .

In regard to the figure indicating the potential teacher positions at risk, the authors acknowledge that there are programs that make up the total funding amount that states receive for elementary and secondary education that may not go directly toward teacher compensation; however, if that funding were altogether cut and the services it funded remained, other state and local revenue would need to fill the hole, leaving the equivalent funding cut equal to roughly 182,000 teacher positions.

Finally, to calculate the number of students affected by this proposal, the analysis multiplied the most recent data for state-by-state pupil-to-teacher ratios from the NCES by the number of teachers affected.

The positions of American Progress, and our policy experts, are independent, and the findings and conclusions presented are those of American Progress alone. A full list of supporters is available here . American Progress would like to acknowledge the many generous supporters who make our work possible.

Weadé James

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K-12 Education Policy

The K-12 Education Policy team is committed to developing policies for a new education agenda rooted in principles of opportunity for all and equity in access.

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The far right’s new authoritarian playbook could usher in a sweeping array of dangerous policies.

Project 2025 Would Increase Gun Violence, Reversing Historic Declines

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What is Project 2025? 5 ways its ideas are similar to Florida laws

It's not an official Republican plan, but Project 2025 . a detailed roadmap for a Republican presidential transition from conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation , is getting more and more attention from voters.

Interest in what it suggests for the future of the country has been growing rapidly on social media and in online searches. The Project 2025 website says it “dismantles the unaccountable Deep State, taking power away from Leftist elites and giving it back to the American people and duly-elected President.”

Critics say it is a deeply  racist endeavor  that is aimed at  dismantling  many protections and aid programs for Americans of color and establishing a permanent far-right conservative government with few checks and balances.

Democratic leaders, including Vice President Kamala Harris , the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, have been sounding the alarm about the changes the project proposes for the federal government. Harris has made a point of linking it to her opponent, former President and current GOP candidate Donald Trump, at every opportunity.

Vice President Kamala Harris slams Project 2025, calling it "a plan to return America to a dark past" under another Trump term. "Can you believe they put that thing in writing? 900 pages in writing!" https://t.co/J5yu64EUfP pic.twitter.com/R2zZDW89yd — CBS News (@CBSNews) July 25, 2024

"Can you believe they put that thing in writing?" she asked the crowd at a campaign rally in Milwaukee last Tuesday.

Floridians may note that several of the Project 2025 plans mirror recent Florida laws under Gov. Ron DeSantis.

What is Project 2025?

Project 2025 is a multi-pronged Presidential Transition Project meant to assist a Republican president in the early days of his or her new presidency to consolidate power and dramatically overhaul the federal government. According to the Project 2025 website , the plan details a governing agenda to "rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left."

It consists of four pillars: a policy agenda, a LinkedIn-style personnel database for use in replacing tens of thousands of civil employees deemed not loyal enough, a Presidential Administration Academy and a playbook for the first 180 days of the next (Republican) administration. The policy agenda is the part that has gotten the most attention.

Project 2025 was created by right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation with help from over 100 conservative groups . President Joe Biden and other Democrats have said the plan " will destroy America ."

The actual details are in a 922-page PDF titled "2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise."

What are the Project 2025 plans?

Project 2025's major recommendations include:

• Reclassifying up to 50,000 key federal workers to political appointees, allowing a new president to purge the federal government of checks to his or her power and install conservative loyalists
• Abolishing the Department of Education , increasing support for school choice and eliminating the  Head Start  program, which helps preschool children from low-income families prepare for school
• Dismantling the Department of Homeland Security and combining it with units in other agencies
• Increasing enforcement of immigration laws and kicking off mass deportations
• Banning pornography, imprisoning its creators and distributors, and registering teachers and librarians who distribute offensive material (which is also defined as including "transgender ideology") as sex offenders
• Rolling back most of Biden's climate policies, dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency's renewable energy programs, and favoring the fossil fuel industry
• Reversing federal protections for abortion and reinstating the Comstock Act to limit mail-order abortion pills and contraception
• Ending the government's current income-driven student loan forgiveness programs
• Ending the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and reducing Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security

Five Project 2025 plans that DeSantis has already done in Florida

DeSantis and some of his specific policies are mentioned by name in the document multiple times, and many of the recurrent themes are ones that DeSantis has championed in Florida.

1. Protecting Parental Rights, removing gender issues and 'critical race theory'

The Project praises Florida under DeSantis for the state's Parents Rights in Education Act (nicknamed the "Don't Say Gay" bill by critics). It calls for a federal Parents' Bill of Rights to provide parents with ultimate authority over their children's educational curriculums, classroom discussion of "critical race or gender theory" and use of differently gendered names without parental permission, among other things.

2. Education savings accounts, vouchers

Under this policy, portions of a child's federal education spending would be put into a private spending account that could be used for personal tutors, books, private school tuition, transportation and more.

Since 2019, when DeSantis expanded access to school vouchers and added education savings accounts , the program was paid for by rerouting state money for public schooling to private schools, according to Laura Pappano for The Hechinger Report , and may lead to the closure of dozens of public schools around the state. Again, Florida is listed several times as a national model.

3. Ending Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) programs

Project 2025 demands the removal of all DEI programs in federally funded educational institutions and federal labor policy, and the closing of all DEI offices in the federal government.

DEI, a term used to describe programs and policies that encourage representation and participation of diverse groups of people of all genders, races and ethnicities, abilities and disabilities, religions, cultures, ages, and sexual orientations, has become the latest talking point in the anti-"woke" culture war for conservative politicians and commentators, and a particular target for DeSantis.

The  "Stop WOKE Act"  in 2022 limited discussion of race, gender and other topics in state university classrooms, but it also banned diversity practices and training that could make employees feel "personal responsibility" for actions committed in the past by someone of the "same race, color, sex or national origin." That part of the Act was permanently struck down by a federal judge last Friday.

After the liberal arts college  New College of Florida  in Sarasota underwent a hostile takeover with an eye toward turning it into a conservative higher education experiment, the new board members appointed by DeSantis quickly abolished the school’s DEI office .

In 2023, DeSantis signed legislation to ban state or federal funding  for any  state university programs  that “advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or promote or engage in political or social activism.”

4. Eliminating unions

The Project calls for three executive orders strengthening government agencies against labor bargaining previously issued by President Trump and repealed by Biden to be reinstated. However, it also says that "Congress should also consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate in the first place," suggesting that "unions were not compatible with constitutional government."

Last year DeSantis signed a bill adding strict new regulations on public sector unions such as those representing health care workers and teachers which he claimed were "paycheck protection" for workers who don't want to pay union dues but critics said were meant to undermine public employee labor protections.

Notably, public sector unions which usually endorse, contribute and work in the campaigns of Florida Republicans — correctional officers, law enforcement, firefighters and other first responders — were exempt from the new requirements . 

5. Removing climate change as a priority

"The Biden Administration’s climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding," the Project says, calling for "the woke agenda" to be "reversed and scrubbed from all policy manuals, guidance documents, and agendas, and scientific excellence" and "end the focus on climate change and green subsidies."

As part of this, Project 2025 calls for breaking up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as its different agencies together "form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity."

Under the plan, the National Weather Service, which currently provides free forecasts and a wealth of wealth data to everyone, would become a fully commercial service supplying data only to its private company partners. The National Hurricane Center would be left alone as it provides important public safety information, but the project would order its data to be presented neutrally so as not to "support any one side in the climate debate."

DeSantis has not suggested changes to NOAA, but he did sign into law a measure erasing all mentions of climate change from all state statutes and banning offshore wind-energy generation in Florida to "restore sanity in our approach to energy." 

Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried said her home state has been divided by much of DeSantis' policy-making. 

“We have been the lab rats for the Heritage Foundation here in the state of Florida, so we understand the threat that is coming with Project 2025,” Fried said. 

Is Project 2025 an official Republican policy?

Trump's campaign has its own, much less detailed plan for policy and transition called Agenda47 . Some of the policies overlap with Project 2025 but Project 2025 is not an official plan from the Republican Party.

But Project 2025 is still likely to be highly influential in a new Trump presidency. The Heritage Foundation brags that during his first term, Trump embraced "nearly two-thirds of Heritage’s proposals within just one year in office."

Does Trump support Project 2025?

Trump has sought to distance himself from it , saying he was unaware who was behind it and didn't agree with some of it.

“I have no idea who is behind it,” Trump wrote in a  Truth Social post  July 5. “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying, and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal."

However, while the hefty conservative wishlist of Project 2025 is not an official Republican plan, at least 31 of the project's 38 creators were connected with the Trump administration . Trump's new running mate, JD Vance, wrote the forward for a new book called "Dawn's Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America" from the president of The Heritage Foundation. Kevin Roberts.

Earlier this month, MSNBC unearthed a speech Trump gave at a Heritage Foundation event in 2022 , where he said, "This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.”

Roberts, the self-proclaimed "head" of Project 2025, said in an interview on  Steve Bannon’s  “War Room” podcast, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Vice President @KamalaHarris knows she must earn our generation’s votes, and that is exactly what she will do. pic.twitter.com/4zY2pLS62O — Voters of Tomorrow (@VotersTomorrow) July 27, 2024

Harris linked Trump to the project again in a video for the Gen-Z-led Voters of Tomorrow. "Donald Trump has an extreme and divisive agenda for a second term," she said. "It's called Project 2025."

• Nation & World
• Nate Monroe

2024 budget hit cost Duval schools 400 teachers. Why could 2025 be a bigger problem?

Already reckoning with the loss of almost 400 teaching jobs they couldn’t afford , Duval County school administrators are seeking ways to manage additional costs coming after the school year that starts next month .

“We’ll be OK at the end of this year,” school system Chief Financial Officer Ronald Fagan told School Board members during a workshop this month. “…The problem’s going to be the following year.”

The board will hold a public hearing Tuesday as an early step in approving its 2024-25 budget and a property tax rate that’s slightly lower than last year’s because the state cut a millage that’s required of local school districts.

A final board vote on the budget won’t happen until September.

Commentary: Mark Woods: Another superintendent search in Duval County. Who would want this job?

Budget managers strengthened the school district’s finances by harvesting leftover cash from special-purpose accounts to redirect $19.2 million in one-time money into the district’s general fund, adding to a funding cushion that’s expected to total $170 million for the budget year that ended June 30 . The new budget year started July 1, but the budget is fnalized later and some accounts for 2023-24 needed time to be finalized.

That extra funding cushion will help the school district’s footing during the 2024-25 budget year, but a report Fagan shared with the board described a “high probability” after then that the district’s fund balance could drop below a 3% standard the state sets to ensure districts are financially sound.

Staying above that threshold is a key priority for school administrators.

“I can’t even tell you what the implications are of going below 3% because it’s a number that superintendents and school boards hide from,” Superintendent Christopher Bernier told board members, saying it would trigger a level of state oversight “we just don’t need.”

If the $170 million fund projection holds up, the district’s fund balance should have ended 2023-24 with a cushion equal to 9% of its revenue.

Keeping a comfortable margin comes with real pain in the 2024-25 school year, however, including the decision to cut hundreds of jobs that were previously paid for by pandemic-era federal grants called ESSER funds . The last ESSER grants expire Sept. 30.

Past problem: Duval School Board wants to know how district spent $21 million more than budgeted last year

With that money gone and more families signing up for payments through the state Family Empowerment Scholarship program instead of classes in traditional public schools, the 2024-25 budget is drafted to eliminate 403 teacher and school counselor jobs, add three others in art, music and physical education, and slightly change the number of paraprofessionals, principals and clerical employees.

Many changes were effectively finalized early this month, when the board approved a roster of school-based staff reappointed to their jobs for another year.  

Another 190 division-based jobs — support roles centered at the school district’s Southbank headquarters — were also slated to be eliminated in 2024-25.

With those payroll changes already decided, Bernier has begun outlining steps to be sure the district gets money it deserves and makes the most out of it.

Those ranged from meticulous, plodding completion of student attendance counts reported to the state to receive per-pupil funding to tweaking schedules of part-time high school students; revisiting policies controlling school district spending on bus routes ; to big-picture decisions about which schools should be closed to get maximum benefit of each classroom dollar.

Getting those details right will be important for the school district’s finances, he told the board.

“When 85% of your money or more is in salaries, without some of these other decisions … the only place we’ll have to turn to prevent a less-than-3% [fund balance] is to our people,” he said.

“And that I think…is not the tenable position that any of you want to be in.”

Bernier, who was sworn into his job this month, said it's a good sign that concerns about the next year's budget are being raised now, instead of going unnnoticed until the spring, when there's only time for last-minute desperation.

Fagan told the board the extra time could make a real difference in working out solutions. "We have some time to breathe. We have some time to strategize," he said.

Content Search

Education project officer.

Trócaire is one of Ireland’s top International NGOs, having over 45 years’ of experience in international Development. Trócaire Implements programmes directly and through local partners in the Gedo region of Somalia

Trócaire has been working in Gedo in health, nutrition and education for the last 27 years. Currently Trócaire implements Health, Nutrition, Protection, WASH and Education Programme activities. Trocaire places great emphasis on empowering local communities and partners so that control and agency lies with those with whom we work.

The programme is now recruiting an Education Project Officer who will work with the Education team in Gedo to support the implementation of the education component of the programme as per the needs of the community and donors.

Reporting to the Education Coordinator this is a fixed term for one year and is based in Gedo region of Somalia.

The successful applicant will be expected to sign up to and adhere to Trócaire’s Safeguarding Policy.

Key Duties & Responsibilities

• Support day to day oversight of education projects which includes accompanying Community Education Committees, supporting partners’ planning and coordination.
• Support and monitor the activities of the local partners according to the defined proposal and the work plan as well as the project impact
• Report regularly to the Education Coordinator on project activities, identifying progress, problem areas, and potential solutions.
• Identify programme operational needs for education projects for the management to take lead in proposing course of action. Work with other program staff to remedy issues and track individual program actions.
• Support Community Education Committees (CECs) and teachers in the planning, implementation and monitoring of their school projects
• Support the Education Coordinator in representation at key education meetings and education cluster meetings in the Gedo region.
• Act as a contact point for the Education Coordinator on all education operational and project issues and ensure that concerns are addressed while adopting to organization’s procedures.
• Support the Education Coordinator in the supervision of the education projects including monthly reporting of its deliverables providing regular reports against the projects work plans.
• With support from Trocaire’s Education & Protection Coordinators and MEAL Coordinator, provide ongoing technical assistance to education programme to ensure that projects are implemented in accordance with accepted international standards, including those for protection, and accountability.

Capacity Building

As a part of this position the project officer will take a prominent role in organizing and facilitating capacity building initiatives for Community Education Committees (CECs), teachers, parents and other education stakeholders including on:

• Psycho-social support training.
• School safety audits.
• Community-based child protection and positive parenting.
• Outreach activities to raise awareness on child protection services.
• Teachers training on pedagogy.
• Support local CECs in ensuring that local authorities are kept informed of Trócaire supported Programmes.
• Accompany visitors (Trócaire or external) to the project areas and carry out local promotional work as required.
• Perform other duties as required by the line manager that are consistent of the level of this function.

Person Specification – Essential Requirements

(E) Qualification

• Bachelors degree in education.
• Development studies/project management is an added advantage.

(E) Experience

• At least 4 years of experience in Education and Protection Integration work.
• Experience working with local authorities, communities committees and partners.
• Good interpersonal skills including the ability to listen; flexible and adaptable to work in unstable environments and under pressure with limited support.
• Strong writing and excellent communication skills in Somali.
• Good computer skills (Microsoft Office).

(E) Qualities

• Ability to support and build local capacity.
• Good understanding and experience of Project /Programme management cycle, and participatory appraisal techniques.
• Knowledge and experience of working on education in emergency and/or education programmes is desirable.
• Being a resident of Gedo would be an added advantage.

How to apply

For the candidate with the required experience and passion for the role, Trócaire offers a competitive package of salary and benefits.

To apply, please send a copy of your CV and covering letter (quoting the job title above) To https://apply.workable.com/trocaire/j/433C703173/

Trócaire is committed to Safeguarding people within our programmes from Exploitation and Abuse and has specific policies on this commitment (including a Global Code of Conduct) which outlines the expected behaviour and the responsibility of all staff, consultants and other organisational representatives. All internal applicants are reminded of their obligations in relation to these policies.

At Trócaire, the paramount consideration in the recruitment and employment of staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of performance and integrity in line with our organisational values. All recruitment decisions are made on the basis of organizational needs. Trócaire is committed to creating an inclusive environment of mutual respect, recruiting and employing staff from diverse backgrounds and with diverse identities, at all levels in the organisation. We will not tolerate discrimination on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, race, religious, cultural and ethnic backgrounds or disability. Reasonable accommodation for applicants with disabilities may be provided to support participation in the recruitment process when requested and indicated in the application.

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What We Know About Kamala Harris’ Education Record

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President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he’s dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement on the Democratic ticket.

As a result, the future of the Democrats’ K-12 policy agenda will lie in the hands of his replacement.

The decision followed weeks of Democratic hand-wringing over Biden’s viability and his potential to drag down the prospects of other Democrats across the nation.

While Biden has endorsed Harris, his replacement will be chosen officially at the Democratic National Convention, which starts on Aug. 19 in Chicago. Some top Democrats have started calling for the party to unite around Harris. Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, tweeted Sunday that the union’s executive council has voted to endorse Harris .

But in addition to Harris, a number of other Democrats—mainly governors—have been floated as potential replacements for the president.

The official nominee will help determine the party’s education policy priorities. They aren’t likely to stray far from Biden’s education agenda, which has been dominated by efforts that have been held up in courts to forgive student loan debt and expand protections for LGBTQ+ students and school staff through a rewrite of rules for Title IX, the nation’s landmark sex discrimination law.

Unlike some of his predecessors, Biden hasn’t pursued an aggressive education policy agenda before Congress or emphasized a particular set of school improvements. But he has secured funding increases for key federal programs including Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

On the Republican side, the party has proposed a platform that calls for eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, defunding schools that teach “critical race theory” or “gender ideology,” and universal private school choice.

Here’s what we know about Vice President Harris’ stance on education, along with other potential replacements, some of whom quickly endorsed her, potentially positioning themselves as running mates.

Vice President Kamala Harris

Before becoming vice president, Harris was a senator representing California and ran against Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary election. In her 2020 campaign, she advocated for universal preschool and free college and called for a $13,500 raise for every teacher by the end of her first term. She also used speeches during her campaign to criticize conservative politicians for “attacking” public schools and teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During a 2020 primary debate, Harris sparred with Biden over school segregation , criticizing the now-president for his opposition in the 1970s to busing as a strategy to desegregate schools.

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to schools every day,” Harris said. “And that little girl was me.”

As senator, Harris cosponsored the Strength in Diversity Act, which would promote school diversity initiatives, including busing. The bill stalled in the Senate.

During her time as senator, from 2017 to 2021, Harris sponsored four bills related to education, none of which passed. (Republicans controlled the Senate during her tenure, and Donald Trump was president.)

Two were directly related to K-12 schools. The Family Friendly Schools Act would have directed the Education Department to provide grants to local school districts to support aligning the school day with family work schedules and building stronger relationships between families and school districts.

The 21 st Century STEM for Girls and Underrepresented Minorities Act would have directed the Education Department to provide funding for school districts to cover the costs of STEM education activities for girls and children from racial minorities.

Before her time in the Senate, Harris pushed for harsher consequences for parents whose children weren’t attending school. As the San Francisco district attorney, she threatened parents with court action if their children missed too much school. Later, as California’s attorney general, Harris pushed for a 2011 state law that allowed district attorneys to charge parents with a misdemeanor if their child missed 10 percent of the school year.

She has since said she regrets championing that law and said she wouldn’t support such a law on the federal level.

“My regret is that I have now heard stories where in some jurisdictions DAs have criminalized the parents,” Harris said in a 2019 Pod Save America interview. “I regret that that has happened and the thought that anything I did could have led to that. That certainly wasn’t the intention.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro

Shapiro, a first-term governor in a key swing state, recently negotiated a 2024-25 budget with a K-12 funding increase of over $1 billion. The package also includes money universal free breakfast for the state’s 1.7 million students, according to the governor’s website.

Within a few hours of Biden’s announcement, Shapiro endorsed Harris, saying on X that “the best path forward for the Democratic Party is to quickly unite” around the vice president. Shapiro, as governor of a crucial battleground state, is seen as a contender to be Harris’ running mate should she secure the nomination.

Hanging over Shapiro’s time as governor has been a judge’s landmark February 2023 ruling that the state’s school funding system was unconstitutional , failing to adequately fund the state’s schools. Education advocates have said the funding increases so far fall short of what the legal ruling requires.

Shapiro stands out among Democrats in his support for school choice, traditionally a Republican policy priority.

Last summer, the Pennsylvania governor initially supported a $100 million voucher program that would help parents pay for private school. He backed down amid pressure from Democrats in the state’s House of Representatives, but maintains his support for a voucher program .

The new budget Shapiro signed increases funding for the state’s limited tax-credit scholarship programs, through which businesses can receive tax credits for funding private school scholarships.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

The second-term governor of a key swing state pushed back on calls for Biden to drop out, and said Sunday that her “job in this will remain the same: doing everything I can to elect Democrats and stop Donald Trump.” Still, many in Democratic circles have suggested she would be a strong replacement nominee.

As governor, Whitmer signed a $24.3 billion education budget in 2023 that increased per-pupil funding by 5 percent and allocated extra funding for economically disadvantaged students, English learners, and students with disabilities, according to Bridge Michigan , a local nonprofit news organization.

In December 2023, Whitmer also launched a new state Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, known as MiLEAP, which is tasked with improving outcomes for students in preschool through college. The department has goals of ensuring every child is ready for kindergarten, every student has the chance to earn a skill certificate or degree after high school, and that school districts can partner with outside organizations so students have more opportunities for learning outside the classroom, according to the governor’s website.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker

Pritzker, another second-term governor, signed a 2023 state budget that increased K-12 funding by more than $1 billion. He’s also signed laws to raise minimum teacher salaries and require that school districts implement career exploration and development programs for students in grades 6-12.

In 2021, Pritzker signed a sweeping education law that requires schools to better prepare students in computer literacy, laboratory science, and foreign languages, and expands required Black history curriculum to include lessons on the conditions leading to slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. The law also establishes and Inclusive American History Commission, a Professional Review Panel, and a Whole Child Task Force to examine ways to make schools more equitable and improve students’ overall well-being.

In another move pushing back against conservative education politics, Pritzker signed a bill last year that penalizes libraries that ban books .

California Gov. Gavin Newsom

Newsom, in his second term leading the nation’s largest state, has made a name for himself on the national stage as the Democrats’ answer to high-profile conservative politicians like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whom he faced in a televised debate last November . During the debate, Newsom criticized DeSantis for passing policies that he says harm LGBTQ+ students and students of color.

Like Gov. Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Newsom didn’t wait long to endorse Vice President Harris , saying on X that “no one is better to prosecute the case against Donald Trump’s dark vision and guide our country in a healthier direction than America’s Vice President.” As a fellow Californian, Newsom is seen as less likely to be a running mate for Harris.

As governor, Newsom aggressively pushed back against conservative school board politics. He’s gone after school districts for passing policies to reject curriculum about LGBTQ+ history , signed an executive order to expand career and technical education, and negotiated K-12 budget increases with teachers’ unions.

Just this month, Newsom signed a first-of-its-kind law that prohibits schools from requiring educators to tell parents if a student requests to go by a different name or pronouns at school—a direct rebuke to laws passed in a number of Republican-led states that require such disclosure. Already, a southern California school board that passed a policy requiring such notifications has sued Newsom over the new law .

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Pierce County business park project now includes more buildings, jobs, maybe a farm store

Amended plans under review in Bonney Lake for the Peak 410 business park include expanding the site along with adding more jobs and taking on more infrastructure work.

While the business park’s plans for occupants haven’t changed, its scope and cost have.

The park will feature “a range of employment and other economic activity, including light industrial, manufacturing, warehouse/distribution, retail and related office uses,” according to its plan.

The new plans submitted to the city this spring call for a project area of 64 acres, up from 50, providing for a building area of just over 1 million square feet among 10 buildings, up from 850,000 square feet across five buildings in its initial concept.

The proposed amended agreement says the project represents a “$200 million investment” in Bonney Lake, covering multiple parcels along state Route 410. That’s up from a previous projected cost of $115 million.

Some new elements include a drive-thru coffee shop in the last phase (seen in lower right corner of project map) and two new buildings in the southwest corner of a roundabout at 224th Avenue East and state Route 410.

One of those buildings is listed as a proposed 44,870-square-foot Wilco Farm Store, with 150 parking spaces; the other is a 30,000-square-foot building next door.

Lauren Balisky is interim planning manager for the City of Bonney Lake. She told The News Tribune on Monday in response to questions, “The City has not received an application or pre-application request from Wilco itself to develop the southwest corner,” at the roundabout.

Balisky added, “The City did receive a schematic/conceptual site plan, traffic impact analysis and wetland memo from the Peak 410 developer ... of what could be developed at that location.”

“Wilco is not a party to the development agreement and is not obligated to apply,” she said via email. “The schematic allows the City to evaluate the various uses proposed for the entire area covered by the development agreement and potential impacts.”

If Wilco did decide to build, it would be the Oregon-based retailer’s third Pierce County location, after Puyallup and Gig Harbor.

A June 20 briefing memo from Jason Sullivan, interim Public Services director for the city, outlined what had changed in the project since its initial Oct. 2022 development agreement.

Sullivan stated that the updated size-scope “reflects the addition of new parcels and changes in property ownership.”

The project with its multiple buildings is now estimated to bring in 800 jobs, up from 700.

The proposed amended deal includes multiple property transfers and additional infrastructure improvements to be completed by the developer.

Among those is “the construction of a new force main to serve the Mountain Creek neighborhood to connect it to the new sewer line within the project boundary,” according to Sullivan’s memo.

The project also would complete 100th Street East road construction on the south side of state Route 410.

Among the property transfers for infrastructure development:

▪ A portion of 224th Avenue East right-of-way would be vacated, and new right-of-way dedicated for the 224th Avenue East and state Route 410 roundabout.

▪ New easements established for proposed buildings with existing easements released.

▪ Perpetual stormwater detention for the city’s Decant Facility provided by the developer.

▪ City would transfer a portion of its adjacent property to expand one of the proposed stormwater ponds.

▪ Rights of way for the project’s street extensions would be dedicated to the city.

Project’s leader offers details

The project’s property owners are a collection of LLCs, and the project is overseen by Peak Design, led by Chris and Rylie Leier, who also own STL International Inc. The company, based in Bonney Lake, makes Teeter inversion tables and exercise equipment.

Chris Leier spoke to the Bonney Lake City Council during Peak 410’s hearing July 23, noting, “I think we have like 60 permits with the city at this point, all for various things.”

He said the first building “hopefully” would be completed by Oct. 1.

Explaining the growth of the project, he noted that it allows for “two more buildings on the north side of the freeway, and then a whole commercial development on the south side of the freeway.

“And it really encompasses all of the usable land that touches our core project and extends the benefits to those properties,” he added.

One reason for the expansion is to spread the costs and bring an extended timeline and and additional sixth phase, now running through December 2031 with the completion of the final phase.

“Money is very expensive to borrow right now,” he told the council. “And the cost has doubled, essentially, for everything. Building costs have doubled, the infrastructure costs have doubled.”

He noted that the development team’s “initial investment on this was going to be $8.3 million, and we’re around $15 million now for all your infrastructure.”

He added that “by extending this development agreement to these other pieces of land, it allows us to spread that over more square footage, and bring in more opportunity utilizing those dollars that are being been spent.”

The amended development agreement is tentatively on the council agenda for approval Aug. 13, according to the city’s website. The project’s traffic impact analysis is still under review.

Its revised Determination of Nonsignificance in its environmental review was issued July 3, with submitted appeals accepted through Aug. 8 and a final decision issued by Aug. 12.

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Elektrostal

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Elektrostal , city, Moscow oblast (province), western Russia . It lies 36 miles (58 km) east of Moscow city. The name, meaning “electric steel,” derives from the high-quality-steel industry established there soon after the October Revolution in 1917. During World War II , parts of the heavy-machine-building industry were relocated there from Ukraine, and Elektrostal is now a centre for the production of metallurgical equipment. Pop. (2006 est.) 146,189.