EXCLUSIVE: McMahon Reveals Plan to Work With Congress to Bring Down Department of Education

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Education Secretary Linda McMahon would like Congress to use a number of small bills to dismantle the Department of Education, she told The Daily Signal in an exclusive interview.

The Supreme Court gave McMahon the OK to continue dismantling the Department of Education on July 14. The department is now able to move forward with 1,300 layoffs and redirecting resources to the states.

On Tuesday morning, McMahon and House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., discussed developing smaller bills that move certain Education Department programs under other government agencies.

The next rescissions package will include cuts to previously approved education funding, The Daily Signal reported Tuesday.

“Rather than trying to combine all of education going back to the states in one large, all-encompassing bill,” McMahon said, “I was talking to him about, did he think there would be a greater appetite to develop programs and prove that they work?”

McMahon thinks that approach would have the smoothest path to having Congress vote to end the department in its current form while making sure some programs continue, she said.

She wants crucial functions of the Department of Education, such as special-needs education and student loans, “to flourish and to even operate better and certainly more efficiently and more economically in other areas.”

McMahon said she would like to codify the department’s workforce development partnership with the Department of Labor. The Education Department is also considering moving student loans under the Treasury Department or Small Business Administration, and having Health and Human Services take over Individuals with Disabilities Education Act programs, she said, adding that nothing is set in stone at this time.

The American people gave Congress a mandate to rightsize the Department of Education, Walberg said. He plans to help the education secretary follow through on her promise.

“As Secretary McMahon has said on numerous phone calls and in her testimony to this committee, congressional action is needed to fully dissolve the department and reroute funding to go directly to the states,” Walberg told The Daily Signal. “For far too long, the Department of Education has failed our children, and we must get this right for their sake.”

Education Committee member Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, said he would support both congressional paths to dismantling the department.

“Whether it’s done through one big bill or a series of smaller ones, the goal is the same: Return education to parents, local leaders, and state authorities—where it belongs,” he told The Daily Signal.

The Trump administration’s goal is to get rid of bureaucracy and red tape so more money that Congress appropriates to the department can go to the states, McMahon said.

“There’s just a lot that we can do to provide best practices to states and to help develop tool kits to give to the states and say, ‘This is what we found has worked in other areas. Take from this what might work in yours and have that as a helpful guide,‘” she said.

McMahon said she is “incredibly pleased” with the Supreme Court ruling allowing her to carry out President Donald Trump’s March 20 executive order directing her to take all necessary steps to close the department.

“I was not surprised with the ruling, because I thought it was actually the only ruling they could really come back with, because I think the president was certainly acting within his constitutionally delegated authority,” she said, “and we’re prepared to move forward at a good pace.”

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