Andrew Rice

The Center Square

After spending $3 trillion since its inception in 1979, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon on Wednesday reaffirmed the Trump administration’s commitment to close the federal Department of Education by the end of 2029.

McMahon spoke at the Defense of Freedom Institute and Federalist Society’s Education Law and Policy Conference about the Education Department’s efforts to withdraw federal funds from schools, expand trade and apprenticeship programs, and move its functions elsewhere to other agencies.

“I have changed now how we are talking about closing the department really to returning education to the states, and in order to do that I think we have to continue to uphold the law,” McMahon said.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March giving McMahon authority to dismantle operations within the Department of Education.

McMahon said some operations in the Education Department have shifted to the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor. Over the past several months, the Education Department has shifted responsibilities and some personnel to the Department of Labor to administer Pell grants and the Perkins Act.

“It's much better to have them in the Department of Labor, where, you know, we can combine all of these workforce efforts,” McMahon said. “What we're trying to do is to show how we can move different parts of the Department of Education to show that they can be more efficiently operating in other agencies.”

McMahon noted that the shifting department responsibilities cannot be fully implemented without approval from Congress.

“We can do this aspect of what we're doing and build and show how it is best served with this department, how the allocated funds will run better and have one source managing all of labor,” McMahon said.

While the Education Department's shifting awaits approval from Congress, McMahon said she has shifted focus to investigating and withholding federal funds from school systems and universities across the country for violations of civil rights laws.

“They have to be worthy to receive the funds they are receiving from the United States government,” McMahon said.

McMahon mentioned the Trump administration’s threat to withdraw more than $2 billion in federal funds against Harvard University and pointed to how the school changed some of its policies throughout the current legal fight.

“Without even admitting any guilt in any way, they have started to change their policies, and that’s the ultimate goal of our investigation,” McMahon said.

McMahon also specifically referred to schools promoting transgender policies and race-based scholarships and admissions policies as targets for withholding billions of dollars of federal funds.

“Your admissions policy has to be based on merit and not on race,” McMahon said.

She referred to incidents where a northern Virginia county school system allowed transgender-identifying individuals to access locker rooms aligned with their perceived gender identity.

“Men are men and women are women, and I think the President's executive order was very clear about that, and so that is the rule that we are holding as part of the Department of Education,” McMahon said.

McMahon said instilling patriotic values in education and decentralizing the government’s role will improve outcomes for students.

“We’ve taken more power away from the states with worse outcomes,” McMahon said, referring to recent test score reports. Education "will be better served at the state level without the bureaucracy in Washington D.C.”.