Education Secretary Linda McMahon defended the Trump administration’s deep cuts to the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday by saying it’s time to “shake it up” and “revamp” some of the agency’s key data collection and accountability functions that have been subject to some of the steepest reductions.
McMahon addressed attendees at the annual ASU+GSV Summit here, which has brought together thousands of ed-tech entrepreneurs and other education professionals to discuss K-12 and higher education.
Her remarks, in an on-stage discussion with two moderators—Jon Hage, the founder of a multistate charter school network, and Phyllis Lockett, who headed up a charter school initiative in Chicago—came as the education secretary seeks to make some of the biggest changes to federal education policy in recent memory. The Trump administration is moving to shut down the Education Department, halving the agency’s staff and swiftly canceling scores of grants and contracts, while simultaneously ramping up enforcement of President Donald Trump’s policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion; transgender athletes; and antisemitism by threatening federal funding cuts to schools and organizations that don’t comply.
Those moves loomed large over the conversation, in which McMahon continued to make the case that the department wasn’t effectively serving students.
“We’ve just gotten to a point that we can’t keep going along, doing what we’re doing. Let’s shake it up, do something different,” she said. “And it’s not through bureaucracy in Washington where it happens.”
McMahon’s remarks were met with a mostly quiet audience, whose members applauded when moderators asked about how the department would ensure that resources flowed to historically disadvantaged students—students with disabilities, students of color, and students from low-income communities. A small gathering of protesters outside the conference center led to increased security during Tuesday’s slate of events.
Other panelists at the conference—including two of her predecessors—condemned the administration’s attack on the department, saying it was an attack on democracy that went beyond just education. One speaker criticized ASU+GSV for inviting McMahon.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t have given the stage to a member of this administration,” Paul LeBlanc, the former president of Southern New Hampshire University, said to applause. “Those who are having rational conversations with the secretary ... the bully just keeps coming back for your lunch money.”
McMahon pledged that federal funding that supports those students would be protected, but “may shift to a different agency.” The president has already begun to discuss where—shifting special education to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and student loan administration to the Small Business Administration—but the administration has yet to present a plan for winding down the 45-year-old Education Department.
Though McMahon conceded that she needed Congress’ say-so to dismantle a Cabinet-level agency, the Trump administration has already taken drastic action without congressional involvement. The department is running with a much smaller staff—which states say is already delaying reimbursement of key funds—and school districts are feeling the effects of the cancellation of a variety of funds and services.
“I really want to work with Congress,” McMahon told the audience. “I want to have them partner with us, so that they understand that what we really want to provide for the states are our best practices and tools to help the states so that when there is no longer that Department of Education, there are other agencies, etc., that will uphold and provide that.”
Some of the department’s most significant functions other than funding have been severely cut in the months since Trump returned to the White House, whittling down the department’s ability to gather data from states used by education researchers and to administer the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The reductions have cut deeply into the department’s office for civil rights, which enforces federal civil rights laws in schools. The cuts are the subject of multiple lawsuits.
John King, who served as education secretary under Democratic President Barack Obama from 2016 to 2017, feared what will happen to civil rights investigations and financial aid under the diminished department.
“One of the saddest things about what they’re doing is they abandoned the idea that education is a vital national interest,” he said. “And that, to me, is very dangerous.”
McMahon said she was looking at “revamping” the Institute of Education Sciences—the department’s research arm that’s also charged with administering NAEP—saying its funding was continuing to grow, but “suddenly you look around and you’re going, ‘Well, why are we doing this? Why are we researching that, and we’re ignoring this over here?’”
She said the department would keep the NAEP, also known as the nation’s report card, which has for decades enjoyed bipartisan support. She said she’s told the president that NAEP is “what keeps us honest, because it’s comparing apples to apples.” But the office charged with administering it, the National Center for Education Statistics, has three staff members left.
While acknowledging its importance, McMahon said she wonders how NAEP could be revised.
“I’m not a technology expert, and I would really be interested in hearing what we need to do. How can we measure differently? I know we’re doing it now every other year, 4th and 8th grades. [Is] that the model we ought to have?” she said. “I just want to get the best results so that we can fine-tune best practices that we are offering to our states.”
The National Assessment Governing Board—the appointed body that develops the frameworks and policies for NAEP—has in recent years laid out plans to eventually administer the exam on students’ own devices, and to deliver results sooner so teachers can use them to inform instruction. The board has also contemplated how to rework the NAEP writing exam that hasn’t been given since 2017 for the generative artificial intelligence age.
The undercurrent of McMahon’s case for reworking federal education policy is that control over education is best left to governors, state education departments, and local districts—which are already providing the bulk of public school funding and making curriculum decisions.
She highlighted Republican governors in in Florida, Arkansas, and Iowa—which is already seeking more flexibility in how it receives and spends its federal dollars—as innovators, but said the innovation isn’t limited to “one party or the other.”
“Some governors are going to do this better than others, and that’s just a fact,” she said. “Some states will do better than others, and that’s a fact. And so what we have to do is make sure that we are encouraging.”
One of the governors she highlighted, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa, told ASU+GSV attendees at a separate session on Monday that the dissolution of the federal agency would be a “real opportunity for the states,” and that governors are ready to take over in the department’s absence.
“No two states are the same. We all have different priorities, we all have different needs. … It makes more sense, I think, for the communities and the state and for the parents to be involved in the education at the state level,” Reynolds said. “We’re ready and we can do it. We should be held accountable, which we will be.”
The desire, though, of relinquishing control entirely to the states runs up against the department’s hold on federal funds as a way to control how the states approach race-based programming, which has also been the subject of litigation.
The Education Department last week sent a memo to state education chiefs directing them to certify their schools were not using any “illegal” diversity, equity, and inclusion practices as a condition of receiving federal funding.
The order was generating confusion, said moderator Lockett, the CEO of LEAP-X, an education innovation lab, who has been involved in starting up charter schools in Chicago.
“We know there’s a persistent achievement gap among Black and brown and low-income students, and so there has been a lot of resources directed as a result of that. So when we hear that, ‘Oh, DEI is a bad thing,’ it’s confusing,” she said. “And so help us understand … what are we trying to accomplish here?”
When Lockett tried to drill down on what programs could be violating the department’s guidance, McMahon said it was about eliminating “exclusion.” The department has yet to define DEI in any documents it has sent to schools and states instructing them not to use any DEI practices.
“I really believe cultural celebrations, like Black History Month, it’s not just about Blacks, it’s about our history,” McMahon said. “If we’re having an amazing Asian American group, well, it shouldn’t just be Asian Americans, we should welcome everyone to come in and learn about that history and that diversity. So rather than being with exclusion, no, it’s all about inclusion to all of us.”
Aligned with another of the president’s education policy priorities, McMahon pointed to school choice—which Trump has sought to expand through a narrow executive order in late January, which the Education Department followed up with guidance to schools on limited flexibility they have under Title I—as a way to improve outcomes. She viewed it as her charge as secretary to “allow all of these different forms of education to come in.”
“That’s what I mean when I talk about helping to provide best practices and tools to states,” McMahon said. “If I were leaving any kind of legacy, I hope that’s kind of what I can do, in a short period of time.”
