The nominations of two top U.S. Department of Education officials are headed to the U.S. Senate floor for final approval, after the education committee this week greenlit President Donald Trump’s picks for agency leadership.
Lawmakers on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee on Thursday voted 12-11 on party lines to approve Penny Schwinn, the department’s presumptive No. 2 appointed to serve as the deputy secretary under U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and Kimberly Richey, selected as the assistant secretary overseeing the Education Department’s office for civil rights.
The affirmative vote brings the women closer to joining a vastly different Education Department than when Trump’s second term began in January. His administration is working to whittle down the 45-year-old federal agency, including by cutting its staff by nearly half through buyouts, early retirement offers, and layoffs—although the fate of those layoffs is still playing out in court.
“These nominees are crucial to enacting President Trump’s pro-America agenda,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., chair of the committee, said in a news release. “I appreciate my colleagues’ commitment to getting President Trump’s team in place.”
Schwinn—a former teacher, school leader, and state education chief in Tennessee—leaned on her experience as an education leader during the June 5 confirmation hearing, arguing to the senators that states need more control of federal dollars to get the best outcomes for students, though she stopped short of fully endorsing the president’s plan to shutter the Education Department.
While Democrats and many educators have been skeptical of McMahon, a former wrestling executive with a light resume in education, Schwinn’s nomination drew bipartisan praise. Three former education secretaries serving under Democratic and Republican presidents deemed her a promising nomination.
But Schwinn still faced headwinds from conservatives upon her nomination, who chafed at the way she previously dismissed battles over gender and race instruction as “extraneous politics,” as she once told the news outlet The 74 in 2023.
Facing scrutiny from Republicans at her hearing, Schwinn agreed she would align herself with the president’s aggressive enforcement agenda, which has resulted in the agency opening more than 100 cases against school districts and states due to Trump’s executive orders seeking to roll back policies around transgender students and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Richey—currently a top official in Florida’s department of education, who served in the office for civil rights under President George W. Bush and during Trump’s first term—would be the one tasked with overseeing those investigations. She told lawmakers earlier this month that she was prepared to do just that.
The Senate committee already OK’d the nomination of Kirsten Baesler, the longtime North Dakota state education leader, who is appointed to serve as the assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education.
Schwinn, Richey, and Baesler now await final approval from the full Senate.
