As President Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary made her pitch on Capitol Hill to lead the U.S. Department of Education, the agency continued to be the subject of aggressive downsizing efforts from the Trump administration through billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team.
Linda McMahon appeared before U.S. senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee on Thursday. She hasn’t taken office, but she already had to answer for the turbulence that has enveloped the Education Department since Trump took office, with Musk’s team probing the agency’s spending, gaining access to sensitive data, canceling scores of contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and aggressively pushing to downsize a department that the president has repeatedly pledged to eliminate.
Here’s what happened in week four of Trump’s new administration.
McMahon makes her case in ‘surreal’ hearing
McMahon testified before lawmakers on Thursday, aligning herself with Trump’s stated goal for her to “put herself out of a job.”
“Well, surely the president has given a very clear directive that he would like to look in totality at the Department of Education, and believes that the bureaucracy of it should be closed, that we should return education to our states,” she told senators.
She repeatedly expressed, however, that the goal was not to end federal funding that supports low-income students and students with disabilities. She even talked about expanding Pell grants, which support low-income students pursuing higher education. She agreed there was a federal role in enforcing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
“It is not the president’s goal to defund the programs, it is only to have the programs run more efficiently,” McMahon said.
McMahon declined to get into details, particularly when asked to discuss what DOGE had been doing in the department without any permanent agency leadership in place. She could not answer questions about specific requirements in the Every Student Succeeds Act, when Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who negotiated the law a decade ago, asked which provisions she would ensure are implemented. McMahon offered ideas that aligned with the conservative policy agenda Project 2025 when asked to discuss where the agency’s vast portfolio of functions would move if the Education Department were shuttered. She would not say definitively whether classes on Black history could be taught under one of Trump’s executive orders, despite the fact that the federal government has no authority over curriculum. She repeatedly told senators she would have to assess these matters once she was officially confirmed.
McMahon also embraced school choice. Trump has already sought to use his executive authority to expand school choice at the federal level, even though his hands are fairly tied.
Republican lawmakers said it was time to change the “status quo” of public education.
The hearing left some Democrats seeing contradictions as McMahon discussed her plans for the department while also advising its elimination.
“The whole hearing right now feels kind of surreal to me,” Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said. “It’s almost like we’re being subjected to a very elegant gaslighting.”
- Read Education Week’s coverage of McMahon’s hearing. 🔎
- Read 5 key takeaways from McMahon’s hearing. 🔎
- Read more about McMahon’s comments on dismantling the Education Department. 🔎
- Read more about McMahon’s comments on Trump’s “radical indoctrination” executive order. 🔎
Education Department kills contracts for research, citing diversity, equity, and inclusion
As Musk’s DOGE team continues to diminish the footprint and power of the Education Department, the Trump administration revoked nearly $900 million in contracts funded by the agency on Monday—and ended another $350 million in contracts on Thursday.
The Monday decision stalled nearly 90 Education Department contracts that include a tool that helps educators sift through dense curriculum research, surveys on school crime, and long-term studies examining post-graduation outcomes for high schoolers.
Most seem to stem from the agency’s research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences. IES oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress and statistics-gathering and dissemination through the National Center for Education Statistics. It has typically had bipartisan support, and the Trump administration said NAEP wouldn’t be affected by the contract cancellations.
In a statement late Thursday night, the department said it had also canceled more than $350 million in contracts for regional educational laboratories and equity assistance centers, saying that they were “wasteful and ideologically driven spending not in the interest of students and taxpayers.” It cited one educational laboratory’s suggestions to Ohio schools to complete equity audits and hold equity conversations as an example of why it cut spending.
The regional laboratories offer research and technical support to states and districts. The department said it planned to enter into new contracts to continue them. A group representing research organizations, the Knowledge Alliance, on Friday said the cancellation of the laboratory contracts “continues the unprecedented assault on learning and evaluation in the U.S. education system.”
Read more about the contract cancellations. 🔎
DOGE’s access to Education Department prompts lawsuit, led by teachers’ union
The nation’s second largest teachers’ union on Monday sued the Education Department and two other agencies, alleging that they improperly disclosed Americans’ sensitive information as DOGE staffers gained access to sensitive data.
The complaint accuses the Education Department, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Treasury Department of violating federal privacy laws by granting Musk’s employees access to the agencies’ data systems, which house the Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, and dates and places of birth of millions of Americans. The lawsuit is asking the court to block DOGE’s access to these data systems.
Musk has previously made clear his negative opinion on the nation’s K-12 schools, and has shown full agreement with Trump’s plan to abolish the Education Department. Through an executive order, Trump gave Musk’s unofficial agency broad authority over agency hiring.
Members of the DOGE team have been working out of the Education Department this month, accessing sensitive information and feeding some into artificial intelligence tools, according to the Washington Post. Last week, Democratic lawmakers were denied entry to the Education Department as they sought a meeting with Denise Carter, the acting education secretary; other agencies under the scrutiny of DOGE have done the same in recent weeks.
Read more about the lawsuit against the Education Department. 🔎
As department lays off employees, it names political appointees
Even with the hopes to abolish the Education Department, and even as the agency lays off a number of employees, the administration has continued to build out its political appointees.
Trump picked Kirsten Baesler, a former school leader and technology integration coach and the nation’s longest-serving state superintendent, to serve as assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education.
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Baesler would Penny Schwinn, who led schools in Tennessee and has been nominated to the post of deputy secretary. Baesler currently serves as North Dakota’s state superintendent.
Read more about Kirsten Baesler here. 🔎
