Linda McMahon, a former Senate candidate from Connecticut and GOP megadonor, will take the helm of the U.S. Department of Education at a pivotal time for the agency following her confirmation on Monday night.
The Senate voted along party lines, 51-45, to confirm McMahon as part of President Donald Trump's Cabinet. Connecticut's senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal opposed her nomination, along with all Democrats.
McMahon, the World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder who lives in Greenwich, will oversee a department that has already undergone changes through some of Trump's executive orders. But the administration is reportedly planning another to gut the agency as much as it can within the law.
While education is largely a state and local issue, the Department of Education is tasked with providing federal assistance and funding to schools. That includes providing grants to high-needs communities, including additional funding to schools with high concentrations of low-income students (Title I) and multilingual learners (Title III). And it administers student aid for those going to college.
It is also responsible for collecting national, statewide and local data for research and overseeing protections for diverse student groups like students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
"The Department will be focused on advancing education freedom, not building up government-run systems. We will empower states and districts to have more say in what is working on the ground for students instead of bureaucratic edicts from Washington, D.C.," McMahon said in a statement following her confirmation.
"President Trump pledged to make American education the best in the world, return education to the states where it belongs, and free American students from the education bureaucracy through school choice I intend to make good on that promise," she said.
Trump has repeatedly said he wants to shut down the Education Department and "move education back to the states where it belongs" — something he mentioned again at his first Cabinet meeting at the White House last week, which McMahon attended.
But he cannot eliminate the agency on his own — he needs congressional approval. McMahon has acknowledged he does not have the authority to unilaterally shutter a department created under federal statute and that doing so would require help from Congress, which created it in a 1979 law during President Jimmy Carter's administration.
But Murphy has argued that the administration can still try to "functionally dismantle
the agency" by firing most of the employees, similar to efforts to gut the United States Agency for International Development and only keep a small number of employees.
McMahon, 76, is a familiar face in Trump's inner circle.
She served in his Cabinet during his first administration as head of the Small Business Administration in 2017. She departed that role in 2019 to chair pro-Trump super PAC, America First Action, raising tens of millions of dollars for his 2020 reelection bid.
She also served as chair of the board for the America First Policy Institute. She most recently served as the co-chair of Trump’s transition team and had been rumored to be under consideration to lead the U.S. Department of Commerce before Trump nominated her for the Education Department.
McMahon will take over the agency most recently led by another Connecticut native. Former Education Secretary Miguel Cardona is from Meriden and an alumnus of Central Connecticut State University and the University of Connecticut. Before taking the job in the Biden administration, Cardona served as commissioner of the Connecticut state Department of Education.
At her confirmation hearing last month, she vowed to focus on more post-secondary pathways like apprenticeships, advocate for school choice, and prevent transgender student athletes from competing in women’s sports. She also said in an exchange with a Republican senator that colleges and universities would "face defunding" if they do not address antisemitism on campuses.
"In many cases, our wounds are caused by the excessive consolidation of power in our federal education establishment. So what’s the remedy? Fund education freedom, not a government-run system. Listen to parents, not politicians. Empower states, not special interests," McMahon said in her opening statement at last week’s hearing.
"If confirmed as secretary, I will work with Congress to reorient the department to helping educators, not controlling them," she continued.
The hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee gave insight into how she and the administration may overhaul the Education Department.
She faced a flurry of questions about what would happen to Title I funding for schools with higher concentrations of low-income students, Pell Grants that provide student aid to attend college and special education programs that fall under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Federal funds to local districts are primarily distributed through title grants, which target districts that are historically under-resourced with the greatest concentrations of high-needs students, including those who qualify for free and reduced lunch, which is known as Title I.
Lawmakers wanted to know how such programs may change under Trump’s plans to overhaul the Education Department, which has been spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk and his team with the new Department of Government Efficiency. Those efforts have been met with swift backlash and lawsuits, some from Connecticut’s attorney general, arguing that they are unconstitutional.
McMahon said defunding certain programs that give a boost to low-income students and families like Title I funding for K-12 public schools and Pell Grants for aid to attend college "is not the goal."
But McMahon testified she will work alongside Congress "to reorient the department" and suggested that certain programs, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, could instead be housed in other agencies that do not oversee education matters, like the U.S. Health and Human Services department, which is now led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
During the hearing, Murphy, who sits on the HELP Committee, used his time to press McMahon on Trump’s executive order to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and programs. He said the order does not define DEI, noting that schools with federal funding are struggling to determine whether they are in violation with that order.
Murphy gave her hypothetical examples to determine if schools would be in violation of the DEI executive order and therefore could be subject to losing their funding.
What if a school has programming to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day? "Not in my view, that’s not the case," McMahon said.
Murphy then said his son takes a class in school studying African American history. Would that violate the DEI order? "I’m not quite certain, and I’d like to look into it further," she said.
"That’s pretty chilling," Murphy responded.
Both Blumenthal and Murphy voted for McMahon in her role during the first Trump administration. But this time around, both had said they would not support her for this new role because of the president's plans to dismantle the agency.
CT Mirror reporter Jessika Harkay contributed to this story.
The Connecticut Mirror/Connecticut Public Radio federal policy reporter position is made possible, in part, by funding from the Robert and Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation.
This story was originally published by the Connecticut Mirror.
