Appointment of Linda McMahon to Dismantle the Department of Education Would Irreparably Damage Student Learning

In advance of tomorrow’s nomination hearing of Linda McMahon to serve as the next secretary of Education, Kevin Carey, the vice president of Education and Work programs at New America, issued the following statement.

Linda McMahon’s confirmation hearing to become secretary of Education comes as the Trump administration wages a full-scale assault on child welfare, public education, and the rule of law.

In less than a month, this administration has compiled an appalling record on the health and safety of young people. The illegal shutdown of USAID will unquestionably result in countless children dying from malnutrition and preventable disease. President Trump’s disregard for the well-being of vulnerable students is now being extended to his dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education.

This week, the administration gutted the Institute for Education Sciences by cancelling nearly 100 ongoing contracts for education data and research. An administration that actually cared about efficiency would not destroy the government’s ability to know if education dollars are well spent.

One member of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team that has been unlawfully granted access to sensitive government databases is a self-proclaimed white supremacist; another was fired from a cybersecurity firm for leaking private information. DOGE staffers have accessed Department of Education databases that contain highly sensitive and legally protected information for millions of students. Unqualified racist coders from Silicon Valley have no business downloading private information about students’ educational and financial lives.

The Trump plan to cut billions of National Institutes of Health dollars from university-based research dedicated to curing cancer, mitigating contagious disease, and supporting breakthrough scientific discoveries will lead directly to future death and suffering. In its quest to punish research universities as ideologically disfavored institutions, the administration will do immense damage to science, health, and America’s global standing.

The Department of Education supports high-poverty schools, protects students with disabilities, and guarantees civil rights—all protections that will disappear if the Trump administration is allowed to implement its privatization agenda. Under this regime, predatory for-profit colleges will be free to steal from students and taxpayers while public education funds are siphoned off to unaccountable private corporations.

The administration and Republicans in Congress are simultaneously proposing drastic and immediate cuts to other programs, including Medicaid, that serve our most vulnerable children. This is a radical and destructive attempt to dismantle the infrastructure on which families, schools, and communities depend.

The president does not have the legal authority to unilaterally shut down the Department of Education, cancel its spending, or disregard its Congressionally–mandated duties. Ms. McMahon is being hired to carry out an act of unconstitutional sabotage on the great American institution of public education.

For more on New America's growing collection of posts and statements on defending the Department of Education, see here.

Media contact: Katherine Portnoy

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