Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Thursday that cutting “bloat” at the federal level is critical to empowering education at the state level.
McMahon commented on interagency agreements to end redundancy in the Education Department during a press briefing with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“We have linked six groundbreaking partnerships with other federal agencies to delegate Education Department programs that are redundant with existing programs at Labor, State, Interior, and [Health and Human Services],” McMahon said.
“These interagency agreements to cut our own bureaucratic bloat are a key step in our efforts to shift educational authority from Washington, DC, to your state education agency, your local superintendent, your local school board–entities that are accountable to you,” she added.
McMahon stated that critics who claim the federal government is defunding education, operating without a plan, or hurting students are wrong and said Americans elected President Donald Trump to office via a mandate in part because of frustrations with a federalized education system.
“They’re painfully aware that only three out of ten students can read proficiently at their grade level, they know that college students are collectively $1.7 trillion in debt, and less than half of college graduates get a job that actually uses the degree which they studied so hard to get,” she said.
“They see more teachers than ever before leaving the profession due to burnout, overregulation, and lack of autonomy in the classroom. Anti-Trump voices are stirring up fear that returning education to the states is a draconian action,” she added.
McMahon added that when Americans are informed of the department’s plans to preserve K-12 funding as well as “important elements of our work in other federal agencies,” 56 percent are supportive of their plans.
She noted that waste can be cut by sending funding directly to states for education, noting the department is “a pass-through entity” that doesn’t actually educate students.
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