Today, the Education and Workforce Committee held a hearing with Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) opened the hearing by applauding the Department for taking a more aggressive approach to civil rights enforcement, making clear that institutions that tolerate antisemitism risk losing federal funding.
“Secretary McMahon, you are also continuing the fight against antisemitism. This Committee has been beating the drum on this issue, and we will continue to do so. Our friends on the other side of the aisle seem interested in this issue only when they believe there is a political benefit to be gained. That’s tragic. Thank you for standing up for Jewish students and educators and for holding institutions accountable when they fail to protect students’ safety and access to educational opportunity,” he said.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) pushed back on critics of dismantling the Department of Education and returning power back to the states.
“We are failing our students, and we need to change that. Our states are really on board to…have more money block granted to them so that governors and superintendents can spend that money where in their states they need to spend it most,” Secretary McMahon said.
Drawing on his own experience, Rep. Mike Rulli (R-OH) echoed this point.
“Money is always diluted at the federal level through waste and administrative fees. As a school board member for many years…I always saw…that the federal government lost a lot of the money up top and it never made its way down. But with this grant program we’re going to be putting it right to the localized people,” he said.
Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA) discussed with the secretary how, through the Working Families Tax Cuts, the Committee advanced reforms—now being implemented by the Department—to expand access to high-quality, short-term workforce training through Workforce Pell.
“I hear from my district all the time about unfilled jobs and I know Workforce Pell will provide students and workers economic mobility through high quality shorter-term programs,” he noted.
Democrats spent the hearing attacking the Trump administration for failing impoverished minority children.
Rep. Bob Onder (R-MO) called out this hypocrisy on the left. “Today, Democrats and their teacher union allies are opposed to giving poor children…[the] opportunity to achieve a good education. [They] oppose education savings accounts, charter schools, open enrollment…even homeschooling. So it’s really rich to hear a Democrat somehow accuse you and me and my colleagues for being responsible for the segregation today…of poor minority children into failing schools when they insist on maintaining the public school monopoly that has generated that failure,” he said.
Secretary McMahon also gave Democrats a lesson in supply and demand. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) asked how capping student loans lower college costs.
“If [schools] have fewer applicants coming into their universities and they realize part of the reason is because the cost is too high, they will lower those costs…it is supply and demand,” said the secretary.
Democrats are failing to hold colleges and universities accountable for their rising costs–thanks to a previous system that allows students to go into mountains of debt with unlimited borrowing. Thankfully, Republicans have made key reforms.
Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC) brought the concerns of his constituents to the secretary, particularly regarding biological men in girls’ bathrooms.
The Biden-Harris administration left women and girls vulnerable in school. Its attempts to re-define womanhood to include biological men have cost women the protections and freedoms that they have worked decades to build. Thankfully, the Trump administration is working to restore common sense.
Bottom line: Republicans are working with Secretary McMahon to rein in a bloated federal education bureaucracy, return power to states and families, and refocus the system on student success, accountability, and real outcomes.
