On Monday, the Republican-led Senate voted to confirm Linda McMahon as the new secretary of the U.S. Department of Education.
McMahon, a former professional wrestling magnate who led the U.S. Small Business Administration during President Donald Trump's first term, was confirmed by a 51-45 vote along party lines.
McMahon has a limited background in education, though she served on Connecticut's State Board of Education for about a year.
In a statement announcing her nomination, Trump said, as secretary of education, McMahon will "empower the next Generation of American Students and Workers, and make America Number One in Education in the World."
In her confirmation hearing, which was heated at times and interrupted repeatedly by the protesters shouting about protections for students, McMahon decried a public education "system in decline" and vowed to "reorient" the U.S. Department of Education and "invest in teachers not Washington bureaucrats."
The White House has been clear that it intends to dismantle the department and that it will be McMahon's job to oversee that effort. The administration has already made cuts to department staff, programs and research, but it cannot officially close the department, as it was created by an act of Congress in 1979 and can only be closed by that same body.
A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll finds there isn't much public support for shuttering the agency: 63% of poll respondents opposed getting rid of the Education Department, compared to 37% in favor.
The Education Department is among the smallest of all federal agencies and one of its primary roles is to administer federal funding for K-12 schools, including through Title I (for students in lower-income communities) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, for students with disabilities).
McMahon said repeatedly at her confirmation hearing that she considers the Education Department and education funding to be two different things. The former, she said, can be dismantled without affecting the latter. "It is not the president's goal to defund the programs. It was only to have it operate more efficiently.
At the hearing, Sen. Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat, expressed exasperation at McMahon and Republicans who say they want the department to use its enforcement authority to punish schools that flout the new administration's demands – including their guidance on DEI and transgender athletes in sports – while they also say they want to strip the department of this very enforcement authority. She called this "elegant gaslighting."
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who has spoken out against school choice policies, asked if McMahon's primary role as education secretary would be "to support and strengthen our public schools"?
Her answer: "I absolutely do believe that our public schools are the bedrock of our education. You know, they go back to the very founding of our country."
Read more about Linda McMahon here.
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