McMahon Reveals Congress Interested in Huge Step to Dismantle Ed Department

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is talking to “dozens” of Congress members about codifying the Education Department’s biggest step toward extinction.

The Daily Signal asked McMahon at Thursday’s press briefing if she was talking to members of Congress about her Tuesday announcement regarding moving certain functions of the department to other executive agencies.

“We’ve been talking to talk to dozens of members of Congress to explain to them exactly what we’re doing, to bring them up to speed,” she said in response to a question from The Daily Signal, “and to say to them, ‘Look, when we have completed some of these transfers that are working incredibly well, then we will be looking for Congress to codify those.’”

Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Mich., is one of the members of Congress McMahon has been in touch with, The Daily Signal has learned.

“The chairman has always believed that the Department of Education can’t be completely dissolved without congressional approval—a notion that both President [Donald] Trump and Sec. McMahon have also stated,” House Education Committee communications director Audra George told The Daily Signal. “These interagency agreements are partnerships that will break up bureaucracy and improve the programs that Americans rely on. By harnessing the expertise of other agencies and relevant stakeholders, we are empowering students, teachers, and parents.”

Education officials announced new interagency agreements with four agencies. The office of elementary and secondary education, as well as the postsecondary education office, will move to the Labor Department.

The agency’s Office of Indian Education will move to the Interior Department, and oversight of the Fulbright-Hays overseas research program and all of the government’s international education and foreign language initiatives will move to the State Department.

The Department of Health and Human Services will take over campus child care access and foreign medical school accreditation program.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt called this a “significant step toward delivering on a core campaign promise to finally close the Department of Education, to shrink the bloated federal bureaucracy.”

“This commonsense action brings the Trump administration much closer to finally returning education where it belongs at the state and local level, not in Washington, D.C.,” she said.

“The Democrats’ reckless 43-day government shutdown did manage to do one valuable thing,” she continued. “It proved that America does not need a federal Department of Education. During the longest shutdown in history, the Department of Education furloughed 90% of its staff, and America’s education system was not impacted whatsoever.”