McMahon affirmation as schooling secretary advances to full Senate

Linda McMahon’s nomination for U.S. secretary of schooling superior Thursday with the approval of the Senate Well being, Schooling, Labor and Pensions Committee, which voted 12-11 alongside get together traces.

“We’d like a robust chief on the division who will get our schooling system again on monitor, and Ms. McMahon is the proper particular person for the job,” stated HELP Chair Invoice Cassidy, R-La., earlier than the vote.

McMahon appeared earlier than the committee Feb. 13 for a 2 ½ hour affirmation listening to the place she spoke of her priorities for increasing college selection and skills-based studying, offering extra decision-making energy to native faculties and fogeys, and defending college students from discrimination and harassment. 

She additionally talked about her openness to creating sweeping adjustments on the U.S. Division of Schooling, together with transferring packages like particular schooling oversight and civil rights investigations to different federal businesses.

“We’re failing our college students, our Division of Schooling, and what we’re doing immediately shouldn’t be working, and we have to change it,” McMahon stated on the time. McMahon previously served as administrator of the Small Enterprise Administration for 2 years in President Donald Trump’s first administration. She was beforehand president and CEO of World Wrestling Leisure.

Trump and the non permanent Division of Authorities Effectivity, or DOGE, have already made main alterations to Schooling Division actions, together with by trying to freeze funding to states, canceling analysis contracts, halting variety, fairness and inclusion funds and programming, and calling for the top of “radical indoctrination” in Okay-12 faculties.

Trump has additionally stated his objective is to shut the Schooling Division — a transfer that would wish congressional approval. 

At Thursday’s HELP govt session, which lasted about quarter-hour, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., stated he was opposing McMahon’s nomination. “I discover areas of settlement [with McMahon], however I am unable to vote for someone who will willfully have interaction within the destruction of the very company she needs to steer. That’s disqualifying,” Kaine stated.

Rating member Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., additionally voted in opposition to McMahon’s nomination and criticized what he stated was a transfer towards an authoritarian society the place “all energy is resting within the palms of some within the White Home.”

“It does not actually matter who the Secretary will probably be, as a result of she or he is not going to have the ability,” Sanders stated.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., earlier than voting in favor of the nomination, stated U.S. schooling has fallen in international rankings. “If we actually say we’re for the children, then let’s attempt one thing drastic,” Mullin stated. “Let’s really make a change, as a result of we’re doing nothing however going backwards, and our check scores have not improved since 1979. They’ve simply continued to fall.”

A full Senate vote on McMahon’s affirmation is forthcoming.