In a fiery hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill, Education Secretary Linda McMahon defended the Trump administration’s request to cut 15% from the department’s budget, The Hill reported.
McMahon said the $12 billion in cuts was part of President Donald Trump’s “final mission” to shutter the department. McMahon said her priorities are school choice, literacy rates, and returning educational oversight to the states.
Some of the proposed cuts target preschool grants and the Office of Civil Rights, The Hill said.
“The fiscal year ’26 budget will take a significant step toward that goal. We seek to shrink federal bureaucracy, save taxpayer money and empower states who best know their local needs to manage education in this country,” McMahon said in her opening statement.
Democrats assailed McMahon for wanting to close the agency.
“Madam Secretary, the legacy you will be leaving is that ‘I shut down the Department of Education.’ How we educate our children determines not just their future, but our own. But I think it’s a sad legacy you will leave,” Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., told her.
“The Department of Education is one of the most important departments in this country and you should feel shameful [to] be engaged with an administration that doesn’t give a damn,” said Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.
McMahon said she is looking at moving programs to other departments, with the Trump administration proposing moving student loans to the Department of the Treasury and moving programs for students with disabilities to the Department of Health and Human Services, The Hill said.
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