In her quest to become the nation’s final leader of the Department of Education, Linda McMahon has taken major steps to accomplish President Donald Trump’s goal of shuttering the agency.
Since her Senate confirmation in early March, the secretary has been directed to dissolve the department using all necessary steps permitted by law and Education Department officials claim she is using her broad authority to do so. This mandate has included everything from partnering with agencies that can co-manage the department’s responsibilities to severely gutting the agency’s workforce by slicing its staff nearly in half.
A year ago Wednesday, then-President elect Trump praised McMahon’s expertise, tapping the former WWE CEO and businesswoman to return education to the states and put herself out of a job.
“Linda will use her decades of Leadership experience, and deep understanding of both Education and Business, to empower the next Generation of American Students and Workers, and make America Number One in Education in the World,” the president’s official statement read. “We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort,” he noted.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon speaks during a television interview at the White House, Nov. 19, 2025, in Washington.
Alex Brandon/AP
McMahon has led critical efforts to make good on Trump’s pledge. The secretary has closed regional offices dedicated to civil rights complaints and tasked with investigating discrimination within schools; fired dozens of employees within the Federal Student Aid (FSA) office, which helps students achieve postsecondary education and handles a $1.6 trillion portfolio of student loans; and she continues to explore ways to move those statutory functions and others, like administering the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which creates a free and appropriate education for children with disabilities, to separate partner agencies.
Over the past several months, the smallest Cabinet-level agency has been turned on its head in an effort to cut red tape and reduce Washington bureaucracy, but critics say the impact goes much further than reductions in the workforce. These changes are causing an immediate harm to students and could potentially be consequential for generations to come, according to education advocates like American Federation of Teachers President (AFT) Randi Weingarten. Weingarten told ABC News that the Trump administration is “basically walking away from the future of the country.”
Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), speaks November 13, 2025 in New York City.
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“What Trump says is ‘I’m getting rid of the Department of Education,'” Weingarten told ABC News, adding “He’s making it clear that the only department that actually deals with children now – he says ‘I want to get rid of.’ That’s an abandonment of the future. That’s an abdication of responsibility.”
Meanwhile, defenders of education freedom, like Neal McCluskey at libertarian think-tank the Cato Institute, applaud McMahon’s efforts to shutter the department because he believes it should not exist.
“The Constitution gives the federal government no authority to govern in education and the department has no track record of practical success,” McCluskey wrote in a statement to ABC News.
McMahon has said the education system should work more efficiently and power should be given back to those closest to school children, like parents and local education agencies. She is continuing a 50-state tour to review the best educational practices on the state level and working with local leaders to scale those practices nationwide. McMahon is also working to codify department changes into law.
The Department of Education headquarters in Washington, DC, Oct. 10, 2025.
Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images
In order to do so, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said McMahon will “have to come to Congress.” However, Foxx strongly supports the job McMahon is doing to expose the what they call a failing agency that skeptics argue hasn’t addressed student achievement outcomes.
“She’s pointing out to the American people how useless the Department of Education is,” Foxx told ABC News. “It’s worse than useless. It creates damages [to students], so by moving items into other departments she’s slowly dismantling the department and showing why it’s not needed.”
Andy Kim, one of the 45 Democratic senators who hoped to block McMahon’s confirmation, argued that the federal government should be providing additional support and opportunities to students — not taking that government support away. He called the secretary’s work to close the agency “irresponsible.”
“It shows just how destructive they’ve [the Trump administration] been in terms of how we can give our kids, you know, the kind of tools they need to grow,” Kim told ABC News.