Education Secretary Linda McMahon is kicking off a nationwide tour focused on promoting the administration’s goal of dismantling the Department of Education, which has been met with congressional and legal challenges.
The “Returning Education to the States Tour” is set to take McMahon on a tour of all 50 states, starting in Louisiana, where she met with leadership and educators to discuss strategies for improving education. She told “CBS Mornings Plus” that this approach is meant to focus on highlighting resources states can provide to students, in lieu of those traditionally provided by the Department of Education.
“I think as we make this tour and as I see what best practices are and we provide these toolkits, we develop them and then can deliver them to the states and say these are things that you can choose from. These are things that have been successful in other states. It’s not a mandate,” McMahon said. “I think every school system needs to work within its own community to decide what curriculum works best there. What are the ways that their students can learn? And that’s why it’s imperative that education be returned to the states because when states are creative and innovative, you will see the kind of progress that you’ve seen here in Louisiana.”
President Trump issued an executive order to begin dismantling the department in March, arguing that education policy and funding should be left to the states. McMahon announced cuts of roughly half its workforce the same month. The downsizing has led to legal challenges, but the Supreme Court allowed the cuts to continue in July.
In 2024, the department accounted for less than 4% of the federal budget. Its responsibilities include overseeing federal student loan programs, distributing grants for low-income schools and enforcing non-discrimination policies in schools. It does not set curriculum.
Completely abolishing the department would require congressional approval, an unlikely proposition given Democrats’ general opposition to eliminating it altogether. Democrats say shuttering the department would lead to chaos for students and families who rely on federal funding for a patchwork of education programs.
In her tour, the secretary is highlighting Louisiana because it is the only state in the country that has shown an improvement in elementary literacy since before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a review of fourth graders’ standardized testing scores by The Nation’s Report Card. The review shows that since 2019, Louisiana has gone from being ranked last in the nation for fourth-grade reading scores to 16th. Massachusetts currently holds the top spot, despite seeing declining scores during that same time period.
During that time, Louisiana also received more than $5 billion for education-related COVID-19 pandemic relief assistance, according to data from the Department of Education. That funding has been used to fund a variety of educational programs, including additional teacher trainings and outreach efforts for students who are struggling academically.
Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley said his state’s use of those funds illustrates why he is in support of the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.
“We were able to use those pandemic dollars around the academic efforts that we knew were best for students in the state of Louisiana and that really worked,” Brumley said. “I think that if we can continue to work with Secretary McMahon and her team around loosening the restrictions around these funds, we can work with our state legislature, with moms and dads and local communities here around where to best situate those dollars for the needs of kids here in the state of Louisiana.”
McMahon was also quick to brush aside concerns about funding for special education programs suffering if the Department of Education is dismantled.
“I think that is the least worry that anyone should have because Congress appropriates that money and it flows through whichever agency will be distributing it. So that money flowed from 1965 before there was a Department of Education, and it will continue to flow,’ McMahon said.
It’s unclear which agency would become responsible for distributing special education grants if the Department of Education is disbanded. Currently, the department provides special education grants that supplement state funding for the more than 7.5 million students with disabilities.