Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) assured that Congress is “fully in support” of Education Secretary Linda McMahon‘s efforts to eliminate her department at the request of President Donald Trump.
Johnson is fresh from a successful vote in the House to fund the government to avoid a shutdown. The Senate will vote on that later this week. Meanwhile, he supported removing the “bureaucratic bloat” that McMahon claims has befallen the department. On Fox News’s Fox and Friends Wednesday, Johnson responded to McMahon, acknowledging she will need Congress’s help.
“[McMahon] is talking about efficiency and accountability. She is talking about directing resources to the places they matter the most, and that’s to the hands of the local school boards, to parents who can direct their children’s education,” Johnson said. “So this is a time for change. I think this will serve students, parents, teachers, administrators better to have that down at the local level. And Secretary McMahon is bringing that change about. This is a longtime coming. You will have a greater choice for parents and students. You will have a lot better outcomes, I think. This is something we all applaud.”
The speaker agreed that the Education Department has used taxpayer dollars as a way of “enriching teacher’s unions,” which has resulted in the United States “falling behind other countries in education standards and the test scores and all the rest.”
However, Johnson’s Democratic colleagues in the House disagree with the changes to education. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), for example, raised concerns that Title I schools that educate special needs children would be in “jeopardy.”
MULTIAGENCY TASK FORCE REVIEWS COLUMBIA FUNDING OVER ‘INACTION’ ON ANTISEMITISM
The department has already lost staff and will continue to lay off more. Of its initial 4,133 staff, 259 accepted a deferred resignation package, 313 accepted a $25,000 separation payment, and 63 probationary employees were let go last month. In addition, 1,315 more people will soon be laid off, leaving a little more than half the original workforce at 2,183.
Additionally, the Education Department, combined with the Health and Human Services Department and General Services Administration, determined whether universities violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by allowing protests to escalate to antisemitism. The multiagency task force’s first act under President Donald Trump’s executive order on measures to combat antisemitism was to evaluate Columbia University. The campus is already combating rumors of layoffs and lab closures.
