After the Trump administration announced significant staffing cuts at the Department of Education Tuesday, Secretary Linda McMahon confirmed it is part of the bigger plan to shut down the department altogether.
“That was the President’s mandate, his directive to me, clearly, is to shut down the Department of Education, which we know we’ll have to work with Congress, you know, to get that accomplished,” she said on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” Tuesday evening. “But what we did today was to take the first step, eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat.”
She said many of those now out of a job may have been there for humanitarian reasons.
McMahon described the Trump administration’s goal as trying to take bureaucracy out of education in an effort to send more money to the states. She has assured the agency will continue to deliver funding as mandated by law.
During the interview, McMahon mentioned that Tuesday was just her fifth day on the job and she was still learning the acronyms, like IDEA. She noted the program is for “disabled and needs” but couldn’t say exactly what the acronym stands for. She listed IDEA programs as an example of the funding the Department will continue to administer. IDEA stands for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which makes free public education available to children with disabilities.
McMahon rejected the idea that the Trump administration is “getting rid of education,” as warned in an MSNBC appearance by the American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.
“He’s taking the bureaucracy out of education so that more money flows to the states,” McMahon said. “Better education is closest to the kids, with parents, with local superintendents, with local school boards. I think we’ll see our scores go up with our students when we can educate them with parental input as well.”
The Department of Education already does not have control over school curriculum, which is determined at the state and local levels. It also tracks education outcomes to determine where support is most needed.
McMahon also shared kind words for her interactions with Elon Musk and noted that a couple of Department of Government Efficiency “fellas” work in her department.
“If you were in the private sector, this would be an audit,” McMahon said. “It turns up a lot of things in the audit, some of you look at it and say ‘no, we can get rid of that,’ others ‘no, no, no this is the implication that you don’t understand, so we can’t get rid of that.'”
More than 1,300 employees at the Department of Education received termination notices Tuesday following more than 570 who have taken buyouts in recent weeks.
That brings the total of workers there down to 2,183 from 4,133 when Trump started his term in January.
The workforce cuts are the latest in a slew of layoffs that have impacted federal agencies including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, NASA, NOAA and more.
More than 100,000 early-tenure employees are already out of a job through the efforts, and federal agencies face a Thursday deadline to submit plans for another large-scale reduction in force.
Contributing: Zachary Schermele, Joey Garrison, Erin Mansfield
Kinsey Crowley is a trending news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at kcrowley@gannett.com, and follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley.
