WASHINGTON — This vote was no Stone Chilly Stunner.
World Wrestling Leisure co-founder Linda McMahon was confirmed alongside celebration strains by the US Senate on Monday to steer the Division of Training — which is already reducing funding and providing buyouts to its workforce as President Trump has made clear he desires the company “closed immediately.”
The 51-45 vote made McMahon the twentieth member of Trump’s 22-person cupboard to be confirmed. Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (D-W. Va.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) didn’t vote.
McMahon, 76, grappled her means via committee vetting in a party-line vote on Feb. 20 and can now head up a division that spent round $268 billion final 12 months with little to point out for it.
The US presently ranks twentieth out of 41 nations in training, in response to an evaluation by the Group for Financial Co-operation and Growth, falling beneath Canada and plenty of European international locations.
American college students’ take a look at scores have additionally plummeted for the reason that closure of lecture rooms in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic — with studying proficiency for eighth graders notching its lowest stage within the 32 years the federal government has compiled knowledge.
Republicans in Congress have pointed to the abysmal nationwide take a look at scores as proof that the Division of Training wants a serious shake-up with McMahon on the helm.
“Under the Biden-Harris administration, the Department of Education focused on everything but student success,” Senate Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Invoice Cassidy (R-La.) mentioned in an announcement following the vote. “We need a strong leader at the Department who will get our education system back on track. Secretary McMahon is the right person for the job.”
Trump, 78, has additionally made no bones about his plans for the Training Division, telling reporters final month he hoped his nominee would “put herself out of a job.”
However McMahon herself has performed coy about unilaterally dismantling the division.
She instructed members of the Senate HELP Committee in her affirmation listening to that the division’s elimination “certainly does require congressional action” however there are plans to get buy-in from Republican lawmakers.
“We’d like to make sure that we are presenting a plan that I think our senators could get on board with, and our Congress could get on board with, that would have a better-functioning Department of Education,” she mentioned.
Key packages involving Title I funding for low-income establishments, in addition to Pell Grants and Public Service Mortgage Forgiveness will stay in place, McMahon additionally promised.
Trump’s nominee additionally mentioned she stood able to abide by government actions stopping transgender athletes from competing on girls’s sports activities groups, cracking down on antisemitism on college campuses and abolishing range, fairness and inclusion (DEI) packages.
McMahon additionally went to the mat for the Elon Musk-led Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) combing via departmental packages for potential spending cuts.
No less than $1 billion value of funding for grants, contracts and different bills have been pinned down to this point.
Congressional Democrats have characterised Trump’s plans for the Training Division as an effort to “destroy” public faculties for the good thing about billionaires who should purchase up the nation’s instructional establishments.
When asserting his decide in November, Trump famous that McMahon, who headed up the Small Enterprise Administration throughout his first time period, had a “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.”
Solely US Ambassador to the UN-designate Elise Stefanik, who remains to be serving as a GOP congresswoman from New York; and Labor Secretary decide Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a former Republican congresswoman from Oregon, are nonetheless awaiting affirmation.
