Trump's Trials - Republicans' love/hate relationship with the Education Department

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

The fight over the U.S. Department of Education has begun, but the battle lines are a little blurry.President Trump says he wants to close the department, and the Senate is expected to vote soon on the confirmation of Linda McMahon, his nominee to be education secretary.Support NPR and hear every episode sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Scott Detro and you're listening to Trump's terms from NPR. We're going to be doing all sorts of things nobody ever thought was even possible. It's going to be a very aggressive first hundred days of the new Congress. An unpredictable and transformative next four years. The United States is going to take off like a rocket ship. Each episode we bring you NPR's coverage of President Trump acting on his own terms. And that means sometimes doing things that no American president has tried before. NPR is covering it all in stories

like the one you are about to hear right after this. There is a lot happening right now in the world of economics. You may have heard about the president's desire for a sovereign wealth fund. If your country's small, well-governed, and has a surplus, it is probably a good idea. We are not any of those.

We're here to cover federal buyouts, the cost of deportation, and so much more. Tune in to MPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Ari Shapiro. The Education Department has always been a popular target for Republicans, a morass of federal bureaucracy and a rallying cry for states' rights. In many cases, our wounds are caused by the excessive consolidation of power in our federal education establishment.

During her hearing, Linda McMahon blamed the department for falling student achievement, but fellow Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska reminded everyone that the Education Department doesn't control schools. In fact, federal law makes it illegal for the department to tell them what or even how to teach. …prohibiting any federal employee from mandating, directing, or controlling a state's school districts or school's instructional content. So what does the Education Department do?

Well, it's got two main jobs. It protects the civil rights of students and it sends money to schools that need it most. On average, only about 10 percent of public funds that go towards educating a child comes from the federal taxpayer. That's Republican Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and he's right. The nation's schools are funded almost entirely by states and local taxes, which is why a wealthier school system might spend $2,000 or $3,000 more per child than a less well-off

school system just a few miles away. What the Education Department does is try to even the scales just a bit. So that 10% of funding that does come from the department, it goes to help the nation's most vulnerable kids in big cities and lots of tiny one-stop towns. And it helps pay for costly special education services, which is why even Republicans asked McMahon if that money would keep flowing. Yes, it is not the president's goal to defund the programs, it is only to have it operate more efficiently. So that's the money. The department also enforces federal civil rights laws like Title IX, banning sex

based discrimination, and IDEA, which guarantees an education to kids with disabilities. When McMahon suggested the management of IDEA, which guarantees an education to kids with disabilities. When McMahon suggested the management of IDEA could be moved to a different federal agency, Democrat Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire offered a history lesson. Before IDEA, before the Department of Education existed, state and local schools did not educate these kids. They barred them from the classrooms. These kids were institutionalized and abused."

It wasn't clear how Republicans at the hearing felt about moving IDEA, though the first question McMahon got from a Republican was about how the department could do even more to help kids with disabilities, specifically dyslexia. Where Republicans seemed most angry with the department, accusing it of overreach, was with a Biden-era effort to expand Title IX protections for transgender students in K-12 and college. …binding regulations that required our college campuses to put biological men into women's locker rooms.

Missouri Republican Josh Hawley excoriated the department for going too far. But then he told McMahon he hopes she'll push the department to do even more. Will you enforce the law, Title VI to the Hilt, and will you make sure that Jewish Americans are safe on our campuses for heaven's sake? To which McMahon replied, Absolutely, or face defunding of their monies. Very good. In fact, since the hearing, the Trump administration has added to the department's to-do list,

warning all schools that receive federal money that it considers Biden-era efforts around diversity and equity to be themselves discriminatory. And schools have just two weeks to stop. Or else, they'll have to answer to the US Department of Education. Corey Turner, NPR News. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the incoming Trump administration on the NPR Politics Podcast where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down

the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks as always to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detro. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.