President Donald Trump has talked about abolishing former President Jimmy Carter's brainchild, the Department of Education, but Secretary Linda McMahon is striking a more focused tone: Keep the department; end the waste.
"The federal resources would still be there, but clearly, the Department of Justice, with its Office of Civil Rights, would continue to make sure that our Title IX, our Title VI laws are upheld, and that's where that responsibility ultimately does reside, and that will continue," McMahon told Newsmax's "National Report" in an exclusive interview on the White House North Lawn.
"But our students will get a much better education because more focus will be on them and not on the regulatory environment."
McMahon added: "And I think that's what the president always says: The best education is one that's closest to the student, with parents, with teachers, with local school superintendents who understand the needs in their states; and, therefore, they will be developing the curriculum to work with the communities, to work with companies and industry, to make sure that we are delivering students to our workforce."
Instead, the Department of Education as Americans have come to know it will be "consolidated" to help give the power and funding to the states without federal hurdles, stakeholders, and burdens, McMahon told co-hosts Shaun Kraisman and Emma Rechenberg.
"That's one of the things that the Supreme Court ruling [Monday] allowed me to do, which is to work with other agencies and to sign agency agreements — like we have done with the Department of Labor," McMahon said.
"Before all of this, there were 43 agencies dealing with workforce development. So now, we're going to consolidate it. We're going to make it better."
"And that's going to be better for students and for our workforce," she said.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is taking the piece of the federal Education Department that sought to streamline the U.S. workforce, "consolidating" wasteful overlap and bloat in the federal government.
"Secretary Chavez-DeRemer and I have had several conversations about how some of the programs that can be in tandem with many of the other workforce programs that the Department of Labor has," McMahon said. "Now, the Department of Education will still have oversight over Pell Grants and the programs that we work on, but we'll provide some funding for the work that the Department of Labor will do."
"In essence, we've kind of contracted, if you will, with the Department of Labor, but this will be working together with the secretary, and she and I are really looking forward to that consolidation," said McMahon.
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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