    [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 39 (Thursday, February 27, 2025)]
    [Senate]
    [Pages S1434-S1435]
    From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                          NOMINATION OF LINDA McMAHON

      Mr. REED. Mr. President, as we celebrate Public Schools Week, Senate
    Republicans are preparing to confirm Linda McMahon, another of
    President Trump's billionaire patrons, as Secretary of Education, and I
    oppose such nomination.

    [[Page S1435]]

      During her confirmation hearing, Mrs. McMahon demonstrated little
    knowledge of public education or the basic programs and functions of
    the Department of Education. Clearly, the choice of this nominee is not
    based on merit.
      But that does not matter because Mrs. McMahon was selected to be a
    front, as the Agency she hopes to lead is being dismantled by Elon Musk
    and DOGE. Indeed, while Mrs. McMahon was at her confirmation hearing,
    claiming that she would work to improve the Department of Education,
    Elon Musk's DOGE minions were at work firing people, taking back
    grants, compromising sensitive data, and laying the groundwork to
    eliminate the entire Agency.
      And on Valentine's Day, President Trump's Department of Education
    threatened to cut Federal funding from public schools, as well as
    colleges and universities, if they did not eliminate any program that
    the Trump administration deems as promoting diversity, equity, and
    inclusion.
      During her confirmation hearing, Mrs. McMahon seemed unsure whether
    this edict meant that schools can't celebrate or teach classes on
    African-American history or host clubs like Special Olympics or Girls
    Who Code.
      As a reminder, by law, the Secretary of Education may not interfere
    with the content that schools teach, nor the academic standards that
    they set. Mrs. McMahon doesn't seem to know that.
      By the way, while Mr. Musk has been tearing the Department of
    Education apart from the inside, Republicans in Congress have passed
    punitive blueprints that will cut trillions from government services to
    the American people, including education, all to pay for tax cuts for
    the richest Americans and Big Business.
      In the Senate, the Republicans are calling for an unspecified $9
    trillion in cuts. In the House, the Education and Workforce Committee
    must provide a minimum of $330 billion in cuts from education and job
    training programs. It is no wonder that educators, students, and
    families from across the country feel under siege.
      We know what this looks like because we see how teachers, students,
    and military families are reacting with dismay as our world-class
    Department of Defense schools are laboring under another Secretary
    intent on politicizing its Department and promoting an indoctrination
    agenda authorized by President Trump.
      I would like to take a moment to first thank all educators, school
    staff, family volunteers, and all community members who tirelessly work
    to equip our students for the future. We owe you a debt of gratitude
    and so much more than that. We need to recommit to strengthening our
    public schools and to investing in them.
      In the first part of the 20th century, it was the high school
    movement that broadly expanded educational attainment, preparing young
    Americans for success in a changing world and evolving economy. This
    movement featured professional educators and engaged families and
    communities. It was about general knowledge and practical application.
      This movement launched the United States as a world economic power.
    It was essential to our national defense, and it created the conditions
    for the success of the largest expansion of postsecondary education
    through the GI bill. The high school movement meant that soldiers
    returning from World War II already had high school diplomas and were
    ready for postsecondary education.
      Head Start, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Adult
    Education and Family Literacy Act, the Individuals with Disabilities
    Education Act, and the Higher Education Act are some of our Federal
    laws that work to ensure that opportunities to learn and advance are
    not limited by income, race, ethnicity, or disability.

      The expansion of public education is a great American story. Yet,
    today, it sometimes seems to have been forgotten. Some argue that we do
    not need public schools, that we can offer vouchers or education
    savings accounts or homeschooling instead. Today, instead of freedom of
    inquiry and inclusion, we see policing of what schools can teach, what
    students can read, what they can discuss, and how they should think.
    This is a recipe for stifling creativity and the development of the
    skills needed for an ever-changing knowledge economy.
      We politicize and neglect public schools at our peril. They educate
    nearly 50 million students--our future. It is time that we treat public
    education as the priority it must be if we want a brighter future for
    our children and our grandchildren and our country.
      We should embark on a new public school movement--one that will
    strengthen and support the education profession, one that will ensure
    that all communities can provide modern, state-of-the-art facilities,
    one that will ensure that all students have the right to read--with
    evidence-based reading instruction, school libraries, books at home,
    diverse materials, and the freedom to choose what to read.
      Today, we are failing our public schools because we are not investing
    in them. For example, the average age of our public school facilities
    is 49 years. The GAO found that over half of our school districts in
    our country needed to replace or update major systems in more than half
    of their buildings.
      As a nation, we should commit to modernizing our school facilities.
    That is why I will be reintroducing the Rebuild America's Schools Act
    to invest $130 billion in our school facilities in the communities with
    the greatest need.
      We know there is a crisis in the education profession. Too many
    school districts struggle to hire and retain teachers. Too often, a
    career in teaching means financial struggles and little support to meet
    student needs.
      Additionally, we need a national focus on literacy. In 2024, the
    percentage of eighth graders reading below the basic level on the
    National Assessment of Educational Progress was the largest in the
    assessment's history, and the percentage of fourth graders who scored
    below the basic level was the largest in 20 years.
      Adults are not doing any better. Recent results of the Program for
    the International Assessment of Adult Competencies show that overall
    scores in literacy and numeracy have decreased for U.S. adults, with
    adults scoring at the lowest level of proficiency in literacy,
    increasing from 19 percent in 2017 to 28 percent in 2023.
      This is a crisis. Eliminating the Department of Education does
    nothing to solve it. Instead of gutting educational funding and
    eliminating the Department of Education to pay for tax cuts for the
    wealthy, Congress should address the acute literacy crisis for both
    adults and children across the Nation.
      We should be increasing funding for adult education--at least
    doubling it. We should increase resources for schools to provide
    evidence-based reading instruction by fully funding title I, increasing
    funding for the Comprehensive Literacy Development State Grant Program
    and for Innovative Approaches to Literacy grants.
      We should double the Pell grant and restore its purchasing power so
    students do not have to rely mostly on loans to pay for college.
      Sadly, none of this is on Mrs. McMahon's agenda.
      I urge my colleagues to join me in ushering in a new public education
    movement--a movement to ensure that this generation, as well as future
    ones, has the foundation to achieve their full potential and build a
    prosperous future. This nominee is not the person to lead such an
    effort. All indications are that she will actively work against it. So
    I encourage my colleagues to vote no on her confirmation.
      I yield the floor.
      I suggest the absence of a quorum.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
      The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
      Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
    the quorum call be rescinded.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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