[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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