McMahon: The shutdown had no impact on education

If the government shutdown proved one thing, it’s that K12 education can thrive without federal oversight, wrote U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.

“The shutdown proved an argument that conservatives have been making for 45 years: The U.S. Department of Education is mostly a pass-through for funds that are best managed by the states,” she argued in an op-ed published by USA Today.

She claimed that the 43-day shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, came at an inconvenient time for students, yet they continued going to class, teachers got paid and there were no disruptions in sports or bus routes.

With the shutdown behind us, she said she is “emboldened” to return the power of education to the states, clarifying that federal support would be protected.

“It simply means the end of a centralized bureaucracy micromanaging what would be a state-led responsibility,” she wrote. “Funding for low-income students and students with disabilities predates the Education Department and will continue indefinitely.”

She added that education is best managed by those closest to families. The feds have already started by partnering with agencies better suited to manage current federal programs and to support state and local leaders in their oversight.

For instance, the Education Department is working with the Department of Labor to coordinate federal workforce development programs and has launched the first-of-its-kind integrated state plan portal to streamline workforce development, including adult education and family literacy programs.

McMahon is also in the middle of her 50-state listening tour, gathering insight from students, teachers and education leaders about the innovation strategies they’re using to improve learning outcomes. She underscored that she is committed to minimizing the federal micromanagement “with every tool at our disposal.”

“I know that education is best managed by educators and leaders closest to families, because I have witnessed innovative schools and outstanding educators delivering for students across the country,” she wrote.

‘This is just the beginning’

The Trump administration’s focus on restoring education is just the start of a process to make these changes permanent, McMahon added. In higher education, for instance, they aim to reduce tuition costs through measures outlined in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act while incentivizing degrees that award students with “hard skills.”

Colleges and universities have also been tasked with scrapping discriminatory programs and admissions policies. Take Harvard, which sued the Trump administration in April for freezing research funding after the university refused to change its hiring and admissions policies. The federal court has since blocked Trump’s ability to withhold the more than $2 billion in research grants.

McMahon concluded with a promise to succeed where President Ronald Reagan and other conservatives could not by relying on input from students and families “who have been utterly failed by the broken status quo.”

“The Schumer shutdown underlined just how little the Department of Education will be missed,” she wrote.

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