Trump selected Penny Schwinn to serve as Deputy Secretary of Educatuin, under wrestling entrepreneur Linda McMahon, this choice for Secretary. Mercedes Schneider did some digging and quickly learned that where Penny Schwinn goes, controversy follows.

Among other issues raised by critics is Schwinn’s multi-million dollar no-bid contracts to TNTP (formerly known as The New Teachers Project), where her husband works.

Schneider writes:

President Donald Trump has nominated former Tennessee Ed chief, the controversy-steeped Penny Schwinn, for the position of US deputy secretary of education, a post that requires Senate confirmation.

Interestingly, even conservatives oppose her confirmation (see here also).

I’m not sure how much of the Schwinn sketchiness will reveal itself in Schwinn’s confirmation hearing, but the information is out there– easy enough for a Louisiana education blogger to find.

For example, in 2017 as Texas deputy commissioner for academics, Schwinn was in the news as part of a no-bid contract issue for several million dollars with a sketchy, inexperienced company out of Atlanta, SPEDx, which was supposed to handle special education data for both Texas and Louisiana.

The situation of two states offering no-bid contracts worth millions to a new company run by a CEO with no experience in analyzing special education data caught the attention if the media, and Texas canceled its contract even as Louisiana was questioned about keeping theirs.

When queried by the media, Texas education commissioner, Mike Morath, tried to distance himself from the situation. However, on December 28, 2017, Andrea Ball of the Austin American-Statesman revealed that Schwinn was involved in the contract and “helped write it.”

You can read about the details in this March 20, 2018, post.

Two years later, in February 2020, I again wrote about Schwinn. By this time, she had moved from Texas to become commissioner of education in Tennessee and had been there for a year.

Controversy followed her there, as well:

Within ten months of Schwinn’s arrival as Tennessee ed commissioner, the Tennessee Department of Education experienced 250 resignations, including “people with decades of institutional knowledge,” which the November 15, 2019, Tennessee Chalkbeat characterized as “not typical.”

In 2019, according to the Tennessee Lookout, the Tennessee legislature nixed Schwinn’s ability to vote on state textbooks after complaints from a publisher and some district leaders following accusations that Schwinn was “playing favorites.”

Too, Schwinn and no-bid contracts were again connected:

On February 12, 2020, Schwinn was again in the news related to a no-bid contract controversy, this time in connection with Tennessee’s school voucher program and the ed-fund-tracking company, ClassWallet, as Chalkbeat reports:

Lawmakers who oversee the spending of Tennessee taxpayer money blasted the Department of Education Wednesday for its handling of a no-bid contract with ClassWallet, hired for $1.25 million a year to manage the state’s upcoming voucher program.

Commissioner Penny Schwinn and members of her team were grilled for almost two hours over the decision to bypass a competitive bid process to hire the Florida-based company — and for twice the amount budgeted for work this year on Gov. Bill Lee’s education savings account program. …

“Fiscal Review didn’t find out about this contract grant until Nov. 13 when it was published in Chalkbeat. Do you think that that’s acceptable?” asked Rep. Matthew Hill, the Jonesborough Republican who chairs the panel. …

“To the general public, it looks like you found a vendor, and then created a contract,” said Faison, a Republican from Cosby.

There is a lot more detail to the Chalkbeat article, which is certainly worth a complete read. It seems that Schwinn’s rogue maneuvers have the support of Tennessee governor Bill Lee, and Schwinn justified her no-bid decision by saying it was necessary to begin the voucher program in 2020, a year earlier than the legislature planned, as per the governor’s wishes.

Another major irritation for Tennessee legislators is the ballooned pricetag due to Schwinn’s no-bid: The legislature budgeted $750K for costs associated with the voucher program, but Schwinn blew it up, committing her ClassWallet no-bid to $2.5M for two years.

But there’s more: Schwinn’s chief financial officer said that it decided– without legislative approval– to use teacher-pay funds from an expired program to fund the increased voucher program cost due to the no-bid it awarded. In response, Tennessee House Fiscal Review Panel chair, Matthew Hill, replied, “…We robbed teacher pay. … I can’t stress how bad this looks for us….”

Schwinn remained in her Ed commissioner post in Tennessee until 2023, when she resigned effective June 1st. In 2021, Schwinn faced a possible no-confidence vote of the Tennessee legislature, a vote that did not happen. Then, in 2022, the Tennessee Holler noted this conflict of interest, which is included in my May 12, 2023, post:

In April 2022, the Tennessee Holler noted that Schwinn omitted from her most-recent financial disclosure mention of her husband’s employer, TNTP (started by Michelle Rhee, incidentally)– a notable omission since on March 01, 2021, Schwinn signed a two-year, $8M contract with TNTP, with the Tennessee Lookout noting, “The contract took effect March 12, and is to run through fiscal 2022 at a rate of $4.032 million for each year, even though only four months remain in this fiscal year.” In December 2021, the contract was renewed for an additional $8M through 2024 “despite a potential conflict of interest for the state’s education commissioner,” the Tennessee Lookout again reports.

Penny Schwinn in a confirmation hearing? 

We’ll see where this one goes.