Secretary of Education Linda McMahon released her budget proposal for next year, and it’s as bad as expected.
Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, reviewed the budget and concluded that it shows a reckless disregard for the neediest students and schools and outright hostility towards students who want to go to college.
We know that Trump “loves the uneducated.” Secretary McMahon wants more of them.
Burris sent out the following alert:
Linda McMahon, handpicked by Donald Trump to lead the U.S. Department of Education, has just released the most brutal, calculated, and destructive education budget in the Department’s history.
She proposes eliminating $8.5 billion in Congressionally funded programs—28 in total—abolishing 10 outright and shoving the other 18 into a $2 billion block grant. That’s $4.5 billion less than those 18 programs received last year.
Tell Congress: Stop McMahon From Destroying Our Public Schools
And it gets worse: States are banned from using the block grant to support the following programs funded by Congress:
- Aid for migrant children whose families move frequently for agricultural work
- English Language Acquisition grants for emerging English learners
- Community schools offering wraparound services
- Grants to improve teacher effectiveness and leadership
- Innovation and research for school improvement
- Comprehensive Centers, including those serving students with disabilities
- Technical assistance for desegregation
- The Ready to Learn program for young children
These aren’t just budget cuts—they’re targeted strikes.
McMahon justifies cutting support for migrant children by falsely claiming the program “encourages ineligible non-citizens to access taxpayer dollars.” That is a lie. Most migrant farmworkers are U.S. citizens or have H-2A visas. They feed this nation with their backbreaking labor.
The attack continues for opportunity for higher education:
- Pell Grants are slashed by $1,400 on average; the maximum grant drops from $7,395 to $5,710
- Federal Work-Study loses $1 billion—an 80% cut
- TRIO programs, which support college-readiness and support for low-income students, veterans, and students with disabilities, are eliminated
- Campus child care programs for student-parents are defunded
In all, $1.67 billion in student college assistance is gone—wiped out on top of individual Pell grant cuts.
And yet, McMahon increased funding for the federal Charter Schools Program to half a billion dollars for a sector that saw an increase of only eleven schools last year. Meanwhile, her allies in Congress are pushing a $5 billion private school and homeschool voucher scheme through the so-called Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA).
And despite reducing Department staff by 50%, she only cuts the personnel budget by 10%.
This is not budgeting. It is a war on public education.
This is a blueprint for privatization, cruelty, and the systematic dismantling of opportunity for America’s children.
We cannot let it stand.
Raise your voice. Share this letter: https://networkforpubliceducation.org/tell-congress-dont-let-linda-mcmahon-slash-funding-for-children-college-students-and-veterans-to-fund-school-choice/ Call Congress.
Let Congress know that will not sit silently while they dismantle our children’s future.
Thank you for all you do,
Carol Burris
Network for Public Education Executive Director
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We should recall the last time the United States flirted with fascism. This happened during the time from 1876 through 1945, when white supremacy was injected into every aspect of culture through appealing to ideas about race that were “scientifically proven” — think social Darwinism— and that singled out black and brown people for exploitation by a uber-class that was dripping in money.
This time is no different. Very wealthy people want to build a better world for them to live in. They have expressly stated their intentions at CPAC meetings and similar events. Their attempts to defund education by appealing to racism and classism is just more divide and rule.
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Linda McMahon is 10 times worse than Betsy DeVos. Trump has this uncanny ability to pick the worst possible people for his 2nd term cabinet positions.
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Diane and all: Also, let’s bring out Trump’s et al rhetorical use of the “half truth” or in fact, the “partial” truth.
Here, they use a half truth (like 50 in 5-million examples of “waste, fraud, and abuse” (even while firing the present AG’s) in Medicaid, voter fraud, or “welfare moms” to hide their real intent, which is to get rid of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security and, before “Welfare,” so that the half-truth (or partial truth) gets in via getting the “camel’s nose (the partial truth) under the edge of the tent” and so that their real intent gains a footing from within to do its nefarious work of confusing the American public.
In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen ANYTHING the Trump Brigade has done that does not bear this basic structure of self-serving camel’s noses, lies, half-lies, and fakery. I guess that’s the “art of the deal.” CBK
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Remarkedly, Elon and his DOGS didn’t fund any “waste, fraud, or abuse.”
Trump’s fired almost every Inspector General in every Department. They are nonpartisan. It’s their job to find and call out waste, fraud, and abuse.
Musk’s failure to find “waste, fraud, abuse” indicates that the IGs were doing a good job.
Now we have a federal government operating without IGs, or MAGA IGs. Ripe for grifting.
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Diane: That’s exactly the point–they are still relying on the trust of the American people (probably most of the MAGA bunch) that when they say they are after all that waste, fraud, abuse, and the murderers that are streaming over the border, then that’s what they are after. Somehow, the 2 to 5% is so scary, they cannot see the millions that do not fit into that category–all apples are rotten if ONE apple is rotten. No such thing as critical thinking.
It worked. And those people who work around him–they really have a lock on smug. CBK
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“Reckless disregard”? I think not. More like deliberate neglect
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