Confirmed by the Senate late Monday in a 51 to 45 party-line vote, McMahon steps into the education department as President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency continues its aggressive push to make the government’s even smaller. 

“We must start thinking about our final mission at the department as an overhaul — a last chance to restore the culture of liberty and excellence that made American education great,” she wrote in a Monday night email to agency staff, shared with ����Ӱ��. She encouraged employees to be “enthusiastic” about what’s to come.

Last week, however, they received letters encouraging them to by midnight Monday in advance of “large-scale reductions in force.” In addition to outlining how she’ll execute that goal by , McMahon has until mid-April to submit blueprints for how she’d run a leaner department. Those orders come on top of steps DOGE has already taken to slash spending, and eradicate programs that don’t fit the president’s agenda. A challenging those actions are working their way through the federal courts.

It goes without saying that it’s a beginning unprecedented in the 45-year history of the department.

“Usually, administrations wait until they have agency heads in place, and those agency heads roll out new priorities or initiatives,” said Julia Martin, director of policy and government affairs with The Bruman Group, a Washington law firm. Now, the script is reversed, due to a slow confirmation process and “rapid-fire, government-wide” efforts by DOGE to clean house. “We’ll see what, if anything, changes when she’s officially in office.”

‘Grown-ups in the building’

Some advocates say whatever happens with McMahon at the helm is bound to be an improvement after a month of DOGE’s rushed and often chaotic efforts to downsize and reshape the agency.

“I think we’ll all feel a little bit better knowing that there are some grown-ups in the building,” said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, an advocacy group. 

Many DOGE staffers assembled by billionaire Elon Musk are engineers with little, if any, government experience. Rodrigues hopes the Senate follows up quickly to confirm nominees with education leadership experience, including Penny Schwinn, former Tennessee education chief, as deputy secretary, and Kristen Baesler, North Dakota superintendent, as assistant secretary in charge of K-12 education. 

“I don’t think it’s great to have 19-year-old kids just looking for big pots of money via AI and slashing whatever they see indiscriminately,” she said.

But many conservatives think an overhaul of the bureaucracy is long overdue. 

“National test scores continue to prove our education system is in an undeclared state of emergency,” said Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation for Children, which supports private school choice. 

Released in January, the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress results showed that students continue to lose ground in reading. Eighth grade results in math were flat, and while fourth graders saw some gains in the subject, they were driven by the highest-performing students.

He called McMahon’s confirmation “the beginning of the end” for the federal government’s role in education.

“Something has to change,” he said. “As Ms. McMahon affirmed, she and President Trump are strong supporters of school choice and returning control of education to the states and families.” 

In her Monday email to department staff, McMahon said the overhaul was necessary to fix a an education system “not working as intended.”

“Since its establishment in 1980, taxpayers have entrusted the department with over $1 trillion, yet student outcomes have consistently languished,” she wrote. “Millions of young Americans are trapped in failing schools, subjected to radical anti-American ideology, or saddled with college debt for a degree that has not provided a meaningful return on their investment. Teachers are leaving the profession in droves after just a few years—and citing red tape as one of their primary reasons.”

But shuttering the department would take time if it happens at all. Experts say it’s doubtful the president could muster the 60 votes in the Senate needed to abolish the agency — every Republican and seven Democrats. A shows nearly two thirds of Americans are opposed to eliminating the department. 

In the meantime, McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, is likely to face tough questions from Democrats, education leaders and advocates about how she’d maintain core education functions required by law, whether they’re carried out by the department or not. 

Those include distributing funding for high-poverty schools and protecting students’ civil rights. that other agencies lack the expertise to administer programs for students with disabilities and would be less responsive to civil rights complaints. 

“I’ve had concerns from the outset about whether Ms. McMahon has the experience we should expect from an education secretary, and I’m sorry to say my concerns have not been alleviated,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said ahead of the vote.

But Democrats aren’t the only ones questioning whether the department should close completely. Even Trump, who has called the department a “con job,” will need officials with education expertise to carry out some of his priorities.

The department has wasted no time of districts implementing racial diversity initiatives, or allowing transgender students to compete in sports or use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity. 

On Monday, the department’s Office for Civil Rights announced into the Tumwater School District in Washington state, prompted by a 15-year-old female basketball player who complained that the district allowed a transgender student to play on her team. 

“There absolutely is a role for the Department of Education, and the Office for Civil Rights specifically, to right the ship, to ensure that people’s civil rights are being protected,” said Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the conservative group Moms for Liberty. 

She trusts McMahon not to “just parcel things out to other departments that will not be able to handle them.” And she considers McMahon’s background a complement to DOGE’s tech expertise.

“Linda is a businessperson,” Justice said. “Taking a business lens to the way that the government is working … is very important.”

But even some conservatives are calling out for greater accountability of DOGE’s work.

Nat Malkus, deputy director of education policy at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, found that DOGE dramatically overestimated how much money it’s been able to save taxpayers. 

While the department announced it had canceled nearly $900 million in research contracts, showed the amount was actually less than $600 million. Factoring in funds already spent reduced the figure even more. 

DOGE’s “sloppy work,” he wrote, “should give pause to even its most sympathetic defenders.” 

According to the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 2,800 education department workers, nearly 150 staff members had either been terminated or put on paid leave as of last week. That number, however, doesn’t include fired managers or supervisors, or those who accepted the most recent buyout, according to the union.

The union isn’t advising employees whether to accept a lump sum in exchange for resigning, but noted that the letter only offers up to $25,000.

“Many employees would get less than that,” a spokesman said. Those who end up returning to the department within five years would also have to pay back the gross amount even after paying taxes on it, the spokesman said. 

‘Cost-cutting exercise’

The on staff reductions told officials to focus on cutting “functions not mandated by statute or regulation.” 

The same day, Trump also to create a new system for recording every contract, grant and loan and for employees to justify each payment. The purpose, the order says, is to “ensure government spending is transparent and government employees are accountable to the American public.”

Experts say databases like and already serve that purpose. Martin, with Bruman, said the order could be another attempt to justify further cuts based on the descriptions of the expenses.  

The executive order would also require education staff to justify any “non-essential” travel, which Martin said could hinder officials’ ability to visit classrooms and interact with state and local leaders.

“Can they no longer go see programs in action or get feedback from the field?” she asked. “Those are the kind of things that improve program functionality and efficiency — and arguably, reduce government waste.”

Good morning!

RT if you’re ready to Make Education Great Again

— ED Press Secretary (@EDPressSec)

But one school finance expert thinks it’s not a bad idea.

Rebecca Sibilia, executive director of EdFund, a research organization that focuses on school finance, said such a system could give McMahon a head start on understanding the department’s many programs and would be preferable to the “DOGE circus we’ve been watching thus far.”

“We can’t exit this decade with students, in particular low-income students, performing worse than they were performing when they entered the decade,” said Kevin Huffman, CEO of Accelerate, a nonprofit funding academic recovery efforts. “My biggest fear is just that people will use the Department of Education as a battering ram for other issues and not use it as a force to take on academic outcomes for kids.”

The Republican nominee, declaring this the “golden age of America,” in battleground states, like Georgia and Florida, than he did in 2020. As expected, Republicans flipped the Senate and will hold at least a 52-seat majority, with a few races left to call. Control of the House remains undecided. 

Observers expect Trump to immediately nullify the Biden administration’s Title IX rule that extends protections against discrimination to LGBTQ students. 

Those who campaigned for Trump, and agree with his promises to end in schools, celebrated his comeback.

“American parents voted for their children’s future,” Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the conservative Moms for Liberty advocacy group, . Her name is already among those being tossed around as a possible . She told ����Ӱ�� that she “would be honored to serve the next president of the United States of America.”

Most clues about Trump’s early priorities come from the conservative Heritage Foundation’s , or Project 2025. In addition to eliminating Title I funding for low-income students and Head Start for preschoolers from poor families, the plan would remove references to LGBTQ people throughout federal policy.

But even if Washington ends up with a GOP trifecta and federal appointees handpicked by Heritage, the president-elect might not be able to deliver on some of his more bold promises to dismantle the education department and of illegal immigrants.

“Some of this rhetoric will be tempered with reality once the administration changes,” said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union. “This is a president that we are very accustomed to. I understand people are nervous; they’re very concerned. But when it comes down to it, there’s also the reality of governing.”

Eliminating the education department, for example, would require 60 votes in the Senate and would likely be unpopular in the House as well, even if Republicans are still in control, said David Cleary, a former Republican Senate education staffer now working for a left-leaning lobbying firm.

“The votes wouldn’t materialize,” he said.

Michael Petrilli, president of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, added that “draconian cuts” in spending would also be difficult to pass. That’s why Trump is expected to accomplish some of his conservative agenda through executive orders.

“Let’s assume that there is no grand reawakening to the problems that America faces and people stay in their partisan foxholes,” Cleary said. “Trump will have to take a page out of [President Joe Biden’s] playbook and do a lot by executive action and regulatory plans.”

That would include halting enforcement of Biden’s Title IX rule — which, because of litigation from Republican-led governors, currently applies to only 24 states. Officials would likely restart the process of restoring the 2020 regulation completed under former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, which narrowed the definition of sexual assault and expanded due process rights for the accused.

One LGBTQ advocacy organization called Trump’s victory “an immediate threat.”

“Today, many in our community feel a profound sense of loss and concern for the future,” Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, executive director of GLSEN, said in a statement, pointing to Heritage’s Project 2025 as the blueprint for how Trump would roll back policies that allow trans students to play on sports teams or use restrooms that match their gender identity. “With these changes, our young people could face increased discrimination, reduced access to safe spaces and diminished legal recognition.”

Trump, a and, at 78, the oldest candidate ever elected president, is also expected to push for private school choice, perhaps along the lines of the $5,000 that passed a House committee in September. But despite the GOP’s enthusiasm for vouchers and education savings accounts, which allow parents to use public funds for private school tuition and homeschooling expenses, some advocates would like to see greater support for the charter sector.

Petrilli, a self-described “never-Trumper,” said he’s worried about returning to “the political dynamics” of Trump’s first term, which didn’t benefit charter schools.

“Reform-oriented Democrats were sidelined or silenced,” he said. “Given that there are a lot of kids in blue states like California, New York, and Illinois who desperately need high-quality educational options, this would be a terrible development.”

But Rodrigues sees some bright spots in Republicans’ focus on parental rights and school choice. “Those things can be positive when not taken to the extreme,” she said.

She’s encouraged by the prospect of Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana becoming chair of the Senate education committee, where he has already highlighted the importance of improving . 

While the National Parents Union has had close interaction with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and the White House, she said leaders have had ongoing “deep conversations” with those on both sides of the aisle.

“Progress will be made for children in any and all conditions, regardless of what happens in the House and the change up in the Senate,” she said. “I think the depth of our relationships are not confined to one particular party.”

Moms for Liberty, one of the fastest-growing and most recognized conservative parent advocacy groups in the nation, paid $21,357 to a company owned by the husband of one of its founding members, campaign finance records show. 

The group to Microtargeted Media, founded by Christian Ziegler, a current Sarasota County commissioner and vice chairman of the Florida GOP, in late August. 

Moms for Liberty was founded by three people, Tina Descovich, Tiffany Justice and , Christian’s wife, who served as its director through February 2021. Bridget Ziegler joined the Sarasota County School Board in 2014 and this summer. 

 She was not named by the two other founders in numerous , an omission some was meant to distance the group from Florida’s GOP power structure. Descovich said Ziegler stepped away to pursue other interests. Moms for Liberty contributed $250 to her school board campaign in mid-July, records show. 

Bridget Ziegler could not be reached for comment. Her husband, who responded to ����Ӱ�� through Twitter Thursday evening, would not discuss his company’s work for Moms for Liberty.

“I don’t share information about my clients as I do not speak for them,” Christian Ziegler wrote. “You can contact Tina directly for any additional insight.”

Descovich said they hired Microtargeted Media — whose motto is “we do digital & go after people on their phones” — based on its track record.

“I chose to work with Mr. Ziegler’s company because we required digital media services and they are the best at what they do,” she wrote. 

She also acknowledged the group’s support for his wife’s run for office. 

“The Florida Political Committee supported candidates that the Moms for Liberty chapters endorsed,” she said. “The Sarasota chapter voted to endorse Mrs. Ziegler.”

, which specializes in targeted text messaging and digital advertising, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars from right-wing political campaigns. Its recent clients also include Florida state Sen. Joe Gruters, chairman of the Florida GOP and an ardent Trump supporter. His campaign paid the company . 

Florida Conservatives United, a PAC, has paid Microtargeted Media . 

The revelation that Moms for Liberty used a sizable chunk of its political contributions to benefit the company of its co-founder’s husband provides at least some insight into how the conservative juggernaut used what appears to be its modest campaign finances. 

The Federal Elections Commissions lists three committees associated with the group, which claims 240 chapters in 42 states: Moms for Liberty PAC, Moms for Liberty Inc. Political Victory Fund and Moms for Liberty Action. All three reported zero dollars in contributions or expenditures with the exception of a single to Moms for Liberty PAC on Aug. 29 from Ohio resident Matthew Palumbo, whose long political career includes working for former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Descovich, the group’s executive director, told ����Ӱ�� it has not raised or spent any money from its national PACs, though it hopes to use them in the future to support school board candidates around the country. She said Moms for Liberty has one state-level political committee, Moms for Liberty Florida.

Almost all of the money donated to Moms for Liberty Florida came from a $50,000 donation from Publix heiress Julie Fancelli in late June and nearly half of it went to Microtargeted Media. The contribution from Fancelli, of the Jan. 6 rally that led to the attack on the Capitol, accounted for all but $837 of the cash raised by Moms for Liberty Florida. Almost all the rest of the committee’s funds went in $250 donations to dozens of politically aligned Florida school board candidates.

Descovich said to date, Moms for Liberty has endorsed 65 candidates in Florida with 43 either declared a winner or advancing to a runoff; 72 candidates statewide in New York, with 40 victorious; three school board candidates in Kenosha, Wisconsin, two of whom won; two candidates in Bedford County, Virginia, both of them successful and seven endorsed in North Carolina, with five winning seats. Most school board elections will be Nov. 8, she said, and the group is working to get endorsement tallies from its chapters. 

Moms for Liberty’s 2021 federal tax filing shows the 501(c)4 nonprofit with $370,029 in total revenue and $163,647 in expenses, with most of that money — $102,486 — going to conferences, conventions and meetings. It lists Descovich as spending an average of 40 hours a week working for the organization and receiving $5,000 in compensation; program development director Marie Rogerson also working on average 40 hours a week and receiving $1,800 while Justice, whose title is director, spent 40 hours a week but received no compensation. Ziegler, the former director, spent an average of one hour a week, according to the filing, and received zero compensation. Descovich said Moms for Liberty has 10 full- and two part-time staffers.

Moms for Liberty Foundation, the group’s 501(c)3 charitable arm which is prohibited from engaging in political activities, claimed gross receipts of less than $50,000 in 2021 and filed an abbreviated 990 form with the Internal Revenue Service that includes no details about its funders, expenditures or top officers’ salaries.

The group, which has ,  has been successful in curbing classroom discussion of race, sex and gender — while also from school curriculum and libraries, though some schools have brought such texts back. 

Moms for Liberty’s leaders have said in the past they’ve raised most of their money through T-shirt sales and have grown through free publicity. celebrates its leaders — they’ve appeared on Steve Bannon’s talk show — while mainstream press have also kept them in the spotlight, if at times offering less flattering coverage of them deriding school board members.

Despite their high-wattage name recognition, some and staying power. Campbell F. Scribner, assistant professor of education at the University of Maryland at College Park, said they could soon flounder as members might not have the time or capacity to devote themselves to activism in the long term. 

Campbell called Moms for Liberty and another highly watched group, The 1776 Project Political Action Committee, which has raised $3 million to advocate for conservative school board candidates nationally this year, “a weird combination of single-issue organizing,” in this case around the topic of education, “and a fairly diffuse set of goals — either focused on a hot-topic issue that will fade quickly, like CRT [critical race theory] — or on goals that are too amorphous to actually be accomplished, like ‘patriotism.’’’ 

Scribner doesn’t consider either to be solely “grassroots.” Both have a top-down and bottom-up structure, he said. 

“It would be dangerous to put them in one camp or another,” he said. “To ignore their grassroots element is to ignore their appeal and power. But they do need to align with public sentiment and when they don’t, their support withers pretty quickly.”