Education Secretary Linda McMahon has aggressively moved closer in recent months to fulfilling President Donald Trump's long-stated desire to dismantle the embattled federal agency, shifting key oversight functions — including special education and civil rights enforcement — to other federal departments.
Now a Senate panel hopes to pump the brakes on several of McMahon's shifts.
During Thursday's meeting of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, a bipartisan bill was advanced prohibiting the Department of Education from transferring several key offices to other federal agencies.
Co-sponsored by Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, SB5046 would prevent the DOE from moving the offices of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Postsecondary Education, Indian Education, and Elementary and Secondary Education to other federal agencies.
"This bill is straightforward," said Collins during Thursday's hearing. "It keeps the administration of important landmark education programs at the Department of Education (DOE), where Congress specifically put them and where they belong."
The bill now moves to the Senate floor.
The Trump administration asserts that the work shifted from the DOE to other federal agencies such as the Justice Department and Health and Human Services will boost efficiencies — even while advancing to the ultimate objective of shuttering the 46-year-old Education Department.
Meanwhile, McMahon and several other Cabinet leaders dispatched a letter Thursday to congressional leadership touting the benefits of the disputed interagency agreements.
The DOE's partnerships, asserted the letter, break up the "failed federal education bureaucracy in Washington" by partnering with agencies "who are far better equipped to manage essential programs effectively."
Collins argued Thursday that the four interoffice transfers identified in the bill are misaligned with their program purposes.
The DOE, she noted, has entered into an interagency agreement with HHS to administer the education office that manages the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.
That change, Collins added, fundamentally misunderstands the history and intent of the special education program — which was created in 1975 to ensure that children with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education.
"Today, this office helps meet the education needs of more than 8 million children with disabilities," said Collins. "It's primarily focused on the students' education needs, not on their healthcare needs."
Murkowski said that many of her Alaska constituents are from Indigenous communities, adding that they were not consulted before the Indian Education office transfer.
"So these are issues that have real-time impact on our children right now."
Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville countered that Thursday's bill was "misguided," arguing that it fails to address the country's "failing education system."
"The (Education Department) is listening to the states through this process, and that's what we need to do," Tuberville said.
"President Trump's Department of Education has changed. It's changed for the better. I'm hearing it from my state. We need to listen to them. We need to applaud them for what they're doing.
"Don't keep running up the middle when we need to throw the football."
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., testified Thursday that the bipartisan bill does not go far enough to rein in McMahon's interagency overhaul.
Murray proposed, unsuccessfully, a couple of amendments to the bill.
Her first amendment called for prohibiting all DOE education offices from being transferred to other federal agencies. When that amendment failed, Murray introduced a more specific amendment that would prevent moving the DOE's Office for Civil Rights to the Justice Department. That too failed.
Only Congress can abolish the Education Department, declared Murray.
"But despite this, President Trump and Secretary McMahon have tried to subvert Congress and the will of the people by entering into these illegal interagency agreements," she said.
"This is saddling schools with more bureaucracy and outsourcing critical programs like special education and the enforcement of civil rights laws to other ill-equipped departments and agencies.
"Students deserve better, and so do their parents who do their best to advocate for them."
Bill co-sponsor Collins pushed back on Murray's amendment efforts to include the Office of Civil Rights into the proposed office transfer prohibitions.
"The utter failure of the Biden administration to address antisemitism on college campuses illustrates why we need to move the Office for Civil Rights out of the Department of Education to a more appropriate department, Department of Justice," she said.
"The Anti-Defamation League's Center for Antisemitism Research has reported that 73% of Jewish college students, including a member of my own staff, experienced or witnessed antisemitism on college campuses."
Murray did successfully add an amendment to Thursday's bill requiring the DOE to publicly disclose the taxpayer cost of the agency's interagency agreements.
Thursday's joint letter to Congress from McMahon and several fellow Cabinet members — including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — opened by saying taxpayers have invested $3 trillion in the DOE since its inception in 1980.
And what's to show for such investments? asked the signers.
"Among the lowest test scores ever recorded, millions of students buried in substantial student loan debt, and a bloated bureaucracy that has become more invested in preserving itself than in supporting students."
The DOE's interagency agreements now being challenged by the bipartisan bill are anchored in logic and efficiency, asserted the letter.
"Misconceptions have circulated about our 14 IAAs. Since these agreements were signed, however, they have demonstrated measurable results by driving stronger grant competitions, streamlining government operations, and producing better outcomes for Americans."
Each agreement, it concluded, is correcting failures that put processes ahead of performance — and the American people.
"By increasing competition in grantmaking, streamlining government operations, and better aligning federal agencies with the work they are best equipped to perform, we are ensuring that essential federal education functions once again serve students, families, states, institutions, and taxpayers."