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Amid growing calls—and even some early legislation—to dissolve the U.S. Department of Education, three former secretaries who ran the agency under a Republican and a Democratic president agreed that while some reform could be warranted, its work remained crucial, particularly as the nation’s students struggle to regain academic ground lost in recent years and schools report stubbornly high absenteeism.
Though President Donald Trump’s attempt in his first term to end the department—through a merger with the Department of Labor—eventually dissipated, he breathed new life into longstanding Republican calls to eliminate the agency during his 2024 campaign.
But, in a wide-ranging discussion hosted by the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution on Jan. 21, former education secretaries Margaret Spellings, John King Jr., and Arne Duncan argued that the department’s role in civil rights, data collection for accountability, and improving outcomes remain as important as ever.
“I always say that the great military is our best defense as a nation, and a great education system is our best offense,” said Duncan, who served under Democratic President Barack Obama.
Here are some of the topics they tackled during the discussion.
The next secretary of education: Linda McMahon
Trump tapped Linda McMahon—the former World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. CEO and U.S. Small Business Administration leader—to serve as his second education secretary. Proponents of her appointment have said her business acumen will serve her well coming into the department, which oversees $1.6 trillion in federal student loans. Meanwhile, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, the National Education Association, called on the U.S. Senate to reject her appointment, saying she is unqualified due to a thin resume in public education.
Her background, however, could be a boon for department initiatives to focus on career preparation through community colleges and apprenticeships—a continuation of Biden administration efforts, Spellings said.
“I think that’s a place where we can find common cause, absolutely, with the Congress,” said Spellings, who served during Republican President George W. Bush’s second term. “Frankly, the Biden administration did a lot on that as well. So there’s some draft around workforce.”
Part of the job is using the bully pulpit and focusing public attention, said King, who served during Obama’s second term after Duncan stepped down.
“I think one question for Secretary McMahon will be: How does she want to use her bully pulpit? What is the thing she wants to elevate? I hope it will be urgency about improving outcomes, because that is a threat to the long-term health of our economy and our democracy. But that is a lever she can use, and she should think very carefully about how she wants to use it.”
Though McMahon hasn’t had any classroom experience herself, she’ll be joined in leadership by a seasoned educator—Penny Schwinn, the former Tennessee education commissioner whom Trump has tapped as deputy education secretary. Duncan described her as “a serious person; she’s smart, she cares about kids.”
“I am concerned about lots and lots and lots of things with the Trump administration. But today, I’m a little less concerned on the education side,” Duncan continued.
Concerns about the department getting pulled into ‘culture wars’
The three former agency heads spoke after Trump, on his first day back at the White House, had already begun flexing his executive muscle, issuing orders on diversity, equity, and inclusion; gender identity; and immigration.
King worries about the students those orders will affect: undocumented students, or students who have family members who are undocumented; LGBTQ+ students; and low-income students and students of color, who continue to achieve at lower levels than their white and higher-income peers.
“All of us need to be asking, who’s championing the needs of those most vulnerable students?” King said.
The department’s office for civil rights, which enforces federal civil rights laws in schools that receive federal funding, has been essential in fighting for those students, Duncan said.
During Trump’s first administration, students’ discrimination complaints related to sexual orientation and gender identity were less likely to result in changes at their schools than during the Obama administration, federal records showed. And the Education Department during Trump’s first term also confirmed it would not investigate complaints about restroom access for transgender students, which drew ire from civil rights groups.
Now, Trump has made clear that he doesn’t view Title IX—the nation’s law prohibiting sex discrimination at schools—as protecting students against discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
“If somehow OCR is weaponized … on just issues that have nothing to do with anything, it’s tremendously destructive and a huge waste of time and energy,” Duncan said.
A sense of urgency in tackling declining achievement
Both the Bush and Obama administrations pursued sweeping K-12 reform and accountability measures, with Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act creating a federal, test-based accountability system and Obama’s Race to the Top grant competition emphasizing preferred school reforms.
Today, after reading and math scores have hit their lowest levels in decades and chronic absenteeism has remained stubbornly high, the federal Department of Education needs to bring more urgency to fighting those problems, the former secretaries agreed.
“Let’s get back to talking about how well are students performing and reading, and math, those fundamental skills,” Spellings said. “I think we can all agree on those first principles without getting distracted by some of these red herring matters.”
Perception of the department around hot-button issues like student loans
All three former secretaries entered the job with a focus on K-12 achievement, but they all learned in their tenures “that, really, the big bulk of the work at the Department of Education is focused on administering these very large loan and grant programs,” Spellings said.
Those programs are what influence public opinions about the agency.
The two biggest-ticket items for K-12 schools are Title I, an $18.4 billion program that sends money to schools to help low-income students, and IDEA, a $14.2 billion program that helps schools pay for special education services. IDEA also lays out the requirements schools need to follow in providing special education.
The department also oversees the federal student aid program and trillions of dollars in student loans.
The Biden administration’s bungled rollout of a simplified Free Application for Student Federal Aid, or FAFSA, became a dark cloud hanging over the department and undermined its credibility, Spellings said.
The Pew Research Center found in 2024 that the American public had a mixed view of the Department of Education, with 44 percent viewing it favorably, and just about as many—45 percent—holding an unfavorable view.
“I think there’s a real gap between the customer service side of the department and then the things that the department funds,” King said.
“I think there’s near unanimous support—both sides of the aisle—for IDEA and additional funding to support students with disabilities,” he said. “On the customer service side, the experience of so many Americans is the FAFSA and student loans, and that is not a positive, generally customer service experience, particularly recently.”
That’s one thing King hopes McMahon will tackle with her business background: working with Congress to secure the right resources and staffing to improve the public’s experience with the student loan system.