CYMI from Politico: The Education Department gave another agency power to distribute its money. It hasn’t gone well.
ICYMI from Gov Exec: Trump admin acknowledges difficulties in transferring Education programs to other agencies, internal documents show
***WATCH: Senator Murray questions witnesses on how the Trump administration has increased bureaucratic hurdles for educators and harmed career and technical education***
Washington, D.C. — Today, at a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) subcommittee hearing on career and technical education (CTE), U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA)—a former chair and senior member of the HELP Committee—questioned witnesses on how the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education (ED) by spinning off critical education responsibilities to other agencies are harming students and threatening education programs across the nation.
President Trump signed an executive order in March seeking to eliminate the Department of Education. Federal law requires an act of Congress to close the department, and Secretary McMahon has repeatedly affirmed that only Congress can shut down the department. Knowing that Congress will not pass a law to abolish the Department of Education, she has nonetheless worked hard to dismantle the department from within. In July, Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced that she planned to illegally transfer responsibility of CTE and adult education programs to the Department of Labor–leading to technical problems, communications breakdowns, bureaucratic hurdles, and logistical issues at the agency. Despite these problems, last month, the Trump administration announced that it would double down on this failure and attempt to illegally shutter even more of the Department of Education by moving significant responsibilities of almost all K-12 education programs and the majority of higher education grantmaking to other agencies with little to no education expertise—causing early literacy programs, preschool programs, and college access programs to be administered out of an agency whose primary task is to implement workforce training and labor protections. Now, K-12 and higher education grantees will need to work with multiple federal agencies, instead of one, in the administration of these programs, creating new bureaucratic hurdles for states and school districts in the process. Senator Murray hosted a roundtable last month with parents, educators, and advocates in Seattle decrying the administration’ latest actions to dismantle ED.
In opening comments, Senator Murray said:
“Thank you, Chair Tuberville. I’m really glad that we are having this important conversation.
“I want to take this opportunity to say how outraged I am by how callously the Trump Administration has mishandled our education programs, as it is taking a wrecking ball to the Department of Education.
“Earlier this year, Secretary McMahon cast off much of her Department’s responsibility for career and technical education and adult education programs to the Labor Department, with basically no notice, no planning—which has resulted in funding delays and other problems.
“Unfortunately, that was just a preview of what was to come.
“Three weeks ago, President Trump and Secretary McMahon announced they are moving almost all K-12 education programs, and many higher education programs, to DOL, and they are moving others to HHS, Interior, State.
“And they also promised to keep moving more programs—including Special Education—to other agencies, all without consulting Congress. That should be unacceptable to every one of us.
“Congress has repeatedly and clearly authorized those programs at the Department of Education and provided funding to the Department of Education to carry them out. Moving programs to agencies without the experience nor the capacity to administer them is really a disservice to our students and to our schools.
“The Department of Labor is not used to administering the number of programs administered by the Department of Education. We saw chaos earlier this year when the CTE and Adult Education programs were moved from the Department of Education to DOL.
“How much worse is it going to be when DOL is saddled with thousands of education grants, like TRIO, when they have never administered anything near that scale? How are they going to administer Impact Aid programs with zero experience doing that? Why is the Department of Labor administering programs for preschoolers and elementary school students at all?
“The Trump administration has not answered those questions or even consulted Congress. The Secretary of Labor has never testified to how she would administer any of these new programs—and she even failed to explain how she’s meeting her existing responsibilities.
“This is not saving money. It is not reducing bureaucracy. It is increasing chaos. DOL is already charging McMahon over a million additional dollars to now do the CTE work her employees were doing.
“Taking over significantly larger and complex programs will surely cost significantly more—but of course, the administration hasn’t told us how much it’s going to be. And now we will have two separate Departments ‘co-managing’ all of these programs.
“How is that going to reduce bureaucracy? States, school districts, and families are going to have to deal with multiple federal agencies now when they used to deal with one.
“So I want to make clear: I am always ready for a conversation about how we improve these federal programs. But that couldn’t be further from what is happening with this administration.
“And again, they aren’t even bothering to talk to Congress about it and how they can pursue these ideas legally—by passing a law to do it. They’re just doing it, which tells you pretty much how serious they are about doing anything.
“So I appreciate this hearing, but I needed this opportunity to express my dismay at what is happening in this administration to our schools, to our students, and really, to the future of our country with all this mismanaging going on.”
Witnesses at the hearing included: Mr. Luke Rhine, Vice President, Rodel Foundation; Chris Cox, Deputy Chancellor for Instruction, Research, and Development, Alabama Community College System; Ms. Chelle Travis, Executive Director, SkillsUSA; and Mr. Joel Stadtlander, Director of Human Resources, ArcelorMittal Calvert.
[TRUMP ADMIN UNDERMINING EDUCATION]
Senator Murray began by asking Mr. Rhine about the inter-agency agreements Secretary McMahon announced last month, which are intended to further dismantle the Department without any concern for how to best manage these programs and help students, “But Mr. Rhine, let me ask you, and I wanted to ask you given your expertise: can Education and DOL collaborate on these programs without an inter-agency agreement, and have they collaborated on CTE before?”
“So, there is a long history of collaboration between the Department of Education and the Department of Labor. And what that history tells us is that it does not require major structural realignment. Where states have partnered, where federal agencies have partnered, is essentially through a number of instances. So, the implementation of WIOA, Titles I and III exist at the U.S. Department of Labor. Titles II and IV, which are inherently education programs, exist at the Department of Education—used to exist at the Department of Education. There was an inter-agency working group that worked directly with states and across federal agencies to manage the implementation of WIOA and ensure that our nation’s adult education and workforce system was responsive to states. There are also examples where the Departments of Education and Labor have partnered to offer and support things like career and technical education. When I worked federally, we offered a number of joint issue, we jointly issued a number of guidance documents to states that help them think about the integration of CTE, the expansion of post-secondary CTE to include registered apprenticeship as well as short term credential programs. How states could modify their post-secondary funding formula, which states are given the authority to do under the Act to include at the time programs that were not Pell-eligible. So, there are many instances where the Departments of Education and Labor have cooperatively worked together, but in past instances, they’ve essentially centered states’ needs as part of their joint collaboration. And I think that’s one thing that we’re missing right now, is really working hand in glove with states to make sure that they have the information that they need to lead effectively,” answered Mr. Rhine.
“Thank you. I’m over my time, but Mr. Chairman, I really think Congress needs to look at what is happening here, what’s happening to our programs, what’s happening to families’ access, whether there’s any collaboration, how they’re putting this together. And clearly, again, it’s up to Congress to pass the law. The administration cannot do this without Congress having their input,” Senator Murray concluded.
A senior member and former chair of the HELP Committee, Senator Murray has championed students and families at every stage of her career—fighting to help ensure every child in America can get a high-quality public education. Among other things, Senator Murray negotiated the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), landmark legislation that she got signed into law, replacing the broken No Child Left Behind Act. In June, she wrote a letter to Department of Education (ED) Secretary Linda McMahon with Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D, CT-03), Congressman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D, VA-03), and Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), calling out the Department’s illegal efforts to attempt to transfer responsibility over CTE programs to the Department of Labor (DOL). The lawmakers also called out the moves in a July statement, and Senator Murray joined Congresswoman DeLauro and Senator Baldwin to condemn the Department of Education’s continued attempts to illegally transfer CTE responsibility to the DOL in September. Last week, Senator Murray led her colleagues in sending a letter to Secretary McMahon slamming ED’s recent announcement that it has signed interagency agreements (IAAs) to illegally outsource core functions that students and their families rely on—and calling on her to reverse these latest steps to dismantle ED.
Senator Murray also helped pass the bipartisan Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act in 2018, which updated and reauthorized the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education (CTE) Act to update job training and CTE programs to meet the needs of local economies in the 21st century.
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Democratic lawmakers said on Tuesday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a classified briefing, declined to commit to showing the full Congress unedited video of the U.S. military’s attack on a boat in the Caribbean on Sept. 2.
The attack, which included a follow-up strike that killed two survivors, has been the subject of intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill and among military experts, who have raised questions about its legality.
“His answer: We have to study it,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said of Mr. Hegseth’s response on Tuesday. “Well, in my view, they’ve studied it long enough.”
Mr. Schumer added: “Congress ought to be able to see it.”
The closed-door discussion also included Secretary of State Marco Rubio; John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director; and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It mostly centered on the 22 known boat strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that the Trump administration has carried out since early September, according to a U.S. official briefed on the meeting. The attacks have killed at least 87 people.
“When Executive Branch officials determining immigration policy have a personal stake in their decision-making, they may be improperly influenced to enact policies that generate billions for their favored immigration contractors.”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) led a new probe calling on the Inspectors General (IG) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Defense (DoD) to investigate whether defense and immigration contractors are receiving lucrative contracts because of their ties to high-level Trump administration officials, including Tom Homan, the “Border Czar.”
Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), along with Representatives Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), and Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) joined in signing the letter.
“When Executive Branch officials determining immigration policy have a personal stake in their decision-making, they may be improperly influenced to enact policies that generate billions for their favored immigration contractors,” said the lawmakers.
Before the 2024 election, Homan, who previously ran a firm that helped contractors secure DHS contracts, allegedly accepted $50,000 in cash in exchange for helping certain companies win contracts. Since joining the Trump administration, Homan reportedly has participated in meetings with immigration contractors about contracts, potentially in violation of ethics rules. Some of the companies with ties to Homan have been short-listed to compete for lucrative contracts.
Other senior officials, like Stephen Miller, President Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Advisor, have financial and professional ties to private contractors who have profited from the administration's immigration agenda, including ties through stock investments, past lobbying and employment backgrounds, and campaign contributions.
For example, GEO Group, a former client of Mr. Homan, reported that it had entered new contracts worth over $130 million with ICE in 2025 alone. GEO also said it anticipated that increased detention “could generate between $500 million and $600 million” for the company each year, and increased deportation flights would generate $40 million to $50 million each year.
The letter asks that the Inspectors General investigate whether this windfall was in part due to the company’s ties to the administration. One of GEO Group’s subsidiaries, BI Incorporated, will benefit from contracts to supply ankle monitors and other electronic surveillance devices. Mr. Homan has also called for expanding ICE’s detention capacity, an area GEO specializes in and therefore is likely to receive contracts for. Additionally, David Venturella, who until recently served as GEO’s Vice President, is now a top ICE official overseeing immigration detention centers like those run by GEO.
Palantir, which offers data services for ICE to identify and target immigrants, and which has also secured contracts during this administration, is another example of these troubling connections. The company is a donor to the White House ballroom and its CEO donated to President Trump’s campaign. In addition, Mr. Miller holds between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Palantir and his senior policy advisor Kara Frederick owns between $50,000 and $100,000 in Palantir stock. The list of ties between Trump Administration officials and immigration contractors goes on.
“These apparent conflicts of interest risk the further erosion of public confidence in DoD and DHS at a time when taxpayer dollars are being funneled toward ICE practices that are increasingly regarded as inhumane,” concluded the lawmakers.
The coalition urged the IGs to open an investigation into the matter, including into whether Homan’s participation in the contracting process violates federal ethics laws, whether other Trump administration officials with financial or personal ties to contractors have helped them secure contracts, and whether any immigration-related contracts have bypassed the standard bidding process.
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