Tim Walberg Praises Secretary Linda McMahon For Protecting Girls From 'A Radical Gender Ideology'

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At a House Education & Workforce Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) spoke to Education Sec. Linda McMahon about her tenure as Education Secretary.

Transcript

00:00Now we'll turn to the oversight hearing portion of today's meeting.

00:06Good morning.

00:07It's a pleasure to welcome Secretary Linda McMahon for the first time to the Committee

00:12on Education and Workforce.

00:14We don't want to be your last, necessarily.

00:17Madam Secretary, thank you for being here.

00:20Since you were sworn in on March 3rd, you've made it your mission to address the glaring

00:26problems you inherited from your predecessor and begin the process of right-sizing the

00:33Department of Education so we can return education to the states.

00:37I want to address each of these core parts of your mission in turn.

00:43First a glaring problem at the K-12 level.

00:46Less than one-third of the eighth graders in America can read or do math at grade level.

00:52To put that into perspective, if the nation's report card were an actual report card, a

00:57100 percent improvement on the next iteration of the test would still leave us with a failing

01:03grade.

01:04Unfortunately, too many in our education system are more invested in protecting their monopoly

01:09power over kids' futures or indoctrinating students into left-wing ideology than teaching

01:15them basic skills, developing their critical thinking, and expanding their educational choices.

01:22At the post-secondary level, your predecessor used billions of taxpayer funds to pursue illegal

01:28student loan schemes meant to shift responsibility for student loan debt from the individuals who

01:34took it on to taxpayers who paid off their debt or never went to college in the first place.

01:42In addition, the Biden-Harris administration ignored the congressional mandate for student loan

01:47repayments to resume, breaking the student loan system and creating chaos for borrowers.

01:54All the while, Democrats have been happy to let the post-secondary education industry continue

02:00bilking students, their families, and taxpayers, while in many cases delivering a product that

02:06leaves students worse off than if they had never attended college at all.

02:11At all levels of education, your predecessor weaponized the Office for Civil Rights to inflict

02:16dangerous and radical ideologies on students and their families while simultaneously taking

02:23a hands-off approach to the exploding crisis of anti-Semitism in our nation's schools and

02:28colleges.

02:29I have been heartened to see your aggressive actions to protect the dignity, the safety,

02:35and academic and athletic opportunities of women and girls from a radical gender ideology

02:41that ignores basic biology.

02:45I have also been heartened by your desire to bring to light discriminatory DEI practices

02:51in our schools that dehumanize people.

02:54And I've been especially happy to see your Department's response to the indifference

02:59to many education leaders continue to show in the face of ongoing threats to Jewish students.

03:08Second, I applaud you for embracing a final mission for the Department of Education.

03:13I imagine we'll have a vigorous debate about this today, because the Republican-Democrat parties

03:19have competing visions of education in this country.

03:24And that's how it is.

03:26There's an implication in the criticism leveled at you, Madam Secretary, that the status quo is

03:32fine.

03:33Really, the implication is that the status quo is more than fine.

03:37The minority wants us to believe that the Department of Education is overseeing an education

03:42system in which students are thriving and employers have access to a workforce prepared to succeed.

03:49Neither of these are true.

03:51As I mentioned earlier, our K-12 education performance is abysmal.

03:56At the post-secondary level, the national six-year graduation rate is just over 60%.

04:02In other words, our colleges and universities would get an F on their primary responsibility.

04:08And the college-for-all mentality driven by the previous administration's student loan

04:13schemes has only made the problem worse.

04:18Our education system has failed.

04:20To prepare a workforce with the skills employers need, again, this is what Democrats are defending.

04:30Republicans believe there's a better way.

04:32We believe in reducing bureaucracy, trusting our educators, trusting our state and local leaders,

04:38and trusting the innovators who are pushing against the barriers thrown up by the bureaucracy.

04:43And above all, we trust our parents.

04:46This is our vision.

04:47And thankfully, we finally have an administration in place that shares this vision.

04:54The Trump administration is eliminating bureaucracy where it isn't needed.

04:57It is also implementing federal guardrails when needed, like enforcing Title IX to protect

05:05the rights of women and girls, protecting access to education for students with disabilities,

05:10holding colleges and universities accountable for tolerating mass harassment of Jewish students,

05:16or preventing efforts to exclude parents from their children's education.

05:22In these ways, the Trump administration is streamlining bureaucracy so that the federal government

05:27can better deliver on the responsibilities it has.

05:32Madam Secretary, again, thank you for being here.

05:35I look forward to hearing more about your plans to continue cleaning up the mess you inherited

05:41and your vision for an education system that puts students, not bureaucrats, first.

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