Hearings to examine proposed budget estimates for fiscal year 2026 for the Department of Education.

Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies

2025-06-03

Source: Congress.gov

Summary

The Senate Committee on Education, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing on the President's fiscal year 2026 budget request for the Department of Education, focusing on key policy areas such as literacy, mental health support, student loan repayment, and education funding. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, alongside Ranking Member Tammy Baldwin and Chair Susan Collins, questioned Secretary Linda McMahon on the administration's proposed budget cuts, including eliminating TRIO and GEAR UP programs, slashing funding for mental health services, and reducing Pell Grants. Witnesses raised concerns over the lack of transparency in the department's spending plan, the abrupt discontinuation of mental health grants in schools, and the potential impact on students with disabilities. The hearing also highlighted the administration's push to reduce federal oversight and transfer authority to states, while emphasizing the need for accountability, evidence-based instruction, and greater local control. Critics argue that the budget significantly undermines student support programs and fails to address systemic challenges like student debt and educational inequality, with bipartisan support for maintaining key programs like TRIO and mental health initiatives.

Participants

Transcript

everyone.  It's nice to be back.  And Secretary McMahon, thank you for getting us off to a good start here in the next work period.  Thank you for coming to discuss the President's fiscal year 2026 budget request.   and your priorities for the Department of Education.  I'm pleased to be joined this morning by my friend Senator Baldwin and ranking members.  She's been on a wild trip all through her state, and so she's invigorated, right?  I am definitely invigorated.  All right, all right.  As well as our full committee chair who will be joining us, Senator Collins and Vice Chair Senator Murray.  We're all committed to return   the fiscal year 2026 appropriations process to regular order, and these hearings are the first step in that process, so thank you.  All Americans should have the opportunity to receive a high-quality education from preschool through post-secondary education.  I know that education is a key to success and a vital part of maintaining our strong communities across the nation.   I've seen it certainly firsthand in my home state of West Virginia, where I actually began my professional career as a college counselor and advisor, working closely with many first-generation college students.  Through this role, I was able to personally see how education provides students with life-changing opportunities.  Secretary McMahon, you have taken charge of the Department of Education at a critical time for our nation's students.  According to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress Scores, students have still not recovered   from pandemic-related school closures.  National scores on math and reading are worse than pre-pandemic levels in all tested grades.  And in reading, students' scores continue to decline.  A third of eighth graders are not even reading at basic level.  And that, I think you would agree, all of us would agree, is unacceptable.  We know that throwing more money at the problem will not lead to a solution.   These devastating declines in achievement are in spite of almost $190 billion in COVID relief funding provided for elementary and secondary education during the pandemic.
Federal education spending at a minimum should be focused on ensuring that Americans' children can read and write at a basic level.  This is critical not only for children to flourish, but also for us as a nation to be competitive.   That is why I strongly believe that federal education spending should support states and policies that afford kids the greatest opportunity to learn and achieve academically.  Education decisions should be made by those closest to our students, those who know what they need to succeed.  That is local schools, local teachers.   local school boards, and most importantly, local parents who are right there with their students.  Formula grant programs like Title I, IDEA, and career and technical education provide the crucial flexibility that states and local communities need to best meet the needs of all students.  And I look forward to continuing to support these key programs in fiscal year 2026.  Madam Secretary, I'm pleased that your budget proposes to increase another important program, the charter school program.   While West Virginia is fairly new to offering charter school education, we are already seeing promising results and expanded opportunities for our public school students.  For example, the Wynn Academy in Bridge Valley at Bridge Valley Community and Technical College is an early college charter high school designed to provide a free, accelerated, dynamic degree program for juniors and seniors in the Kanawha Valley.  The school was started to help local hospitals address the severe shortage in nursing.   and has been so successful that it has already been expanded to include an advanced manufacturing track in partnership with Toyota.  Students are enrolled in the college and graduate from high school ready to start their careers in high-need, well-paying jobs.   The school is meeting the intent of other charter schools, using the flexibility they are granted to offer innovative learning opportunities to benefit students.  With the additional funding for charter schools proposed in your budgets, I know that many more students across the country would benefit from opportunities like the West Virginia WIN Academy.
Secretary McMahon, this is a pivotal time for our nation's student loan borrowers.   borrowers have been forced to navigate an exceptionally confusing four years full of bad advice and unfair promises of illegal loan forgiveness from the prior administration and as a result one in four student loan borrowers is either in default or on a late stage of delinquency on their loans as of the beginning of May and only 38 percent of borrowers are actually in repayment   and current on their student loans.  After years of confusion, the department must work to restore trust with borrowers by providing clear and consistent information about repayment.  Student loan borrowers deserve that clarity in order to fulfill their obligations to repay their loans.  I'm grateful that under your leadership, the department has begun the difficult task of getting borrowers back on the path to repayment, and I look forward to your continued progress.   Secretary McMahon, the fiscal year 2026 appropriations process will be challenging, but I look forward to working with you to responsibly allocate our limited taxpayers' resources to programs that help provide the best opportunity for high-quality education for all students.  Thank you again for being here today, and I look forward to your testimony.  Now I will turn to Senator Baldwin for her opening statement.

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