'A catastrophe': Democrats sound off on Trump's cuts to Education Department
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, did not hold back the morning after the Trump administration announced deep cuts to the U.S. Department of Education workforce: about half its employees will be terminated.
“I’m sorry, but that is bulls--t,” Evers said, in a press call Wednesday.
“I know Wisconsin kids and our schools – getting rid of the U.S. Department of Education and making devastating cuts to public education would be a catastrophe, as simple as that,” he continued.
More than 1,300 employees at the department – which oversees federal education policy and administers billions in funding to individuals, states and local schools – received a termination notice Tuesday. This comes after 572 employees at the department accepted buyouts in exchange for their resignations.
The layoffs and resignations leave the Department of Education with just over half the number of workers it had at the outset of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Evers, a former teacher, principal and superintendent, gathered virtually with fellow Democratic governors and former educators Matt Meyer of Delaware and Tim Walz of Minnesota, who were also vocally disturbed by the recent slashes.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for cutting bureaucracy, but we cannot cut bureaucracy on the backs of our kids and their families,” Meyer said.
The state leaders warned that a dismantled or even weakened Education Department could hurt school budgets and result in inflated class sizes, fewer resources for students in special education programs, and problems recruiting and retaining teachers.
“Linda McMahon might be the most unqualified person to ever speak about public schools in this nation’s history,” said Walz, referring to Trump’s recently confirmed Secretary of Education.
McMahon, a billionaire GOP donor and former wrestling industry executive, defended the layoffs as part of overall efforts to reduce “bureaucratic bloat” and increase efficiency.
“It’s a humanitarian thing to a lot of the folks that are there. They’re out of a job. But we wanted to make sure that we kept all of the right people and the good people,” she told Fox News Tuesday evening, echoing phrasing the president used earlier that day talking about government-wide terminations.
McMahon said also this was the first step en route to shutting down the department entirely.
“Saying she fired half the people but only the bad ones,” Walz said the next morning. “She missed one. She missed one for sure, and that’s herself.”
Contributing: Zach Schermele and Joey Garrison, Paste BN