John,

Tomorrow is the first day of the confirmation hearings of Linda McMahon, the former owner of World Wrestling Entertainment who served one term on the Connecticut Board of Education. (She was later found to have lied about her education background on a questionnaire.)

McMahon’s nomination to lead the Department of Education (DOE) is purely political as she will be the perfect Trump lackey and carry out the plans of Project 2025, which is to abolish the DOE for good.

Trump and McMahon have the backing of right-wing members of the House of Representatives who just introduced H.R. 899, a bill that would completely eliminate the U.S. Department of Education.

The DOE provides funding and support for curriculum and programs for more than 50 million students in elementary and secondary school in nearly 18,200 school districts across the country, in addition to providing $150 billion in student loan assistance annually.¹ Federal funds are specially targeted to help school districts in low-income communities.

The DOE is also responsible for ensuring students with disabilities get the resources they need and enforcing Title IX protections against discrimination and sexual harassment. Without it, states would be left to make their own rules, meaning right-wing-led states could gut public education funding, eliminate resources for students with disabilities, divert public funds to private schools, and roll back or slash protections guaranteed by Title IX. We know the Trump administration is seeking to gut these protections. That makes it all the more important that the Department of Education continues to exist, so that its legally required civil rights role can be enforced.

We’re fighting back against these extremist attacks on our children and our communities.

Send a direct message to Congress demanding they reject the radical assault on public education.

Democrats are not powerless to stop this. If House Democrats vote united, then they only need to peel off 3 Republicans―and there are more than two dozen House Republicans in swing districts nationwide. If the bill does pass the House, Senate Democrats can block it using the filibuster. But unity among Democrats is never guaranteed and every member of Congress needs to know where the American public stands.

The very first sentence in Project 2025 under the Department of Education calls for its elimination. It calls for DOE programs to be moved to other agencies and taxpayer federally funded vouchers to be used at private and charter schools that will receive very little oversight. It calls for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and Tribally controlled colleges to be funded through block grants.² Block grant funding means the government will fund a fixed amount that will not be increased despite increasing need.

Your Congresspeople need to hear directly from you. Send a message telling them to fight back against attacks on the Department of Education.

Thank you for all you do,

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, CHN Action

¹ Federal Role in Education
² 2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise