CLEVELAND — Cleveland's MAGNET School is one held up by Republicans and Democrats alike over the years for its role in training the region's next generation manufacturing workforce. It's what brought U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to Cleveland Tuesday as part of her cross-country Returning Education to the States tour. Because, through programs like MAGNET, she argues, states can meet their own needs.
“States really are the laboratories of invention and innovation, and for states to understand what industries are growing or need to grow within their areas,” McMahon told the crowd. “They can therefore work with manufacturers, they can work with educators, they can work with industry leaders to determine the needs in their area and help to develop curriculum and do all of the things that grow the economy from the ground up."
McMahon took over the department with the immediate task of helping to dismantle it, returning, as the tour implies, those functions to the state. Laying off nearly half of the department’s 4,100 workers, a move upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in July. The Administration cannot eliminate the department; only Congress can.
Critics of the agency point to the number of students who have fallen behind under the department’s watch, while analysts have pointed out earlier this year that the department's main functions are outside of the classroom.
"The Department of Education does not dictate curriculum. It doesn't decide who teaches and who's hired, and it doesn't decide what happens day to day in schools," said Jon Valant of the Brookings Institution.
What it does do is provide funding, about 10% of what Ohio school districts as a whole rely on, according to the Ohio Education Association, a figure that's even higher, though, in the state's poorer school districts, which receive federal Title I funds.
"Title I money supports low-income students, sometimes low-income students are a little bit further behind as they enter school, and this is there to catch them up. It may affect services for students with disabilities. It would definitely make higher education more expensive," said Jeff Wensing, President of the Ohio Education Association.
McMahon didn’t take questions from the media on this stop but again pointed to the 3,000 jobs that public education programs like MAGNET have created since it opened the doors of its new building in 2023. Something she argued happens when local leaders decide what’s needed, not Washington.
“Let’s take bureaucracy out of education. Let’s make sure that the dollars that are appropriated by Congress that will continue to come to the states let’s make sure that we empower states, that we empower parents," she said.
