Linda McMahon reveals game plan to unwind US Department of Education and finding ways to operate very efficiently

US Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Sunday insisted there won’t be cuts to programs involving special education and student loans even if they end up administered by other departments.Laying out her game plan to unwind her agency as much as possible, McMahon explained that the Trump administration has at least loose ideas about which offices under the DOE to move elsewhere.“The outward-facing programs that are going to be affecting students are — there’s not going to be any defunding for those programs,” McMahon said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”“When [Trump] talked about student loans, that would be going to the Small Business Administration,” McMahon said.“The programs for students with disabilities will more than likely rest in [the Department of Health and Human Services], which, by the way, is where they began.“We want to make sure that that funding continues in departments where it needs to be but at the same time give states the opportunities to be innovative and creative with their teaching,” McMahon said.President Trump signed a vague executive order last week directing McMahon to begin the closure of the Education Department to the “maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”He later said he specifically wanted to shift the DOE’s work on student loans and special needs kids to other departments.“I think we’re looking at putting things in different departments where they can operate very efficiently as we look at how we can shut down the Department of Education,” McMahon said.She noted that the department doesn’t teach a single student or develop a curriculum.The education secretary has acknowledged that the Trump administration will need an act of Congress to fully eliminate the department.But she’s already taken drastic steps to begin dismantling it, including by slashing nearly half of its workforce earlier this month.The Department of Education was created in 1979 under the late former President Jimm...