Trump admin cuts red tape as Iowa joins effort to return education to states

FIRST ON FOX—The Department of Education is looking to continue cutting red tape after Iowa became the first state to join its returning education to the states initiative.

The department announced on Wednesday it had approved Iowa’s Returning Education to the States Waiver, a new process that would allow states to reduce administrative burden in order to use federal money as they see fit.

“If I thought I had a student that was in a public school that was failing or that the funds were not improving my students’ ability to excel in their study, I would jump up and down in approval,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon told Fox News Digital in an interview.

“I would jump up and down and clap my hands and say, thank you, Governor [Kim] Reynolds, for pursuing this additional money that’s going to go directly into our students’ performance and be very happy as a parent that my governor was taking that action,” she added. 

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McMahon told Fox News Digital that the effort supports President Donald Trump’s vision to return education to the states by minimizing the Department of Education’s role in education in each state.

“The vow, in my commitment to the president, which has been his directive, is to return education to the states and to put the responsibility for educating the students in each state back into the hands of the governors and the superintendents and the chiefs in those states, and the local communities and parents,” McMahon said.

McMahon went on to say, “We are following along that path in first looking at ways that we can accomplish distributing funds directly to states and giving them waiver abilities, if you will, for some federal granting so that they can start that process and that’s exactly what Iowa has asked us to do under their waiver.”

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The Department of Education sent states a letter last July encouraging them to apply for the waiver to allow their state education officials more discretion over federal dollars and reduce compliance costs. 

“The waiver process can provide state leaders more discretion over federal programs so that they can put dollars toward options that best meet the needs of students free from bureaucratic red tape,” the department’s letter stated.

Iowa is now permitted to combine four federal funding streams into one, allowing it to cut compliance costs in half. 

“Iowa leaders estimate this waiver’s flexibility will cut compliance costs in half, allowing nearly $8 million to be redirected from bureaucratic red tape to the classroom,” the department claimed.

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McMahon touted Reynolds’ decision to funnel federal dollars directly to students after they were typically gobbled up by compliance costs, a burden imposed upon states by the federal government. 

“She was fully on board with understanding the president’s commitment to returning education to the states and is one of those governors that plainly stated that she really saw not much benefit of having a Department of Education,” McMahon said.

“It was really about the funding that flowed into the state. And being able to spend that money under the law, but without a lot of the regulatory compliance that was put upon by the Department of Education.”

McMahon articulated before that the department is merely a “pass through” for federal funding as opposed to controlling curriculum as others often expect.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reyonds praised McMahon and the savings will help bolster education in the state. 

“The flexibility to leverage federal education resources to further advance state priorities is an incredible opportunity, and it’s why I was motivated to be the first state in the nation to demonstrate the value of this change,” she said. “Secretary McMahon understands that innovation can’t happen in our classrooms if the resources we need are tied up in red tape. Shifting nearly $8 million in resources into our classrooms will further strengthen Iowa’s teacher pipeline, expand evidence-based instruction, and narrow achievement gaps.”