DETROIT — U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon brought her Returning Education to the States Tour to Michigan on Monday, visiting three schools along with Hillsdale College, and touting a need to downsize the role of the federal education department and promote school choice.

Just one stop on the tour was open to media, a short single-classroom tour at Pembroke Academy, a charter school, followed by a round-table discussion with 15 minutes of the hour-long conversation open to the public. Pembroke is a National Blue Ribbon School, a list of about 350 schools nationwide honored for academic success. It has about 500 students in grades K-8.

McMahon also had visits scheduled at Renaissance High School in the Detroit Public Schools Community District and Washington Parks Academy, a charter school in Redford Township. Her Hillsdale College speech was not open to the media, but remarks posted to the U.S. Department of Education website quote her railing against college and university leaders across the nation.

"College should be a trial by fire that inspires students to struggle and strive," McMahon said, according to the remarks. "And this should begin in the admissions office, where the requirements should be rigorous, selective, and completely merit-based.

"Classes should be challenging and make no apologies or accommodations."

McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive, said she was on a 50-state tour to put together "tool kits" for states to see what is working in other places. She heard from charter school leaders at Pembroke that afterschool and weekend supports for students were crucial in overcoming pandemic-era losses in reading and math.

McMahon's visit came as the Michigan Legislature — with Democrats controlling the Senate and the GOP leading the House — has yet to pass a budget, despite the school year starting in most districts by sometime in August. That has left many schools unable to implement the best practices they already know work, including after-school tutoring programs.

Defining accountability

House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, joined McMahon at Pembroke but blamed Democrats for the budget stalemate.

"We're working very hard to empower our local districts and giving them the flexibility they need," Hall said in comments to the media. "Unfortunately, in Michigan, Democrats are trying to protect the status quo, and that hasn't worked."

McMahon said the goal is to give more power to states and to downsize the U.S. Department of Education, but also noted, the federal government is currently not the key driver of what happens in classrooms across the country.

"We don't set curriculum, we don't hire teachers, we don't buy books, we don't do any of that," she said. "We're primarily a pass-through, you know, for the funding that comes in from Congress.

She added, "There is some oversight."

That oversight has included federal investigations into districts and states that have failed to provide adequate educational opportunities for under-represented student groups over the last several decades. Congress also passed the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015 to push states to hold districts and schools more accountable for student outcomes across the board. It required states to identify lists of low-performing schools and to create plans to improve them.

Asked how accountability would continue if the U.S. Department of Education shrinks or closes, McMahon said school choice efforts as part of President Donald Trump's budget, dubbed the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," would motivate schools to be accountable.

"What you've seen with the president certainly backing school choice, he doesn't believe that any students should be in a failing school, and so therefore, he has really been promoting school choice," she said. "You know, in the Big, Beautiful Bill — but it's now the the working class family tax cut bill — there are more and more opportunities for charter schools and to be able to get out of those failing schools. So I think to the extent that failing schools are going to be held accountable by their states, that money then will be forthcoming to the states."

Charter schools would also continue to be accountable to their authorizers, she said, which in Michigan means higher education institutions that have their own reputations on the line with each authorized school.

The visit was denounced by State Rep. Tonya Myers Phillips, a Detroit Democrat who objected to an unannounced visit to Renaissance High School and criticized state and federal Republicans for proposed and actual education budget cuts.

“Speaker Hall and Secretary McMahon are smiling for cameras here in Detroit while pushing budgets that slash public education funding — including $37 million in cuts to Detroit schools,” Myers Phillips said in a Monday statement, adding that "Michigan’s children should never be collateral damage in political battles; they deserve leadership that protects their future."

Hall has argued that the House Republican budget plan results in an overall increase in K-12 school spending.

“Detroit has lived through the harm of chronic underfunding and painful school closures. We will not allow our children to be forced down that path again. They deserve dignity, resources, and the full measure of opportunity. If Republicans are sincere about valuing education, they would move beyond the political theater and commit to the real investments that House Democrats have championed to strengthen our schools and safeguard our children’s future.”

State curriculum choices

Congressman Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, noted the state of Mississippi had its "Mississippi Miracle" by overhauling the way it teaches kids to read, aligning with what's known as the "science of reading" and launching the state up the rankings across the country in literacy scores.

"A state that didn't take the federal government to tell them they were failing, they moved up in a relatively short period of time by doing what they needed to do for their students," said Walberg, who chairs the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Michigan, however, has passed a far less strict science of reading law and delayed its implementation until the 2027-28 school year.

McMahon said she thought that date should be moved up.

She acknowledged that it takes time to teach teachers how to teach the science of reading and other factors to make the program successful.

"I think if I had my wish, I would just say, do it as soon as you can, because it's just going to reap — you're going to reap the benefits much sooner if you can do that," McMahon said.

Asked if she supported the idea of a mandated curriculum at the state level, McMahon said she believed that should be up to each state.

Hall noted Michigan's law is not a mandate for districts to adopt a curriculum aligned with the science of reading, but for the state to put together a list of programs that are aligned for districts to choose from, if they wish.

Hall said the Republican proposal was for "setting up a list of peer-reviewed curriculum for the schools to look at as a recommendation" and reiterated it was "not a mandate."

"That's a great thing for us to sort through these hundreds of curriculums," Hall said. "So we welcome that. But it's not a mandate. It's 'Hey, these are some suggestions of best practices,' and then our school districts will use the ones that they see beneficial."

Other states, including Republican-led Ohio, have already imposed full mandates that districts must choose a state-approved curriculum that aligns with the science behind how the brain learns to read, focusing heavily on phonics but also fluency of language and comprehension of knowledge.

The Michigan House speaker said he'd had conversations with McMahon over the last several months about educational responsibility falling even more heavily on the states now than it already has.

"I said, we welcome that responsibility," Hall said. "We're going to do good things with it."

_____

©2025 The Detroit News. Visit detroitnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.