WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS), questioned U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon during a hearing to review the president’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget request.
HIGHLIGHTS:
ON KEEPING JEWISH STUDENTS SAFE ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES:
SENATOR CAPITO: “I want to ask about antisemitism. The morning before our education hearing last year, there were protestors at Colombia University. I asked the then-secretary, how many people from the Office of Civil Rights have you actually had on campus to see what’s occurring there, to see what kind of violation of civil rights might be occurring on the Colombia University campus. And, apparently there was nobody there from the Office of Civil Rights…This is not a problem that’s going away on our college campuses…How are you going to make sure that the department is taking to ensure all students and in this particular case, Jewish students, are able to learn an environment free from intimidation?”
ON COMBATTING POOR LITERACY RATES:
SENATOR CAPITO: “Let’s talk about literacy. As I mentioned at my opening statement, these test scores are very troubling, I think, and you want to try to figure out how do we attribute to this. It’s not like there’s not great teachers everywhere, all around this country, trying to figure out how to get their students achievement moving up in the right direction. I will say this, my state of West Virginia, the state legislature recognizing this, did allocate additional funds for reading teachers in the very early you know what, grades one through three to try to move our scores up because we have traditionally lower scores. We did actually make it. That did make a difference. Having that extra teacher in the classroom. We can pull the child aside, give them that one on one attention really does make a difference.”
