Marking her first appearance before Congress since last June, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon presented the Administration’s priorities in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 education budget before the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee (Labor-H). The themes from the Secretary included a desire to shift authority for education to states out of the “antiquated and outdated bureaucracy” of the Department of Education, to cut K-16 education programs by $6 billion, and launch a $2 billion Make Education Great Again block grant program to States, and continue to utilize Interagency Agreements (IAA) to move programs and staff to other federal agencies. In the back-and-forth about the latter, she countered questions from Democrats about reports that the Department of Labor is ill-equipped to oversee and manage the massive K-12 portfolio set to move there, with continual affirmations that things were going very smoothly, with just a few bumps. Both Republicans and Democrats spoke in opposition to the Department’s proposal to eliminate the TRIO program, a $1.2 billion collection of eight grant programs that support low-income middle and high schoolers in accessing affordable higher education. Regarding K-12 education more specifically, Democrats spoke to the chaos the Secretary’s actions have caused through “illegal” use of IAAs to move education programs to the Department of Labor and asked directly about the pending plan to move special education to another agency, whereby the Secretary noted that they were still “considering their options.” The Senate will now begin the process of negotiating the top-line spending level that will determine available funds for Labor-H and other individual bills. Given the strains on federal funds, Labor-H staff have alerted advocates to the challenge and long road ahead to funding the largest domestic spending bill in our nation’s budget. In light of this reality, please join COPAA and urge Congress to protect and fund all general and special education programs in the FY 27 appropriations Labor-H bill.