The 74

The Education Department last week unveiled six interagency agreements with four other federal agencies as part of the Trump administration’s plan to wind down an agency that it argues was unconstitutional to begin with. “Let’s make sure that that grant money that’s coming from the federal government is getting in [states’] hands as efficiently as possible,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said during a White House briefing Thursday. “We don’t want teachers having to spend their time and money on regulatory compliance.” But for some state directors like Kinkaid, the result has been frustrating. The administration, he said, has “asked state CTE programs to essentially fly for the past six months without air traffic control.”

Lawmakers heard about the rocky start last week. “Operationally, it is a muddle,” Braden Goetz told the House education committee. He spent 26 years in the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education and now works as a senior policy advisor at New America, a left-leaning think tank. “I don’t understand how the work gets done. When Secretary McMahon makes decisions, does she call the Secretary of Labor and ask her to communicate that down the chain?”