Ed Committee Advances Schwinn, Richey Nominations to Full Senate

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

Penny Schwinn, Tennessee’s former education chief, is one step closer to joining the U.S. Department of Education as deputy secretary after the Senate education committee on Thursday advanced her nomination to the full chamber.  

The committee also voted to move the nomination of Kimberly Richey to lead the Office for Civil Rights. A conservative civil rights lawyer, Richey served in the second Bush and first Trump administrations.

The votes for both nominees fell along strict party lines, 12 to 11. 

“These nominees are crucial to enacting President Trump’s pro-America agenda,” Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the committee, said in a statement.

With the Senate focused on passing President Donald Trump’s tax bill and roughly 200 nominations awaiting a vote, it could be several weeks before both are confirmed.

Schwinn would oversee K-12 policy. During a June confirmation hearing, she expressed support for a more hands-off approach from Washington while also strengthening reading instruction based on science.

A week after the hearing, she participated in an event at a Nashville charter school with Education Secretary Linda McMahon to promote one of the Trump administration’s top priorities — school choice. The visit came as the department has increased funding for charters while proposing over $4 billion in cuts to other programs. 

If confirmed, Richey would take over a civil rights office with a much leaner staff following mass firings in March and recommendations from McMahon for further reductions. She vowed to continue the department’s actions against schools that permit antisemitic demonstrations and allow trans students to use facilities or compete in sports consistent with their gender identity. 

Those views have drawn opposition to her nomination from civil rights groups that advocate for LGBTQ students. In advance of Thursday’s vote, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, along with 45 other organizations, sent senators a letter saying Richey “has not demonstrated a willingness and ability to enforce civil rights law and protect all students in our country from discrimination.”

Some hope she’ll prioritize disability complaints. As acting assistant secretary for civil rights during the pandemic, she launched investigations into districts that failed to provide students with disabilities services written into their individual education programs.  

“She was responsive during the first Trump term and pushed through the COVID complaints,” said Callie Oettinger, a special education advocate in Fairfax County, Virginia.

‘She has Linda McMahon’s ear’

While Richey’s track record fits squarely within the Trump administration’s ultra-conservative agenda, many education insiders view Schwinn as a moderate who largely avoided culture war clashes while holding schools and students accountable for progress in reading. 

Unlike McMahon, Schwinn has always worked in education. The California native founded a charter school in Sacramento in 2011 and held top positions in Delaware and Texas before Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee appointed her commissioner in 2019. 

“Penny has the strongest literacy chops of any state supe I’ve known, and she has Linda McMahon’s ear and trust,” said Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. 

But controversy tends to follow her. Under her leadership in Tennessee, staff turnover was higher than normal. Conservatives who signed letters calling on senators not to confirm Schwinn argue that she holds progressive views on educational equity and proposed an unpopular effort to conduct “well-being” checks on students during the pandemic. 

Others question her judgement, pointing to incidents in which Texas and Tennessee directed no-bid contracts to companies where Schwinn had personal connections, including her husband, Paul Schwinn.

But those complaints didn’t sway Republicans on the committee, and Pondiscio dismissed the backlash to Schwinn as “B.S.” In a February commentary, he suggested that her “conservative critics want a culture warrior, not an administrator focused on competent governance and delivering results.”

He’s among those who hope her confirmation brings more attention to core education issues.
“If you see the secretary spending her time on curriculum and instruction,” he said, “that will be Penny’s thumbprint.”

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter