Democrats held a press conference outside the Dept of Education — so Sec McMahon joined them:

And I believe, and I know the president does believe this as well, the best education is that that is closest.

To the child, long a corporate model without a plan and without an effort to really protect our students. So we want to be clear about that. I want to say one other thing. The mood in the room, it was very collegial. We are extraordinarily grateful to the secretary that she joined us. Thank you. She's here. Perhaps I should give her the podium. Yeah. We're extraordinarily grateful that the secretary gave us the. To have these conversations. But with all due respect, madam, I think my biggest concern is that the states will not be able to protect the programs and services that you would like to devolve with them.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks so much for coming. And I just want to express my gratitude to all of these folks who came today so that we could have an open discussion about what I believe is one of the most important things that we can have a discussion on or action on in our country. And that is the education of our young people, as Representative Tanako said as we were ending the meeting, which I thought was incredibly appropriate, and that is that this is not a partisan issue. This is about the children of America, and it's the next generation, the generation after that. And if we want to have our leaders, if we want to have that next group of engineers and doctors and lawyers and plumbers and electricians and H vac operators, then we need to focus on how they can best have their education. And I believe, and I know the President does believe this as well, the best education is that that is closest to the child, where teachers and parents, local superintendents working together and local school boards to develop the curriculum for those students is the best way that it can happen.