Education Secretary Linda McMahon joins ‘The Sunday Briefing’ to discuss the potential dismantling of the Education Department, reacts to student math scores and talks reducing the impact of bureaucracy on schools.

For much of 2025, it looked like the right was winning its war on woke. President Donald Trump came into office on a tidal wave of enthusiasm, and he launched a flurry of executive orders aimed at ending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and gender theory in schools.  

But in early November, woke candidates came roaring back in elections in New York, Virginia and New Jersey. Woke is not dead — it is very much alive in educational institutions, public employee unions and other progressive enclaves. In fact, new data from Politics at Work, a combined data initiative of the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan, shows that the education sector is the single most left-leaning segment of employees in America. Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1 in K-12 classrooms. 

This would not be a problem if teacher-activists kept their politics separate from their work. But one need look no further than the proliferation of boys in girls’ sports, Black Lives Matter and pride flags on school walls, and DEI practices to see that too many schools have become incredibly politicized places.  

Why is the teaching profession so overwhelmingly left-wing, and why do so many of its members force their politics on kids? The answer is found on college and university campuses across the country, where teacher training programs indoctrinate their students in progressive ideology.

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