Iowa Becomes First State to Receive Education Compliance Waiver

Returning education to states empowers state leaders, who know their students far better than Washington bureaucrats, the education secretary said.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon speaks to reporters during a briefing at the White House on Nov. 20, 2025. Travis Gillmore/The Epoch Times

The Department of Education has approved Iowa’s “Returning Education to the States” waiver that allows education officials from the state to have more discretion in how they use federal funding for the benefit of residents, the department said in a statement on Jan. 7.

“Iowa’s waiver permits the state education agency to combine four federal funding streams into one. Iowa leaders seek to focus more federal resources on improving student achievement rather than federal compliance,” the Education Department stated.

“This waiver’s flexibility will reduce compliance costs, allowing nearly $8 million to be redirected from bureaucratic red tape to the classroom over four years.”

The redirected funds can be used to expand evidence-based literacy training, narrow achievement gaps among students, and strengthen the teacher pipeline, with Iowa being the first state to apply for and receive such a waiver.

Under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, states can submit requests to the education secretary to get any statutory or regulatory requirement waived. Such requests must justify how the waiver will improve student outcomes, the department said.

In July 2025, the Education Department sent letters to all chief state school officers, inviting them to seek waivers from burdensome regulations, according to a July 29 statement from the department.

Iowa had sent its waiver request on Sept. 22, 2025.

“Granting Iowa’s waiver illustrates the Trump Administration’s commitment to returning education to the states by empowering state leaders, who know their students far better than bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., to have more discretion over federal education dollars,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, we will continue to identify avenues to reduce burdensome requirements and maximize flexibility for state leaders to invest in their students.”

In addition to the waiver, the Education Department approved Iowa’s request for Ed-Flex authority, which allows the state to grant certain federal waivers to districts.

The July letter was sent as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to improve student outcomes following the “dismal” 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores in math and reading, the Education Department said in the July 29, 2025, statement.

The NAEP report, released in January 2025, showed that 70 percent of eighth-graders in public schools across the United States were not proficient in reading. In addition, it showed that 72 percent were not proficient in math.

“The recent NAEP results are a wake-up call that too many of our students have not been well-served by our public education system,” Hayley Sanon, acting assistant secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, said in July 2025.

“We encourage states to use the full range of flexibilities available to them to craft solutions that meet the unique needs of their students. The Department stands at the ready to help them accomplish this.”

Education Reforms

The Trump administration has taken several steps on education reform in its first year in office.

Trump signed an order prohibiting the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, such as race-based hiring, in admissions and curriculum. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by Trump in July 2025, includes a federal scholarship tax program to support private school vouchers.

However, some of the policies have attracted criticism. In November 2025, the Education Department announced six new agency partnerships to break up the federal education bureaucracy and move closer to Trump’s promise of returning education to the states.

In a Dec. 3, 2025, letter to McMahon, a group of 36 Senate Democrats opposed the move, warning that it would create “even more bureaucracy” that wastes time and resources.

“The actions you announced on [Nov. 18, 2025] to continue hollowing out the U.S. Department of Education (‘the Department’) are outrageous, illegal, and will jeopardize the funding and support that tens of millions of students, teachers, and families across the country rely on,” the senators stated in the letter.

“Your brazen attempt to dismantle the Department by transferring to other federal agencies complex and foundational responsibilities that Congress specifically charged to the Department—including more than half of all federal funds for elementary and secondary education programs and billions in higher education funding—will undermine public education.”

However, the Education Department said the partnerships would ensure “efficient delivery” of funded programs and activities, according to the Nov. 18, 2025, statement.

“[The partnership marks a] major step toward improving the management of select ED programs by leveraging partner agencies’ administrative expertise and experience working with relevant stakeholders,” the department stated.