Overview

• At a June 3 Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, McMahon incorrectly claimed the U.S. was low in 1979 rankings before Senator Markwayne Mullin corrected that America had been No. 1 in reading and math then.
• Senators flagged her difficulty reconciling a claim that $1.5 billion annually over 10 years totals $15 billion rather than a trillion dollars when pressed on basic budget figures.
• Her struggles follow an April conference gaffe in which she repeatedly referred to artificial intelligence as “A1” instead of “AI.”
• Both Republican and Democratic members of the committee questioned her grasp of fundamental education data and simple arithmetic during the testimony.
• Student performance has fallen from first place in 1979 to 36th in reading and 28th in math, underscoring the broader context for lawmakers’ scrutiny.