The U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday told The Tennessee Star Penny Schwinn remains the White House nominee to serve as the Deputy Secretary of Education, stating that contrary information given to The Star is false.
This suggests Schwinn, the former Tennessee Commissioner of Education, has been waiting more than four months for approval by the U.S. Senate. She was nominated to serve under Education Secretary Linda McMahon on January 18.
A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Schwinn was long the subject of controversy in Tennessee, having been previously supported by Democrats when she held a school board seat in Sacramento, California.
During her tenure in the Volunteer State, Schwinn drew the opposition of Moms for Liberty – Williams County (ML-WC), which accused her of failing to enforce Tennessee’s ban on Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public education, allowing controversial curriculum and objectionable books to remain in schools.
After she was nominated in January, Schwinn’s selection quickly drew opposition from a number of Tennesseans, including country music star and political pundit John Rich, who said Schwinn failed to act after he provided her with evidence of inappropriate materials in the state’s schools.
Let me tell you about my experience with Penny Schwinn, Trump's pick to be Deputy Sec of Education: I met with her in person about the porn in TN schools, FOUR years ago. There is STILL porn in our schools. She refused to abolish it. She is not our friend.
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) January 18, 2025
Another controversy from Schwinn’s time in Tennessee included planned “wellbeing checks” for students during the COVID-19 pandemic, which a Tennessee Department of Education document called, “a deliberate way all stakeholders in the community can help ensure the needs of our children are met.”
More recently, after Schwinn was hired by former anti-Trump Senator Ben Sasse to work at the University of Florida, her position was listed among those which allegedly received an unreasonable salary at taxpayer expense.
Schwinn is also tied to Blake Harris, the Never Trump political consultant who recently advised Metro Councilwoman Courtney Johnston during her failed campaign to defeat to U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) last year. Ogles was endorsed by President Donald Trump in 2023.
Another Tennessee-based critic is the author and academic, Dr. Carol Swain, who noted the lack of movement on Schwinn’s nomination earlier this month.
Swain wrote in a post to X in January, “Schwinn is a proponent of DEI and CRT.”
“It scares me that Ms. Schwinn has some powerful conservatives pushing her. I have been contacted about meeting with her,” she revealed in another post. “My position on Ms. Schwinn is simple. We should look at her track record and not at her promises to convert to conservative views on education. Ms. Schwinn inspires zero confidence among the conservatives in Tennessee who have had to deal with her.”
Since Schwinn’s nomination, education blogger T.C. Weber has noted that the support for Schwinn, as described by Swain, appears to have faded.
“Initially, national reform pundits couldn’t stop praising the former state education chief,” wrote Weber. “But they’ve since grown silent.”
The White House did not respond to a press inquiry about the status of Schwinn’s nomination prior to press time.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Penny Schwinn” by Penny Schwinn.
I only wish that Schwinn could be held in suspended animation for eternity. She has been a liberal disaster everywhere she has been employed. Trump shows lack of wisdom or maybe just lack of interest in nominating her.
Schwinn is the typical garbage that is found in the upper echelon of government education. She, like all the others in that realm, are worthless sponges of our tax dollars. She could never do the job of the many she is hired to govern. Her decision making could never be even a near miss to the things that matter most in the classroom. As a conservative, it is sickening to see, yet another, left winger catch the praise and support of, what is supposed to be, a conservative majority. Hire her, and we get what we deserve.