Education Secretary McMahon visits Oʻahu schools on 49th stop of national tour

US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon visited schools and education programs on Oʻahu last week as part of her tour of all 50 states, according to a US Department of Education news release.

Hawaiʻi was the 49th state on McMahon’s Returning Education to the States Tour. The department said she is meeting with teachers, parents, students and community leaders to learn what is working locally. She plans to compile a toolkit of best practices to share with states nationwide.

On Wednesday, McMahon visited Admiral Arthur W. Radford High School, where she sat in on classes and met military students at the Student Transition Center, the department said. She then toured Mōkapu Elementary School, which the department described as the state’s only school on a Marine Corps base. There, she joined a Literacy & Military Education Roundtable on helping military children handle frequent moves and deployments.

McMahon also visited Keiki Roots, a nature-based homeschool enrichment co-op along Kāneʻohe Bay. She toured its outdoor learning spaces and read to young students, according to the department.

She ended the day at the University of Hawaiʻi’s Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology. She saw the Marine Science Research Learning Center and the Coral Resilience Laboratory.

To conclude the trip, McMahon took part in a Returning Education to the States Roundtable with members of the Hawaiʻi State Legislature. She also toured Ka Waihona o ka Naʻauao, a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade Hawaiian-language immersion charter school.

In a statement, McMahon said the programs she saw are tailored to local geography and heritage. She cited the military support at Mōkapu Elementary, the coral research at the Institute of Marine Biology and the cultural preservation at Ka Waihona o ka Naʻauao.

McMahon said the programs show why Washington should not impose a “one-size-fits-all model” on schools. She said states need autonomy to innovate and that Hawaiʻi is demonstrating that approach.