US Education Secretary McMahon visits rural North Dakota school

The top U.S. education official on Thursday visited a small rural school in the rolling hills west of Mandan, part of her national education tour.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon visited the Sweet Briar School, joined by U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak, R-N.D., and Assistant Secretary of Elementary and Secondary Education Kirsten Baesler, who was North Dakota’s K-12 superintendent from 2013-2025.

School board members, state lawmakers, State Superintendent Levi Bachmeier and others watched as McMahon, Fedorchak and Baesler moved between grades and chatted with the approximately 25 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

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One girl showed McMahon her classroom’s hydroponic garden on the wall. Older students told the secretary about their sports. McMahon sat among kindergarteners, first and second graders, and posed for photos with the students and teachers by the playground. 

The students are split between a 1936 stucco schoolhouse and a newer building. The school community is small enough that a few students are siblings or cousins. At least two teachers count their own children among their pupils.

McMahon’s visit is part of her 50-state “Returning Education to the States Tour. Education is “not one size fits all,” she told reporters, flanked by Fedorchak, Baesler and Bachmeier near the playground.

“Look at the school where we’re standing here today,” she said. “This is an obvious example of an innovation that is education for the students in the place where they live, and the president certainly believes the best education is that that’s closest to the child, and I think we can see evidence of that clearly here today.” 

North Dakota is McMahon’s 41st state since she took office, she said.

“My goal is to see what is taught, how it’s taught, what are the reactions of the students, where are we making the greatest progress, etc., because states are the innovators,” McMahon told reporters.

Baesler and Fedorchak touted the Education Freedom Tax Credit, which rolls out in January and North Dakota will participate in. 

The One Big Beautiful Bill last year created the tax credit, which provides up to $1,700 per taxpayer for cash contributions made to nonprofits known as scholarship-granting organizations that give the funds to families for education expenses, including private K-12 school tuition.

“The key piece here is that that scholarship-granting organization is going to be granting those scholarships to parents to use that money and those dollars how they choose – it’s a choice – to help benefit the education,” Fedorchak told reporters. 

North Dakota Monitor reporter Jack Dura can be reached at [email protected].