WASHINGTON – When President-elect Donald Trump tapped Linda McMahon to be the next secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, he said she had a “deep understanding” of both education and business. Yet like Trump’s previous education secretary, Betsy DeVos, McMahon has relatively limited experience working with the American school system. She hasn’t worked full-time in a K-12 school or university. She spent most of her career as an executive at a wrestling entertainment company. She did serve a brief stint on Connecticut’s state education board and is a longtime member of the board of trustees at Sacred Heart University, a private college in Connecticut. She originally planned to become a teacher but changed her mind after meeting her husband in college, according to her remarks to a state legislative committee over a decade ago. She also has experience leading an important federal agency: She was the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term. With Republicans in control of the U.S. Senate, which is in charge of confirming presidential Cabinet appointments, McMahon will likely land the top job setting policy for the nation’s schools. What happens after that is an open question, particularly given Trump’s repeated vows to shut down the department he appointed McMahon to oversee. If he commits to that path, he could face a contentious political fight in Congress, where the power to abolish federal agencies lies. A Republican senator from South Dakota introduced a bill this month to shuffle the various offices within the Education Department to other corners of the federal bureaucracy. In a statement after being tapped for the education secretary post, McMahon didn’t address those ideas, which have been around for decades but became more mainstream among Republicans during Trump’s 2024 presidential run. Her comments offered gratitude to Trump for the nomination but didn’t lay out a larger vision for the agency.
“I am deeply honored and humbled for this opportunity and I am committed to working tirelessly to ensure every student has access to a quality education,” she said. Despite her limited professional experience in educational settings, McMahon’s record and past statements offer some insight into where she stands on key issues, which she could play an influential role in shaping during Trump’s second term.
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Trump: McMahon will reduce federal oversight of schools
For the last few years, McMahon has been the chair of the board at the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank based in Washington, D.C. On its website, the organization says its approach to education centers around culling federal oversight of schools and slashing federal education funding. When Trump announced McMahon as his pick to lead the Education Department on Nov. 19, he said in a statement she would spearhead an effort to “send Education BACK TO THE STATES.” K-12 schooling is already overseen at the state and local level in the U.S. According to the Education Department’s website: “Education is primarily a State and local responsibility in the United States. It is States and communities, as well as public and private organizations of all kinds, that establish schools and colleges, develop curricula, and determine requirements for enrollment and graduation.” Though many public schools receive federal funding, it only accounts for a small, but important, piece of their budgets. Most colleges and universities receive federal funding, too, which supports things like research and financial aid for low-income students. If institutions accept that money, which is appropriated by Congress, they are mandated to follow federal laws and regulations. Those laws do a lot, including preventing discrimination and predatory marketing.
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School choice, parental rights
Trump has called McMahon a “fierce advocate” for parents’ rights and said she would work hard as education secretary to expand universal school choice – an umbrella term that refers to expanding education access beyond traditional public schools by making taxpayer-funded vouchers available to everyone. Those ideas are key policy goals of the think tank McMahon helps run. Its website says the America First Policy Institute supports using more tax dollars to fund nonpublic education and expand parental influence over what children learn in the classroom. The GOP officially codified its approval of universal school choice during the Republican National Convention this past summer. Critics of the school choice movement say it routes much-needed money away from public schools and unfairly helps richer families. Supporters say making nonpublic school alternatives more affordable gives parents more options for their children’s education. Though Republicans largely swept to victory across the country in the November election, high-profile school choice measures in Colorado and Kentucky were rejected. Voters in Nebraska also rebuffed a school voucher scholarship program. DeVos, a friend of McMahon’s and an ardent proponent of school choice, expressed support for McMahon in a social media post on Nov. 21. “I know she’s ready to go to work to expand education freedom,” DeVos said. Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, called McMahon an “unqualified” nominee and likened her to “Betsy DeVos 2.0.”“During his first term, Donald Trump appointed Betsy DeVos to undermine and ultimately privatize public schools through vouchers,” she said in a statement. “Now, he and Linda McMahon are back at it.”
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Support for college alternatives
McMahon graduated in 1969 with a bachelor’s degree in French from East Carolina University. But she’s indicated that she doesn’t think that a bachelor’s degree is for everyone. And support for college alternatives is a policy position increasingly favored by Republicans and Democrats.She has made public statements in recent weeks advocating for apprenticeships and lauding Switzerland’s approach to vocational training. In September, she wrote an opinion piece endorsing the Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act, a congressional bill that would expand Pell Grant funding to educational training programs – in fields like cosmetology, nursing and construction – as short as eight weeks. Pell Grants are free scholarships given to lower-income students by the federal government to help them pay for college. The maximum Pell award for the last school year was $7,395. “By expanding eligibility to include high-quality, short-term workforce training programs, this legislation can help more Americans access the education they need to succeed in today’s economy,” McMahon wrote.
Opponents of the legislation say programs as short as 15 weeks are already eligible for federal funding. Without adequate guardrails in place, the bill could ultimately give taxpayer money to people who take advantage of students, they say. In an April blog post, Rachel Fishman, the director of the higher education program at New America, a left-leaning think tank, criticized the types of programs the legislation is designed to support.
“These very-short programs,” she wrote, “are off ramps to opportunity, leading to unemployment, poverty-level wages, and further racial stratification of our higher education system.”
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Where does Linda McMahon stand on the issues facing schools?
