President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of education secretary is on a collision course with the country’s teachers unions as Republicans eye major reforms that would put more power in the hands of charter and private schools.
The second Trump administration continued taking shape on Wednesday, with World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder Linda McMahon chosen to lead the Department of Education. If confirmed by the Senate, she would be tasked with expanding access to voucher programs and reducing the role the department plays in local schooling.
McMahon is also in the slightly awkward position of heading an agency that Trump has vowed to abolish. She has a somewhat thin résumé in education, though that could be a plus as Trump stacks his Cabinet with allies committed to disrupting the way the federal government operates.
“Like most Trump picks, as surprising as they seem, she clearly has an agenda to blow up business as usual,” said Dan Bowling, who teaches labor courses at Georgia State University’s law school. “Certainly, the teachers unions are going to be in the crosshairs of McMahon or anybody who negotiates with them on behalf of the Trump administration. I think we’ll see a lot more hard bargaining.”
Conservatives deride the Department of Education because they see it as being closely aligned with teachers unions such as the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. President Jimmy Carter established the agency in 1979, viewed as a reward for the NEA endorsing him.
Now, NEA is preparing for battle, referring to McMahon as “Betsy DeVos 2.0” in reference to Trump’s first education secretary and lashing out at her support for school choice initiatives.
“Parents and educators will stand together to support students and reject the harmful, outlandish, and insulting policies being pushed by the Trump administration,” NEA President Becky Pringle said. “They will make their voices heard, just as they did by resoundingly defeating vouchers in states like Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska.”
Likewise, Democratic National Committee spokesman Alex Floyd predicted McMahon would be a “disaster” for the department.
“Donald Trump wants to defund the Department of Education and send our tax dollars to his ultra-rich billionaire backers — like Linda McMahon,” Floyd said. “But no matter what reckless attacks Trump and McMahon launch on our public schools, Democrats are ready to stand up for education funding alongside students and teachers across the country.”
While Republicans have called for eliminating the Department of Education virtually from the day it was created, doing so would require 60 votes in the Senate, which is very unlikely to happen with the GOP holding only 53 seats.
Short of that, McMahon can take action by undoing many of the Biden administration’s initiatives, such as its student loan forgiveness programs or transgender rights-focused Title IX rewrite, according to CATO Institute scholar Neal McCluskey.
“I think you’ll see an end to mass student debt cancellation proposals, most of which have been of dubious constitutionality,” McCluskey said.
McCluskey said McMahon is an unusual choice in that most of her background is in business rather than education. McMahon spent two years on the Connecticut Board of Education and was a trustee at Sacred Heart University.
But, he said her resume may be in line with Trump’s thinking, which is to hire administrators with a business background who can rework federal agencies from within.
“From what I can tell about Linda McMahon and her connections to Trump, it’s not really a surprising pick from that standpoint,” he said.
McMahon has longstanding ties to Trump, dating to her days at WWE. Most recently, she was tapped to co-chair his transition team, but also led the Small Business Administration during his first term and later chaired a pro-Trump super PAC.
At DOE, she may focus on scrapping other Biden-era moves that promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion and critical race theory, McCluskey added, while trying to push Congress to embrace school choice.
“There are lots of things she can use the bully pulpit for that she can’t do herself,” he said. “She may work with members of Congress to give them ideas.”
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While McMahon received some criticism following Trump’s announcement, she was praised by conservative education groups such as Moms for Liberty.
“Parental involvement is the number one driver of kids’ success in school and I will help the incoming Secretary any way I can to ensure parents get back in the driver’s seat of their child’s education,” Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice said. “Linda has a difficult task ahead in fighting the union’s death grip over the education industrial complex, but I am confident in the plans laid out by President Trump.”