Compared to others who have held the post, Linda McMahon, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to run the U.S. Department of Education, has a resume thin on school expertise. She made that clear when she auditioned for her first education leadership job in 2009.
“I don’t come before you today as an educator,” she told a Connecticut legislative committee reviewing her appointment to join the State Board of Education. “I make no bones about that.”
She said her plans to teach French after college fell away when she became pregnant with her first child, Shane, according to a transcript reviewed by The 74. And she defended the place where she spent the bulk of her career, as head of a worldwide pro wrestling enterprise, even as one member called it a detriment to “the fabric of our society.”
But she also had strong opinions about the ills of American education — in particular, growing racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps — and what it would take to reverse them.
“I think that every child ought to have the opportunity for equal education,” she said. “That means that their teachers should be equally prepared to teach, that the curriculum ought to be the same across the board.”
McMahon’s views fit squarely into the era’s GOP mainstream. Republican President George W. Bush, who had just left office, embraced the belief that the federal government played a critical role in uplifting students in low-income communities. That was the heart of No Child Left Behind, the landmark reform law that held schools accountable for reducing achievement gaps. She was a fan of public school choice, particularly charters, but considered private school the realm of families who could “afford it.”
Fifteen years later, McMahon’s nomination signals just how far the GOP has strayed from seeing the federal government as an instrument for improving education. She’s chair of a conservative think tank that seeks to eliminate progressive ideas in the classroom and says parents should be able to spend public funds on any school they choose.
“The Department of Education was really focused on substantive policy challenges, like teacher evaluation and persistent socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps,” said Patrick McGuinn, an education and political science professor at Drew University in New Jersey, who wrote a book on NCLB. “These problems all still exist, but now the conversation has just completely shifted to things like [transgender] bathroom access and book bans.”
McMahon’s time on the board was brief, about a year — a moment that offers little insight into how she would approach the nation’s top education post. Some accused her of using her seat as a stepping stone to Congress, a perch she failed to reach in two separate bids. Others saw her leap into politics, including her role in Trump’s first administration, as a chance to escape the high-profile image of her estranged husband Vince McMahon, who built World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE, into a $9 billion empire.
Whether her service on the state board matters to senators who will shepherd her confirmation remains to be seen. The fact that she erroneously stated that her degree was in education when she completed a questionnaire for that position might resurface.
To Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, the incoming chair of the education committee, her two years as head of the Small Business Administration could “obviously help.”
During her tenure, she promoted the 2017 Trump tax cuts, which benefited employers, and hustled to distribute disaster relief to businesses in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017. She was a “quick study,” said Molly Day, spokeswoman for the National Small Business Association.
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