Linda McMahon was announced as Trump's choice yesterday since Jason wrote this. She's very likely to follow the entire playbook he outlines.
And they may end up trying to entirely dismantle the Education Dept.
How Trump Can Teach the Department of Education a Lesson
He should pick a secretary with the boldness to back school choice and take on woke indoctrination.
By Jason L. Riley
Nov. 19, 2024 5:10 pm ET
Donald Trump vowed during his campaign to dismantle the Department of Education. He said it to wild applause at his rallies, and it isn’t a crazy idea. Nor is it a new one.
President Jimmy Carter signed legislation establishing the department in 1979 after making a deal with the National Education Association for their endorsement. In 1980 Ronald Reagan ran for president pledging to kill the department—which wasn’t an agency that had outlived its usefulness so much as one that had no use to begin with.
The Education Department’s main functions include sending states money to help fund low-income school districts, though that’s something Washington managed before the existence of a stand-alone education department. It also enforces civil-rights laws and manages student loans. There’s no reason, however, that the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights couldn’t be absorbed by the Justice Department, and the outstanding loan portfolio could be handled by Treasury. Doubtless these are the kinds of efficiencies that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will recommend to the new administration.
For Mr. Trump and many Republicans, however, the Education Department’s problems extend well beyond its redundancies. In their view it and its personnel have come to represent much that is wrong with education today. Two-thirds of American children are unable to read with proficiency, yet education bureaucrats are obsessed with trans rights, DEI initiatives and ensuring that elementary-school libraries are stocked with pornographic texts.
People who have a problem with someone who swam on the boys team last year swimming on the girls team this year are attacked as bigots. Students are taught that math is racist, that standardized tests are biased, that “objectivity” and “hard work” are traits of white supremacy. Curricula based on the widely debunked New York Times “1619 Project,” which claims that the American Revolution was launched not to rebel against British rule but to preserve slavery, is being taught in elementary and high schools across the country. Instead of being instructed in basic skills, young and impressionable minds are being polluted with ideological propaganda masquerading as scholarship.
When Mr. Trump nominates a secretary of education, it will be primarily with an eye toward these issues. His misgivings aside, the department isn’t going away anytime soon. Nixing it would require congressional action and buy-in from Democrats in the Senate because Republicans don’t have enough votes to do it alone. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t hurt to name someone to the post who is skeptical of federal education overreach and could use the platform to push back against progressive policies. His cabinet picks thus far have toggled between standard (Marco Rubio for secretary of state, Doug Burgum for secretary of Interior) and startling (Matt Gaetz for attorney general). He would do well to find an education nominee who is somewhere in between.
Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of the parents-rights group Moms for Liberty, is said to be under consideration. Before starting the organization in 2021 in response to pandemic lockdowns, Ms. Justice served on Florida’s Indian River County school board for four years. Moms for Liberty has more than 130,000 members and more than 300 chapters nationwide. Max Eden, who follows education policy at the American Enterprise Institute and is a friend of Ms. Justice, told me that “she’s probably the greatest education communicator that the right has had since William Bennett,” who served as education secretary under Ronald Reagan. “If Trump wants to fulfill his consistent campaign promises—getting boys out of girls’ sports, boys out of girls’ bathrooms, transgender insanity out of schools, critical race theory out of schools—she’s someone who can constantly carry that message effectively.”
Another option for Mr. Trump would be to tap a current or former GOP governor who has a strong record on school choice and can also articulate the social and cultural arguments that the administration wants to keep front and center. Brian Kemp of Georgia, Kim Reynolds of Iowa and Doug Ducey of Arizona all fit that bill. But it isn’t clear if the former president has forgiven Mr. Kemp or Mr. Ducey for acknowledging the results of the 2020 election, or Ms. Reynolds for endorsing Ron DeSantis in this year’s Republican caucuses.
Two veterans of Mr. Trump’s first term also have been mentioned for education secretary. Linda McMahon headed the Small Business Association and later chaired a pro-Trump super PAC. Mr. Trump may want to reward her loyalty. But the better choice might be Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former White House press secretary. She combines Ms. Justice’s activist spunk with executive experience and knowledge of Washington’s ways. Ms. Sanders signed legislation last year that created a new school voucher program, which is the best way to address woke schooling. Give parents who are unhappy with an education provider the ability to send their child somewhere else.
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