Linda McMahon Will Wrestle Education Department to Ground
President Trump's education secretary nominee Linda McMahon began her confirmation hearings the morning of Feb. 13. One of the chief attacks against her is bemoaning "a thin resume on education," as industry lobbying outfit Education Week puts it.
The truth is, "minimal education experience" is a qualification for running an unconstitutional agency that poses an existential threat to our republic. Myriad data indicate the education industry is one of the nation's lowest-performing, and its institutions some of the nation's worst.......................
.........................The United States recorded a near 30-year low compared to students from other developed nations on international tests in 2023. I shouldn't have to tell you this, but people who can't and don't read are not going to win the AI race against China or likely be able to pay more in taxes than they consume, let alone make great leaders in even their own homes. This is not about test scores, it's about national greatness.
During the lifetime of the U.S. Department of Education, average American students' test scores have not improved from their threatening midcentury levels, while inflation-adjusted taxpayer spending on K-12 has at least tripled. Heritage has a recent chart illustrating this, although the already minuscule achievement gains it shows would be essentially gone if it included the 2022 and 2024 post-lockdown declines.
In the 46 years we've had a U.S. Department of Education, U.S. education has gotten much worse, not better. That's not an accident, it's proof that most of those in leadership positions in such an anti-American system should be viewed with suspicion and deprived of power.
A system this bad is not above being run by a former WWE executive. Just about any competent person is too good to run an institution this chronically dangerous and dysfunctional. But somebody's gotta do it - until the department can be abolished completely. Congress, let's go.