What Linda McMahon is likely to prioritize as education secretary ...

Geoff Bennett:

President-elect Donald Trump's pick of Linda McMahon as the next secretary of education is already raising alarm among critics, who feel the role should go to someone with more experience in education.

But her appointment has also been met with praise by supporters, who see this as a win for parental rights and school choice. The former professional wrestling executive led the Small Business Administration during Trump's first term before she resigned in 2019. This time around, she is set to head an agency that Trump has repeatedly pledged to dismantle.

For more, we're joined Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Thanks for being here.

Jon Valant, Brookings Institution:

Thanks for having me.

Geoff Bennett:

I think it's always useful to look at these selections in the context of what Mr. Trump has said about these respective departments and agencies.

So help us understand Linda McMahon as his choice to lead a department that he says he wants to get rid of and allow each state to handle education individually, as he put it.

Jon Valant:

So there's an irony to selecting a secretary of the department that the incoming administration is looking to dismantle, from everything that they have told us.

Now, they are very unlikely to actually be able to do that, because eliminating the Department of Education would require an act of Congress. It would be subject to a Senate filibuster, and there is no Democratic support for that idea, and there's very likely would be some Republican opposition too.

So I don't think that they're thinking in terms of how do we eliminate the department with this pick, but it is also the case that Linda McMahon has very little experience and expertise in education. She has more experience running agencies and working in the first Trump administration, but is not one who seems to really understand the issues of the day when it comes to education policy.

Geoff Bennett:

It strikes me that students with disabilities and their families in particular would experience the ripple effects if the administration really does make good on its promise to reduce the federal government's role in public education.

Jon Valant:

So, when people talk about eliminating the Department of Education, it's important to ask what they mean.

And if, when they're talking about that, they're talking about eliminating the department and eliminating all of the programs that the department administers, it would be catastrophic for all kinds of student populations. So students with disabilities are certainly one. They receive protections from legislation and they receive resources.

Students who live in poverty are another. They receive resources that they really need. Now, the Trump administration can't just come in and do that. And, in fact, those programs are hardwired into legislation that predates the Department of Education. Part of the reason we have Department of Education is that they administer those programs, and we were sort of getting a lot of programs that we needed someone to administer.

So it would absolutely be catastrophic if we were to go in that direction. I'm very skeptical, not only because there'd be a Democratic opposition, but students with disabilities and students in poverty, they don't just live in blue states and in blue areas. They live all across the country.

And there are a lot of Republican members of Congress who are very sensitive to the impacts that that kind of move would have on their own constituents.

Geoff Bennett:

Linda McMahon supports school choice. The Trump campaign and Republicans broadly have talked about restoring parental rights in schools, cutting federal funding for programs teaching Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, any really lesson deemed inappropriate.

There's also this push to restore what Republicans, many conservatives see as the fundamental right to pray in school. At the heart of it, though, is this fundamental disagreement about the role of public education. Is that how you see it?

Jon Valant:

It is.

And, in fact, I think it's actually easier to understand the attacks on the Department of Education as being an attack on a symbol of public education more generally. And maybe the most important policy trend that we have seen around the country when it comes to K-12 education is that, in a lot of states — and it's red states and a couple of purple states — they have pushed toward what are essentially universal school voucher programs.

And the way those programs are designed, they're very different from the voucher programs of the past, in that they're available to all families, regardless of income, and really don't have many restrictions at all, either on the families using those vouchers or on the schools that are receiving the vouchers.

And so what I think we're really seeing is, we're seeing a push from the Republican Party and from the Trump administration away from public schools and into private schools, whether they're religious or not.

Geoff Bennett:

How have the culture wars broadly affected public education and how do you see it evolving in a second Trump term?

Jon Valant:

So it's been a really difficult few years for schools across the country.

And it started really or ramped up with the COVID-induced school closings. And after those COVID-induced school closings, we did have this wave of cultural war battles, especially related to gender and to race. And, at minimum, it has been incredibly distracting, when we really have had to focus on what are big issues for schools.

So, even today, we haven't nearly recovered all of the lost learning that happened as a result of those school closings. And then, on top of that, we have issues with chronic absenteeism. We have issues with politics infiltrating schools. And it really is a bad time.

But in addition to that, it's not just a distraction, but often there are students who feel targeted by a lot of these cultural war battles. So if you're a transgender student in schools right now, you're hearing the messages and you're seeing those TV advertisements that we saw throughout the campaign. And so there's very likely a direct impact, in addition to just the sort of more general unhelpful distraction.

Geoff Bennett:

Is there a connection between federal spending, federal involvement in schooling and student outcomes?

Jon Valant:

So, the federal government is a relatively small player when it comes to funding our schools. It puts about 10 percent of funding into our school system.

And the funds that it puts go highly disproportionately into the areas in greatest need. So, if we were to rely entirely on state and local sources of funding, we would have an education system that vastly overfunds the wealthiest areas. And part of the goal of the federal role in funding schools is to offset some of that inequality.

And what we know from a lot of research at this point is that, when we put resources into schools, and particularly when we put resources into schools that serve students in poverty, it has real benefits, both for those students and for society at large.

Geoff Bennett:

Jon Valant with the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, thanks for your insights. I appreciate it.