‘Bust up the status quo’: Why education reformers are optimistic about Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education  

President-elect Donald Trump is filling his cabinet with people ready to disrupt the status quo, and future Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is no exception.  

Left-of-center media is already accusing McMahon of being “Betsy DeVos 2.0,” a reference to Trump’s first education secretary, and the national teachers’ union says she is “grossly unqualified.”  

But experts say McMahon may have even more success reforming education than her predecessor.  

After all, the education landscape in 2024 looks vastly different than it did in 2016. And no issue has gained more traction since Trump’s first term than school choice.  

“School choice [was] supercharged by COVID, and parents came out front and center,” Robert Enlow, president and CEO of EdChoice, told The Lion. “The movement for universal choice has expanded to the point where it’s now recognized as a sort of fait accompli in many states.”  

Enlow believes the current environment is “tremendously more conducive” to change than it was in 2016, positioning McMahon to be far more effective than DeVos was able to be.  

“Where Betsy faced the challenges of being an outsider coming into a very heavily dominated space by the status quo,” he speculated, “I think Linda McMahon and the incoming administration will be coming into an environment of, ‘It’s okay to try and start busting up the status quo.’”  

Trump is filling his administration top to bottom with status quo busters – Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk in the new Department of Government Efficiency, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Health and Human Services, and Pete Hegseth as the new Secretary of Defense. 

Unlike current education secretary Miguel Cardona, McMahon brings a variety of experiences in business and education leadership to the table.  

She founded and ran the WWE with her husband for 30 years, before entering politics. 

McMahon also served on the board of private Catholic university for 16 years and on the Connecticut state education board, which she resigned from when she launched her first Senate run in 2010. 

During Trump’s first term, McMahon was appointed the head of the Small Business Administration (SBA) and later worked on his reelection campaign.  

Her opponents in her two runs for U.S. Senate, Dick Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, praised her talent, abilities and dedication, the AP reported, and her time in Trump’s administration was free from controversy or scandal. She staunchly promoted Trump’s tax and trade policies. 

“She has been a superstar,” the President-elect said when McMahon left his administration in 2019. “The fact is, I’ve known her for a long time. I knew she was good, but I didn’t know she was that good.” 

McMahon has also had a lifelong interest in education, the AP reported, and has expressed support for charter schools and school choice. 

Her decades of leadership experience are arguably more important than knowing how to assemble a lesson plan.  

“The checking of boxes of having an education background does not guarantee that you’re going to be a good leader, or more successful or more effective at what you’re doing,” Enlow explained. “I’m optimistic about the potential that Linda McMahon has for a couple reasons.  

“She does have some knowledge of what it means to run or be part of an education system.”  

He added that her time as the head of the SBA where she got “millions and millions and millions of dollars out of the system [and] into the hands of small businesses” will be beneficial.  

Hopefully, that experience is transferable when it comes to education funding.  

“[McMahon] is going to bring to the job the ability to understand how to make big government work well for families because I think that’s what she did with the SBA,” he explained.  

In contrast, Enlow lambasted the current secretary’s mismanagement despite having the “right” experience.  

“If checking the box of a resume of being in education is an indicator of being ready and capable of doing the job, then the current secretary should be a fantastic secretary. Except he has absolutely hurt thousands of kids with the FASFA screwups,” Enlow observed.  

Looking forward, McMahon has a lot of issues to address: fixing FASFA, restoring Title IX, promoting school choice, and cutting down the bloated federal bureaucracy.  

But COVID – and everything that followed – has set her up for more accomplishments than DeVos was able to achieve.  

“The biggest difference I think between her and Betsy is that she faces tailwinds when it comes to being able to disrupt and transform the education department, and Betsy faced headwinds,” Enlow concluded.