We Need Linda McMahon to Lead the Department of Education

President Donald J. Trump made the right call, when he nominated Linda McMahon to lead the Education Department—in what we hope is a short tenure—as she fulfills her mission from the president to shutter the department once and for all.

 

Yes, McMahon is a world-class businesswoman who helped build WWE into a $9 billion entertainment powerhouse, but she is also a literacy advocate through her Get R.E.A.L. reading program. The program leveraged the popularity of WWE to pull youngsters into libraries and the reading habit.

 

McMahon, who led the Small Business Administration in Trump’s first term, was also a member of the Connecticut Board of Education and a member of the Board of Trustees for Sacred Heart University.

 

Speaking in the Oval Office Feb. 4, Trump was asked about picking McMahon, and he said when he called her about the job, he was very direct about her mission.

“Linda, I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job. I want her to put herself out of a job,’” he said.

 

It was a refreshing recall of President Ronald Reagan’s line: “A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.”

 

When the Gipper ran for president in 1980, he saw the newly established department as the problem, not the solution: “We will abolish the Department of Education that was created by President Carter and put an end to federal meddling in our schools.”

Reagan’s problem with the Department of Education was not that it was costly but that it was doomed to failure.

 

In 1983, Reagan released the “A Nation at Risk” report that pointed out how federal civil servants directing national education policy were making things worse, not better.

When he was talking about the report, Reagan said: “The Department of Education was an expensive boondoggle that added layers of federal interference without improving learning.”

 

If he only knew how bad it would get.

 

2024 Nation’s Report Card

 

The National Center for Education Statistics posted Jan. 29 its 2024 Nation’s Report Card based on the results of the National Assessment of Education Progress.

The report was not just a disappointment. It was a smackdown.

 

Compared with pre-pandemic levels measured in the 2019 assessment, reading scores for both fourth and eighth graders are down five points. Math scores for fourth graders are down three points and eighth graders eight points, compared to the pre-pandemic results.

 

Thirty-nine states and jurisdictions had lower fourth-grade reading scores, and not a single jurisdiction improved its reading scores for eighth-graders.

In 22 states and jurisdictions, fourth-grade math scores declined, while eighth-grade math scores in 51 states and jurisdictions fell as well.

 

Now, we are fighting the pandemic of mathematical ignorance and illiteracy.

Not only has the education industrial complex wasted the last five years of our children’s academic lives, but it has also put us behind the curve just as the stakes just got higher.

 

Our economic and military rivals actually use their schools to educate the next generation.

 

Before the Department of Education and the federal government’s muscular involvement in the schools, educators and school boards responded to parents advocating for their children.

 

After the feds got involved, it became about everything except educating the children.  Parents went from being able influence education decisions locally to having to fight poor policy on multiple fronts, including a federal bureaucracy.

 

Trump echoed Reagan in the Oval Office when he referenced the report card with reporters when he said America was ranked No. 1 in costs per pupil with nothing to show for it.

 

“We're ranked at the bottom of the list.,” he said. “What I want to do is let the states run schools, I believe strongly in school choice. But in addition to that, I want the states to run schools.”

 

Senators must confirm McMahon

 

Moms for Liberty is a grassroots organization of joyful warriors standing for Truth, building relationships, and empowering parents to defend their parental rights, and we were founded in 2021 in response to American parents learning what was really going on in the country’s classrooms.

 

We believe that parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children, including education decision-making, and a strong partnership between parents and schools is essential for student success.

 

McMahon is committed to ending ideological indoctrination in the classrooms, ensuring education remains focused on critical thinking and education achievements. She will push back against the overreach of teachers’ unions, which prioritize political agendas, and she will reverse the federal overregulation that strips local communities of control over their children’s education.

 

When McMahon testifies before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Feb 13, we will be there to support her—because she supports putting parents back in the driver’s seat.