Wrestling the Dept of Education from Incompetence
Thursday Feb. 13, 2025 at 10 am Linda McMahon will testify at her Senate confirmation hearing
When I googled Linda McMahon for her experience and quotes on education for this blog, no quotes came up. Nada. Nothing. I found lots of scrubbed and buffed articles from assorted anti-public schools outlets popped on the screen, but no policy statements, no sound bites, no “running for office” quotes from Linda herself. It seems at least for the broad public, Linda is letting the favorable algorithms of the five tech guys who had Trump’s back at the inauguration and the anti-public schools lobby do confirmation hearing public relations for her.
There are some things we do know about Linda though:
Fake: She got her business experience managing a company that specializes in fake competitions, WWE, which is best known for fooling gullible people, and entertaining those who enjoy staged violence and fabricated conflicts. Linda also managed WWE through multiple steroid scandals and avoided basic accounting systems like withholding social security and taxes for WWE’s employees.
Questionable Parenting: Linda’s examples of parenting involve publicly staged foul mouthed arguments with her daughter in which they took turns calling each other names and smacking each other around.
Poor Track Record on Sexual Predators: She seems unconcerned with protecting youth from sexual predators, as at least 5 adolescent boys who worked for her sued her, accusing her of looking the other way as her manager sexually abused them.
Public School Privatizer: Similar to prior Trump Secretary of Ed Betsy DeVos, Linda avidly supports school privatization, has her own private jet, and has a yacht she named “Sexy Bitch.”
No Experience: She has no experience in education–other than some board appointments in Connecticut where she was caught lying on her resume saying she had a bachelor's degree in education. Although, she did give a building to private Sacred Heart University and was named to their board.
Let’s be pragmatic: despite a lack of qualifications, Linda McMahon will be confirmed as Secretary of the Department of Education (ED) this week. The Democratic Committee members have offered little more than tepid resistance to most of Trump’s abysmally unqualified and unfit cabinet nominees this time around. Her confirmation will be even easier than many of the others no matter how offensive her nomination is to educators, parents, and students. Afterall, she has already served at the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term.
For decades, philanthropists have spent hundreds of millions a year pushing the public and policy makers to adopt school privatization yet, according to 33rd Square:
“Over the past 10 years, public school enrollment has increased 15% from 50 million to 57.8 million students nationally. Private school enrollment grew 7% in that same period from 5.9 million to 6.3 million students.”
At the same time, according to the 74million, charter schools grew by 9% between 2019-23.
So after at least 30 years of hundreds of millions annually spent by anti-public schools philanthropists to convince the American public to go charter or private school, enrollment in public schools is still outpacing private and charter growth. More people, not fewer, are choosing public schools.
The privatization lobby is using Trump and his allies as a last ditch effort to break the public schools. All the current threats of the last 24 days are an attempt to force Americans to abandon their neighborhood schools whether they want it or not:
Linda McMahon as the nominee for Secretary of ED,
Elon Musk’s muskrats invading the ED building and its computers,
Donald Trump’s freezing of funds, and ordering contracts cancelled, and
Deeply buried funding and authorization for federal vouchers in the reconciliation bill.
Nevertheless, the American people have chosen their local public schools.
Maybe the Senate and the House should follow their constituents’ lead, and choose the public schools which have delivered longer lifespans, higher productivity, expansive creativity and innovation, and world leadership, rather than listening to large donor class demands.
