Donald Trump threatened to smackdown the education department

During hisWWECVWWE. US campaign Donald Trump promised . After his re-election he announced some cabinet picks who were reassuringly well-qualified for their jobs and some who seem to have been chosen to cause maximum damage to the institutions they hope to lead. Given the intensity of the Republican war on wokeness in schools, picking Linda McMahon, the co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (), as education secretary seemed in the second category.A decade ago Ms McMahon would have been a risky choice for a cabinet position. She and her husband, Vince McMahon (from whom she is now separated) used to run an entertainment business that involved muscled actors in leotards performing moves with names like the “Stone Cold Stunner” and the “Curb Stomp”. Ms McMahon herself often performed in the ring. In one stunt she theatrically slapped her adult daughter in the face. In another a wrestler dangled her from her ankles and dropped her on her head.Few former cabinet members have such talents on their s. (Though Mr Trump also . In a “Battle of the Billionaires” in 2007 he exaggeratedly punched Mr McMahon and, to further humiliate him, shaved his head in the ring.) Off stage, both McMahons are being sued for allegedly knowing about the sexual abuse of “Ring Boys”, children who helped with ringside tasks, within (They deny the charges, and the case is ongoing.)The fact that conservatives should welcome the selection of Ms McMahon as the nation’s chief educator is a sign of how priorities have changed. Yet she may be one of Mr Trump’s least controversial picks. She was confirmed in 2017 by the Senate for her former role as the head of the Small Business Administration. Her experience in education is limited, but she does have some: she was on Connecticut’s Board of Education, has a teaching certificate from East Carolina University and is on the board of trustees of Sacred Heart University in Connecticut.Ms McMahon is a small-government conservative and a Trump loyalist, says Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute, a think-tank. But she does not seem intent on abolishing the education department and all it does. (To eliminate the department and its tasks, which range from managing federal college loans to funding poor schools, Congress would need to act.) In fact she has endorsed policies that would require functioning federal education programmes, whether housed under the education department or elsewhere.For example, she has argued for an expansion of Pell grants, federal money for poor students, to include short-term workforce training. This could help ease the shortage in skilled trades, from health care to manufacturing, which require more training than a high-school diploma but not a college degree. According to McKinsey, a consulting firm, there were 400,000 openings in January 2024 for skilled jobs such as welding.So far, so sensible. Ms McMahon says that such an expansion must come with guardrails to ensure that students are actually learning and getting hired. Most Democratic members of Congress would agree. While keeping tabs on workforce programmes is a job for the federal government, Ms McMahon may want to trim elsewhere. She supports charter schools, public-school alternatives and holding schools accountable for their performance, policies that were mainstream among Democrats under Barack Obama’s presidency. She also supports school vouchers, which allow public money to go to private schools, which Democrats (and education researchers) do not like.After Mr Trump announced his pick, Ms McMahon wrote on X: “Thank you Mr. President…I look forward to working collaboratively with students—educators—parents and communities to strengthen our educational system; ensuring every child regardless of their demographics is prepared for a bright future.” Ms McMahon may throw the education department around a little, but she hardly seems in the mood for a full-body smackdown.