Transition to Governing, 11

Before becoming education secretary, Linda McMahon should pass a rigorous, high-stakes test

Most “Transition to Governing” columns are for paid-subscribers only. But I’m making this one (#11) free to all. But please become a paid subscriber!

Previous columns in this series can be found here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

In this post:

1. Warren, Brennan, Blackmun, Stevens, and Souter

2. The conservative response to Harriet Miers: Prove your knowledge, experience, principles

3. Josh Hawley and Neomi Rao

4. Conservatives should take education as seriously as the courts

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The Plight of Schools Today

This is the most troubled moment for American education in my career.

Student achievement has collapsed. A staggering percentage of K-12 students just don’t go to school regularly. The Biden administration made a mess of FAFSA and student loans. We need to reinvigorate K-12 accountability, ensure school choice programs deliver great results, protect the humanities, preserve free speech and inquiry on campuses, rebuild the public’s faith in higher education, expand high-quality career training, make sense of alternative credentials, and so much more.

As a patriot, I want America to have the best system of schools in the world. As a conservative, I want the public to know that the GOP understands the scope of our problems and can be trusted to solve them.

This is why I’m frustrated that Mr. Trump nominated as secretary of education a professional wrestling magnate and former SBA head with too little experience in education.

Interest and Care are Different than Knowledge and Experience

I believe Linda McMahon—like so many other business leaders who’ve gotten involved in education—cares deeply about America, its schools, and its students. I like that she’s expressed support for school choice and career education. Private-sector leaders who want to improve education deserve our sincere appreciation.

Their interest, however, doesn’t mean they know much about the actual work of leading massive systems or advancing critical reforms. It doesn’t mean they understand the complexities of federal education laws and regulations, state policy, district practice, court cases, research, tradition, or historical arrangements.

In this era, we need a secretary of education who knows the problems and opportunities inside and out, who has clearly demonstrated his/her positions on the toughest issues, who has shown which governing principles s/he prioritizes, who has demonstrated the capacity to work effectively inside big public-education bureaucracies, and who has solved big education problems despite massive political and institutional headwinds.

GOP senators should think of the courts as they begin to consider Ms. McMahon’s nomination.

Don’t Trust; Verify, Verify, Verify

It took conservatives decades—literally decades—to learn what should have been obvious: If you want effective, conservative judges, you can’t merely trust a GOP president’s word. You have to check, double-check, then triple check that the nominee is suited for the job. That means possessing the knowledge, philosophy, temperament, mettle, and skills needed.

Time and time again, GOP presidents nominated, and GOP senators confirmed, judges they later regretted. Several U.S. Supreme Court justices stand out in this regard, e.g., Warren, Brennan, Blackmun, Stevens, Souter.¹

Things finally changed when President Bush nominated Harriet Miers. Though Bush was a conservative president and Miers had served him well in the West Wing, she had never proven herself on the dimensions that conservative Court-watchers cared about. Rather than acquiesce to her elevation, they (including a bunch of GOP senators) objected immediately and then began a very tough vetting process. According to reporting at the time, their concerns were soon validated: In a variety of meetings and questionnaires, Miers repeatedly disappointed. Before long, there was concern that she was picked because of loyalty. In time, she was compelled to remove her name from consideration.

We’ll never know how she would’ve fared on the Court. But we do know what happened instead. To replace her, Bush nominated Samuel Alito, who has become a conservative stalwart, authoring key decisions such as Dobbs, Janus, Hobby Lobby and the “Peace Cross” case.²

Sen. Josh Hawley provided another example of rigorous intra-party vetting in 2019. For years, conservative judicial candidates assiduously avoided revealing their thoughts on polarizing issues; at the top of the “avoid at all costs” list was saying they thought Roe was wrongly decided. Believing that revelation would torpedo a nominee’s chances, GOP senators were loath to ask for public statements against Roe.

But Hawley was concerned that Neomi Rao (whom Trump nominated to an appeals court) quietly supported Roe. So Hawley publicly expressed his misgivings (“I am only going to support nominees who have a strong record on life”) and repeatedly questioned her views in writing and in the media. Hawley’s gambit angered many who wanted Rao quickly approved. But he helped change what conservatives expect from judicial nominees. Post-Hawley/Rao, conservatives can feel even more empowered to publicly question a GOP president’s choices, and they can feel no obligation to accept a nominee’s caginess on tough jurisprudential questions.

More than ever before, the right has demanding, explicit expectations about potential judges: They should have significant experience, an indisputable track record of excellence in the field and demonstrated philosophical alignment, and proof of institutional effectiveness.

It is time for the right to demand the same of high-ranking nominees in other domains.

Especially education.

Tough Vetting Now Avoids Regret Later

Education reformers should not passively accept—much less argue—that Ms. McMahon will be a great secretary of education just because Mr. Trump says so. Remember, President George H.W. Bush believed David Souter would be a great Supreme Court justice.

Conservative advocates should resist the impulse to be credulous team players. Verify, verify, verify. Then verify some more.

GOP senators in particular need to step up, ask tough questions, and set high expectations.

Ms. McMahon can’t magically alter her résumé and suddenly acquire years of experience as an inside-the-system reformer. But she can prove that she knows the issues inside and out. She can prove that she’s thought through principles of governing as they relate to schooling as a way of demonstrating how she’ll handle unexpected issues. She can prove that she understands longstanding education debates, education programs, and education-related court cases.

To be more specific, before confirming her as secretary of education, senators should ask her why student achievement has cratered—and started cratering prior to Covid. Why chronic absenteeism has spiked. If she thinks school choice is a state-level or federal issue. Why rural legislators worry about education savings accounts. Whether she believes in test-based accountability for federal funds. Whether she likes federal competitive grant programs in education. What she thinks of the union-friendly positions of the nominee for secretary of labor. Whether she believes college English, history, and classics departments are important even if they have lower return-on-investment financial outcomes. Whether receipt of federal research funds should be contingent of a campus’s free-speech policies. Whether unproven career-focused post-secondary programs should go through some kind of accreditation process prior to being eligible to receive student-loan and/or Pell funding.

Schools Are as Important as Courts

In short, GOP senators would not dream of confirming a GOP president’s judicial nominees based on promises and hopes. They now want proof of knowledge, experience, philosophy, and skill. And they ask the tough questions to make sure.

The same should be true of nominees for secretary of education.

1. We might also include Burger, Kennedy, and O’Connor as having disappointed conservatives.

2. I should note that this (let’s call it the “energetically skeptical”) approach need not be used only by outsiders. It was apparently also used in the first-term Trump White House by those vetting potential judicial candidates prior to their names going to the president. That is, the counsel’s office wanted unequivocal demonstrations of knowledge, principles, experience, energy, and doughtiness.