Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump's education philosophy can be summed up by: "Keep 'em dumb so they keep voting Republican." He has little regard for education, except maybe conservative charter schools or church-run schools. So for secretary of education, he picked wrestling magnate Linda McMahon. She ran the small business administration in Trump v1.0, but that was reasonably legitimate. When McMahon and her husband, Vincent McMahon, took over WWE, it was a small business and they transformed it into a medium business, so she does know something about small businesses. She doesn't know anything about education. But she doesn't have to. Her mission is to close up shop and turn education back to the states.
McMahon has three guiding principles for education:
All of these are highly problematic. First, at what level of granularity are we talking here? Is each school a separate unit? If the parents in some school decide they don't want the Civil War taught, do they get to vote on that? Can they secede if they don't get what they want? What if they don't want any history at all to be taught, or only their view of history? How would that work? Could any parent propose a curriculum in June for the school and then in August all the parents get to vote? Do parents with multiple children in the school get multiple votes? Do people with no children in the school get no votes, even though they might have a stake in the school, such as local employers have? There are probably hundreds of issues where parents disagree. Would votes be held on all of them? If a bare majority decides to leave evolution out of biology—even though that is the glue that holds all of biology together—does that happen? What if next year the bare majority vote goes the other way, does the school have to order new books that reflect the new majority? This would mean that in many communities, no two schools would be teaching the same material. It would be a disaster.
If groups of schools were lumped together into school districts and people voted for boards to run them, well, that is the current system. There are over 13,000 school districts in the U.S., some as a separate entity, some countywide, some citywide. Every eligible voter in the district may vote for board members (and sometimes for superintendent). Is McMahon proposing disenfranchising people with no children in the schools, even though they may have a stake in the outcome (again, e.g., local employers)?
As to the second principle, what does this mean, actually? Anything? Maybe all it means is that critical race theory won't be taught. That's easy since it is never taught in K-12 grades and rarely in college. It is graduate school material. Does it mean that only white teachers will be hired? Will things like the Civil Rights Movement be skipped over? Who knows?
The third principle is insidious. Many colleges think their goal is to teach students how to think and how to learn on their own. It sounds like that will be out. After all, people who can look at facts and evidence and draw conclusions are not what the Republicans want. They want people who uncritically repeat what they have been told. It sounds like McMahon wants to turn colleges into some kind of vocational training for white-collar workers. So students could learn to be accountants or doctors or engineers, but things like the humanities and liberal arts are definitely out. A major in art history? Are you kidding? (V)