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Trump’s Potential Picks for Education Secretary: What to Know


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TRUMP’S POTENTIAL PICKS FOR EDUCATION SECRETARY: WHAT TO KNOW

By Alyson Klein — November 12, 2024 | Updated: November 12, 2024 7 min read
Donald Trump, now president-elect, speaks at a campaign rally, March 9, 2024, in
Rome, Ga. The education world is eager to find out who he will appoint to be
U.S. secretary of education in his second term.
Mike Stewart/AP
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President-elect Donald Trump is moving swiftly to staff his senior team and
Cabinet positions, with news already broken about high-profile choices for
secretary of state, EPA director, and ambassador to the United Nations.

The brisk pace is fueling even more curiosity, speculation, and betting about
who Trump may choose to be his education secretary and lead an agency that he
has pledged to get rid of.

Trump’s secretary will likely support slimming down if not dismantling the
Education Department; expanding school choice; slashing K-12 spending; and
attacking school districts’ diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.


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Alex Brandon/AP
Federal What Elon Musk's New Role in the Trump Administration Could Mean for
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Alyson Klein & Lauraine Langreo, November 13, 2024
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Plenty of GOP lawmakers, state education chiefs, and advocates could get on
board with that agenda. But a future secretary’s ability to communicate and
champion Trump’s education policies may help determine their success.

Education Week reported on a robust list of possibilities before Trump’s
decisive win, and now we’re back with an updated look at potential contenders
for the job of U.S. Secretary of Education.


WHO MAY BE ON THE SHORT LIST FOR EDUCATION SECRETARY?

We’ll start with Cade Brumley, the state superintendent in Louisiana who’s been
on the list of possibilities since well before the election and remains in play,
according to GOP sources.

During his four-year tenure in Louisiana, he’s pushed for what he describes as a
“back to basics” approach to education, focusing on math, reading, and science
rather than cultural issues, and for expanding school choice.





He’s also worked to stop identifying schools for intervention based on student
suspensions and to make it easier for teachers to remove disruptive students
from their classrooms.

And he might have a relatively easy time getting through a Senate confirmation
process. The incoming chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
committee is Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Brumley’s home state of
Louisiana.

Cassidy, who will need to shepherd any education secretary through the
confirmation process, was one of only seven GOP senators to vote to impeach
Trump after the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump encouraged a violent mob to
disrupt the congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s election
victory.

A pragmatic lawmaker who has supported programs to improve educational outcomes
for children with dyslexia, Cassidy may not be apt to embrace a MAGA firebrand.
Two moderate GOP senators—Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of
Alaska—might also be disinclined to support picks who are strongly associated
with the culture wars in schools.


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President Donald Trump, right, arrives in a classroom at St. Andrew Catholic
School in Orlando, Fla., on March 3, 2017.
Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP
Federal Who Could Be Donald Trump's Next Education Secretary?
Alyson Klein, October 15, 2024
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9 min read
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Collins and Murkowski voted against Trump’s first education secretary, Betsy
DeVos, prompting then-vice-president Mike Pence to cast a history-making
tie-breaking vote in her favor.

Those political hurdles might present a roadblock for two other hopefuls—Tiffany
Justice, the co-founder of Moms for Liberty and Ryan Walters, the state
superintendent in Oklahoma who seems to be making the most overt pitch for the
gig.





Justice, who interviewed Trump on stage at her group’s annual convention in
August, told Education Week recently she’d be “honored to serve” as his
education secretary—or in another role in a potential second Trump term. But she
also said Brumley, the Louisiana schools chief, would be a good choice.

Walters, a former social studies teacher and one-time finalist for state teacher
of the year, was elected to the position of superintendent of public instruction
in 2022. Before that, he served as the Sooner State’s secretary of education in
Gov. Kevin Stitt’s Cabinet.

Walters, who endorsed Trump, has developed a national reputation as one of the
right’s most vigorous critics of federal “overreach” in schools and flaws in how
they teach.

“I’m happy to help President Trump in any way that I can,” Walters told
Education Week in response to a question about his interest in the secretary
gig.

Walters announced Nov. 11 that he is setting up an advisory committee in
Oklahoma to “oversee federal public education policy changes that are
anticipated under the incoming Trump Administration.” And he sent a memo to
Oklahoma parents and district superintendents highlighting his vigorous support
for Trump’s education policy priorities.

Of course, Trump has already raised the spectre of making recess appointments,
insisting that the yet-to-be named Republican majority leader of the Senate
agree to such a move. That would allow him to make appointments and bypass
Senate confirmation.


IS BETSY DEVOS IN THE RUNNING FOR EDUCATION SECRETARY? WHOM WOULD SHE RECOMMEND?

DeVos resigned early from Trump’s cabinet on Jan. 7, 2021, citing the
president’s role in inciting a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol and disrupt its
certification of Biden’s victory.

But in an exclusive interview with Education Week after Trump’s victory, she
said would be “very open” to talking with the president-elect about serving in
his second administration.

“I have been really clear about what I think needs to be the agenda, which is to
get the federal tax credit passed and to de-power the Department of Education.
If President-elect Trump wanted to talk to me, I would be very open to talking,”
DeVos said in the EdWeek interview. “But I think there’s also a lot of folks
[who could do the job well].

“I think about an ideal secretary of education, what their experience might be.
A governor who’s led in their state on education reform issues,” DeVos
continued. “That would be a very good profile. Someone who could do the things
that need to be done, could come in and hit the ground running. The federal
Department of Education is a labyrinth, a maze, and I think someone who has
accomplished real reforms on a state level would be really fit and suitable for
that position.”


SEE ALSO

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Education Secretary Betsy DeVos speaks during a briefing at the Department of
Education building in Washington on July 8, 2020.
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Federal Q&A Betsy DeVos' Advice for Trump's Next Education Secretary
Alyson Klein, November 7, 2024
•
6 min read
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GOP education sources have shared some names of governors and former governors
they could see as a good fit for the job, including Bobby Jindal, the former
Louisiana governor who also served on the education committee when he was in
Congress; Doug Ducey, the former governor of Arizona and Sarah Huckabee Sanders,
Trump’s former communications director and current Arkansas governor. (It’s
unclear if any of them have jumped from the wishlist to the transition team’s
shortlist, however.)

Glenn Youngkin, the Virginia governor whose election in 2021 was largely
attributed to galvanizing voters around education issues, especially the role of
parents’ rights following pandemic school closures, has signaled that he’s not
interested right now. In a Nov. 7 interview with WDBJ, Youngkin said he’s
committed to finishing his term as governor, which concludes in 2026.


WOULD TRUMP APPOINT A STATE SUPERINTENDENT TO BE HIS EDUCATION SECRETARY?

Two other potential state superintendents could be in the mix: South Carolina’s
Ellen Weaver, an elected Republican, and Florida’s Manny Díaz Jr.

Both support expanding school choice and have opposed what they perceive as
“woke ideology” in schools, including rejecting the College Board’s AP African
American studies course.

One potential pitfall for Díaz: He was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who ran
against Trump for the GOP nomination.

Another Floridian’s name has also surfaced as a possible Trump education
secretary: U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, a rumored Trump vice-presidential pick. (The
nod ultimately went to Ohio Sen. JD Vance.)

Donalds’ wife, Erika Donalds, is a former school board member and charter school
founder.


WILL TRUMP CONSIDER AN EDUCATION SECRETARY FROM HIGHER EDUCATION?

Some GOP education insiders are urging Trump to eschew the K-12 world altogether
and choose someone with a postsecondary background as his next education
secretary, former Republican congressional aides said.





After all, there are plenty of big higher education issues for the next
secretary to sink their policy teeth into, including righting the troubled
rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, dealing
with student lending programs, and moving forward with an aggressive campaign to
revamp accreditation in higher education, a long-time GOP priority.

And Trump made retooling career-technical education—a rare bipartisan area these
days—a rhetorical focus, if not a policy priority, in his first term.

Meanwhile, the big K-12 GOP agenda items—abolishing the Education Department and
shifting federal funding to private schools in a big way—would all run straight
into the Senate’s legislative filibuster, which takes 60 votes to overcome.

Finally, we can rule out Vivek Ramaswamy, whom Trump namechecked at a campaign
rally in October as someone who could oversee the dismantling of the Education
Department. On Nov. 12, Trump announced that Ramaswamy and Elon Musk would lead
a new “Department of Government Efficiency” in his new administration.

During his brief presidential run, Ramaswamy pledged to abolish the education
department and enhance civics education.

Alyson Klein
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Assistant Editor,  Education Week
Alyson Klein is an assistant editor for Education Week.
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Related Tags:
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Lesli A. Maxwell, Managing Editor contributed to this article.


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