By every measure, Linda McMahon is a shrewd, bold and intelligent woman with a history of success in an industry dominated by men, and, one might argue, rough men.
She also has developed a pedigree in politics. From her run for the Senate as an underdog in a state where only name brand people — or Democrats — need apply, to her work in Washington as head of the Small Business Administration, where friends and foes alike praised her leadership style and affability, the Trump administration Education secretary-nominee brings a lot to the proverbial education ring.
As someone who has been in the education field for more than 30 years, and a steadfast advocate for students to have every opportunity to shape their education, I am happy to know that a strong focus of hers is connecting education with the workforce.
Sources say that in her private meetings with senators on Capitol Hill last week, she focused precisely on that general area — including job training and the role of community colleges and trade schools in workforce development.
She is right to do so — the U.S. higher education system is broken by every measure.
Fewer than 65 percent of those who begin a 4-year degree will finish in six years and only 33 percent will finish in four years. Of the 4.5 million students who began a 2-year college program in 2022 — which was once considered the critical pathway to career training — only 43 percent finished. These are part of the reasons that U.S. student loan debt is $1.7 trillion dollars!
But the higher education system is only partly to blame for these deficiencies. The workforce development field — including the role businesses play — also shares the blame. And that is where McMahon needs a much deeper education in the field than her predecessors, so she doesn’t inadvertently fall prey to the same monolithic and over-funded “business” that leaves too many students set up for failure — under-skilled and lacking in the training critical for the workforce of today and tomorrow.
While tomes could be written on this, some lessons sum up the challenge ahead — and one that we know she can win before the end of her round. Mike Rowe’s popularity with Dirty Jobs aside, America’s students need a great education no matter what field they enter.
Although plumbers may be the least respected and most needed profession on the planet, they still need and want to learn math, science, history and literature.
Imagine how many more people might go into the trades if they also were valued during middle and high school for their intellect or ability to manage and lead in any number of elective areas!
The real question should be “why not both?” Why not give students credit for whatever coursework in the traditional sense they succeed in passing in addition to work-and-job experience. Why not create an entire new category of credentialing that doesn’t require federal accreditation standards (which is also deeply broken) that equates to a reskilling Ivy League degree but is also relevant to the needs of the economy and business, and recognized as equally valid?
The reason? It would require a complete facelift of K-12 education which currently the U.S. public education system is not equipped to master. A herculean task, no doubt. But whether it’s President-elect Donald Trump or Linda McMahon with the best of intentions, you just cannot talk about workforce development without talking about transforming K-12 education.
For the past 4 years we have invested $50 million into the most exceptional education providers in the nation and compared to the prior 30 years of working in the policy sphere, we learned more from those 200+ providers than any other single endeavor — that freedom and flexibility drive the creation of a variety of outstanding educational approaches for students. Unless you unleash K-12 from traditional top-down funding models, you will never get entrepreneurial innovations that prepare young students to be productive participants in the world they will grow to enter.
McMahon can begin that change on Day 1 by shifting the paradigm — eradicate the ancient notion that school districts are and should remain the focus of federal, state and local funding, and refocus all federal funding on the student, no matter what their category or zip code. That will trickle down to states and local communities, and you will see dramatic changes in how schools are developed, organized and what they produce.
It is all connected — primary and secondary schools, workforce and life. Unless those elected — and unburdened by the status quo — are courageous enough to turn the system on its head, they will spin their wheels and lose this significant opportunity to make transformational changes in American education and the workforce.
Jeanne Allen is the founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform.
Linda McMahon the Chairman of the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Advisory Council.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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