President-elect Donald Trump's pick of Linda McMahon as the next Secretary of Education is already

raising alarm among critics who feel the role should go to someone with more experience in education.

But her appointment has also been met with praise by supporters who see this as a win for parental

rights and school choice. The former professional wrestling executive led the

Small Business Administration during Trump's first term before she resigned in 2019. This time

around, she set to head an agency that Trump has repeatedly pledged to dismantle. For more,

we're joined by John Volant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

I think it's always useful to look at these selections in the context of what Mr. Trump has said about these respective departments and agencies.

So help us understand Linda McMahon as his choice to lead a department that he says he wants to get rid of

and allow each state

to handle education individually, as he put it.

So there's an irony to selecting a secretary of a department that the incoming administration

is looking to dismantle from everything that they have told us. Now, they are very unlikely

to actually be able to do that because eliminating the Department

of Education would require an act of Congress. It would be subject to a Senate filibuster, and there's

no democratic support for that idea, and there very likely would be some Republican opposition

too. So I don't think that they're thinking in terms of how do we eliminate the department

with this pick.

But it is also the case that Linda McMahon has very little experience and expertise in education.

She has more experience running agencies and working in the first Trump administration, but is not one who seems to really understand the issues of the day when it comes to education policy.

...