Who will be the next U.S. education secretary?
Will retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson become education secretary if Donald Trump is elected president?
Who will Hillary Clinton offer the job to if she wins the 2016 presidential election next week? Denise Juneau, Montana’s superintendent of public instruction who is running for Congress? Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University professor emeritus and head of the nonprofit Learning Policy Institute?
With the election just days away, many in the education world are wondering who might take over the Education Department in the new administration. Education was a subject pretty much overlooked during the campaign, but the positions the candidates took on some education issues suggest vastly different education secretary picks.
In broad strokes, Trump’s proposals could effectively put the entire traditional public education system at risk. He has called for “reprioritizing existing federal dollars” and giving “an additional federal investment of $20 billion towards school choice” to states that have private school choice, magnet schools and charter laws. Clinton supports the traditional public education system, as well as charter schools, though she has called for better charter oversight. She opposes vouchers, which use public money to pay for private education.
Trump’s website has a form inviting readers to write in names of “the most qualified candidate” for specific posts — but education secretary isn’t one of them. One person he has publicly praised for his education “expertise” is Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who was a primary opponent of Trump’s (and who doesn’t believe in evolution, the animating principle of modern biology).
Last March, Trump thanked Carson for endorsing him and noted that the two had had spent talking about education. “I was most impressed with his views on education. It’s a strength. It’s a tremendous strength,” Trump said, so Carson is “going to be involved with us,” particularly on health and education.
Helping Trump with his choice-focused education policy proposals has been Rob Goad, an adviser to Rep. Luke Messer (R-Ind.). And Education Week reported that Trump picked Williamson M. Evers and Gerard Robinson to be on his transition team working on education Who will be the next U.S. education secretary? - The Washington Post: