I recently had the opportunity to speak with Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s first-term secretary of education, about her advice for Trump’s current nominee, Linda McMahon. DeVos, an education philanthropist and prominent school-choice champion, served as secretary of education from 2017 to 2021. In our conversation, she emphasized the importance of seeking experienced counsel, navigating unreceptive bureaucracies, and standing behind one’s convictions.
DeVos opened with the importance of getting a team up and running. She recalled, “The whole process of onboarding a team was certainly an obstacle for me. I had numerous assistant-secretary nominees who waited more than a year to be confirmed by the Senate.” Inevitably, she noted, “Those kinds of delays impede your ability to get things done.”
Referring to the delays, DeVos opined, “There was no good reason for that; none of them faced serious objections. Some of that is the nature of the Senate calendar, but much of that was Democrats’ continual objections.” She added, “It’s also a process to get the White House to sign off on the right mix of people to populate the roles. There are a lot of competing priorities in making those hiring decisions.”
As for traps to avoid, DeVos advised,
The biggest risk is taking counsel from the “experts” that populate the alphabet soup of DC’s education lobby. Many are bought and paid for by the unions . . . Washington is full of people who will tell you “how things are supposed to be done,” but that advice is almost always in the service of systems, not kids.
DeVos also cautioned that her successor should be prepared for internal dissent within the Department of Education. Noting that Republicans who champion school choice or reducing the federal role are likely to encounter resistance among career staff, DeVos recalled that some hostile staffers
. . . leaked everything they got their hands on. We saw it in the newspapers routinely. And many didn’t even hide their animus toward us. I recall one bureaucrat who proudly displayed every negative news article published about me or our team on her office door.
As to how McMahon should deal with that kind of resistance, DeVos said, “First, be firm. They will put up a fight, but most of them will ultimately respect that they have a new boss.” She continued, “Second, seek out those who truly want to help kids . . . having even a dozen really great career staff leaders who wanted to be partners with us made a significant difference.”
A passionate advocate for educational choice, DeVos struggled to move choice legislation during her tenure—even when Republicans controlled Capitol Hill. Asked about that experience, she said,
Congress is perhaps the most change-averse entity I’ve ever dealt with. Many members of Congress talk a big game, but when it comes time to vote, many are more comfortable with maintaining the status quo. That requires . . . spending a lot of time talking through benefits and ways to mitigate risk.
Asked about the biggest challenge confronting McMahon, DeVos pointed to student lending. She asserted that the Biden administration has “destroyed the underpinnings of the federal student-loan portfolio” which “is supposed to be an asset for the US government. I think there’s a real question as to whether the portfolio is worth much of anything at all.” She added, “They haven’t made anyone pay back their loans in a serious way, which was the bedrock principle of the program. Consequently, the machinery of managing the loans is in disarray, and there’s no easy fix.”
Was there one thing that DeVos wished she’d known on her first day? “When you start, four years seems like a long time; the truth is it goes by incredibly quickly,” she said. “I wished I’d pushed harder and faster from the jump.”
Looking back, she reflected, “There were policies we advanced that had broad, bipartisan support, like expanding career and technical education options, and even those were painfully slow to move forward. Some of that legislation is still stalled in Congress today. In that sense, every minute counts.”
Frederick M. Hess
January 24, 2025
aei.org