The education world was greeted with encouraging news over the weekend when President Trump announced that former Tennessee education commissioner Penny Schwinn would serve as the next Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. A longtime rising star with a career spanning multiple states—including California, Delaware, and Texas—she brings a broad perspective on education governance. Schwinn’s record of implementing data-driven, research-backed strategies in the Volunteer State should complement Secretary-designate Linda McMahon’s skill set, and it augurs well for a new administration that is being pulled in different directions on education policy. As she prepares (pending Senate confirmation) to take on a leadership role in Washington, Schwinn’s prior work provides a roadmap for how she might leverage her position to influence national conversations on education, with a particular emphasis on reading instruction, assessments, teacher quality, and school choice.
Sloganeering aside, calls to “abolish the department” belie the serious issues confronting our nation’s students and educators. If the NAEP results coming out next week are as bad as some predict, Schwinn’s appointment comes none too soon. Priority number one must be halting the achievement slide that the previous administration largely ignored—especially in foundational subjects like reading. In fact, Schwinn called this out in a 2023 interview with AEI’s Rick Hess:
I remain frustrated that approximately only one in three students in this country are proficient readers—and I truly believe this can be different. Ensuring our children are able to read on grade level must be a nonnegotiable goal we set for every single student in this country. The ability to change course is rooted in the science of reading… This requires strong and aligned training in our colleges of education, high-quality instructional materials, exceptional professional development and ongoing supports for teachers, and additional hours of targeted acceleration opportunities for students.
Nonnegotiable is right. Unlike others who give lip service to raising achievement, Schwinn has receipts. With her at the helm, Tennessee saw a nearly 8 percentage point increase in third-grade reading proficiency rates in just two years (on its own state test, at least). The state still has a long way to go, but America’s post-pandemic outlook would be far rosier if more states prioritized academic outcomes commencing with basic literacy.
Central to Schwinn’s success was her belief in using state assessment data to drive decisions, ensuring that progress was both measurable and targeted. When I spoke with her a few years ago, she underscored the importance of using data to identify achievement gaps and allocate resources where they are needed most:
We’ve got to know how our kids are doing... We need to be able to have longitudinal data over time. We need to be able to see how our kids did five years ago, three years ago, this year, and then moving forward... We need to be able to really emphasize how our investments... are aligned to the needs of the students... And that has to be on a consistent measure.
While hesitation on federal testing policies has become troublingly bipartisan, Schwinn’s commitment to standardized, data-driven measures remains admirably resolute.
On efforts to strengthen the teacher pipeline, Schwinn paved the way for Tennessee to have the nation’s first federally recognized teaching apprenticeship—an effort that falls within the realm of CTE (albeit through the Labor Department), an area of interest for her presumptive new boss. While the concept isn’t new, momentum for such programs surged after Schwinn took up the mantle. Now, the Tennessee Grow Your Own Center is a one-stop shop for teacher recruitment and development, and teacher apprenticeship programs have expanded to nearly every state. Schwinn could bring this same forward-thinking approach to the education department, aiming to champion reforms that prioritize results over rhetoric.
At a time of unprecedented state action on school choice, Schwinn—a charter school founder—has navigated the fraught politics and will surely aim to create win-win situations that both devolve power to states while also advancing charter school growth. At the same time, she understands that choice is only meaningful if parents have access to clear, reliable information about school quality. Without it, school choice is little more than a guessing game. To wit, Schwinn told Hess:
For school choice to work, there needs to be understandable, accurate, and accessible information for parents. It requires exceptional customer service for families and tooling that streamlines the process. Fiscal accountability needs to be clear and enforced. Well-defined benchmarks for quality and outcomes must be publicly stated and honestly reported… the surest way to see [school choice] fail is to believe that passing the law is the finish line.
Sage advice for Republicans now poised to pursue a national school choice program.
To be sure, it remains to be seen what the department will push for, but Schwinn has already offered some intriguing possibilities. In an op-ed she co-authored last summer with another education dynamo, current Maryland and former Mississippi state superintendent Carey Wright, Schwinn made the case for more research and development. Specifically, they threw their weight behind an idea that’s been bandied about for decades: creating a “DARPA for education” to tackle ambitious projects such as leveraging advances in artificial intelligence to better measure student learning. House and Senate versions of a bill to establish such a body have repeatedly stalled in Congress. Schwinn could help nudge the process forward.
But seeing any of this through won’t be easy. As Hess has observed, leading the department is more “clean your room” than “king for a day.” The sheer scale of today’s higher education challenges may demand more of Schwinn’s attention than anything in the elementary and secondary space. Which is to say, for all her K–12 experience and savvy, Schwinn could have her hands full picking up after the FAFSA mess, addressing three failed audits, and managing the ongoing upheaval in student lending. She’s all but sure to be pulled into Title IX rulemaking and Title VI violations vis-à-vis antisemitism on college campuses.
Indeed, the day-to-day work of governing rarely lends itself to grand gestures, and even the best intentions can bog down in bureaucracy. That said, Schwinn has shown that results often come from persistence. Shortly after taking the reins in Tennessee, she told a group of community members, “We know that we have a shared commitment to our students. Every single one of the children in every single one of our schools come to us with real assets… This is our moment in time to recommit and redefine expectations.” For too long, the nation’s focus has drifted away from academic achievement, with policymakers seemingly content to meet students where they are rather than pushing them to where they need to be. Schwinn’s nomination offers hope that Uncle Sam could turn his attention back toward evidence and excellence.
