Linda McMahon said American children are doing terribly in school and blamed a failed education system as she pointed to the latest NAEP scores, released just after President Donald Trump took office. In a interview with Harris Faulkner, McMahon said the National Assessment of Educational Progress is the country’s report card and argued that the numbers show a broad problem.
“We’re doing terribly,” McMahon said. “I mean, our education system has failed our kids.” She said only about 30% of high school and eighth graders can read proficiently or do math proficiently, and added that some places are at about 35% proficiency. “It is crazy,” she said. The figures, which she tied to the NAEP release, are the core of her case that the nation’s schools are not preparing students well enough.
Faulkner then shifted the conversation to the Trump administration’s traveling history quiz, describing it as a nonpartisan tour that typically includes a speech, a history quiz and “a bit of a game show.” McMahon said the questions cover the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the forefathers, civics and U.S. history, and that they are tailored to each state. She said the effort is “It’s a civics lesson,” and added that it is in lock-step with the president’s 250th celebration and the country’s 250th celebration.
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That tour has already run into resistance. Faulkner said at least four stops have been canceled in Massachusetts, Alabama and Connecticut, while stops in Wisconsin, New Jersey and Illinois have been met with protesting. McMahon said the children taking part are doing well with the questions. “They are doing very well with those questions,” she said. When Faulkner suggested they may be getting advance help, McMahon replied, “It could be they get them ahead of time. I don’t know,” leaving open how much of the strong performance comes from preparation rather than spontaneous knowledge.
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The interview tied two Republican messages together: a sharp attack on school performance and a celebratory civics effort built around the 250th anniversary. McMahon’s complaint about reading and math scores was broad, but her defense of the tour was narrower and more concrete, rooted in questions about American history and state-specific trivia. For the Trump administration, that makes the tour both a lesson and a test — one that is already drawing cancellations, protests and scrutiny over how much it tells us about what students actually know.
