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Joe Biden promised that, if elected president, he would appoint a teacher as U.S. Secretary of Education. The commitment was part of what earned him the support of both teachers unions and hurrahs from a chorus of teachers and teacher advocates, and was offered as a contrast to the often criticized Betsy DeVos.

Beyond picking a teacher, the administration-in-waiting is unofficially floating the idea that said teacher would likely be a current or former union leader. That has the media world ablaze analyzing the repercussions. And many people in their own homes and on their own social media are discussing and arguing the Biden promise: Should a teacher be the next education secretary?

The short answer is no, not necessarily. Having been a teacher is not a prerequisite for success as Secretary of Education. The emphasis is wrong.  Education is primarily about learning, not teaching, just as having dinner is primarily about eating, not cooking. The process is important, as it can help achieve, and alter, the outcome. But teaching is not the goal of education; it is part of the process. While the two are correlated, and while strong teaching is more likely to yield to successful learning, the unions who are pushing the teacher-as-EdSec notion have argued the opposite holds true—that teaching and learning are not in fact correlated!

Teaching and cooking each require tools and skill. These processes can be enjoyable or a chore, or both. But if dinner is bad, there’s probably a problem with your cooking. Similarly, if education doesn’t yield the intended outcome for schools – educated students  – it, too, is a failure. Indeed, today in America we have an issue about which no one seems to be talking in their debates and lofty recommendations about who should be the next Education Secretary – that we are failing (even pre-Covid) by leaps and bounds to ensure the majority of students are successful learners.

In his Education Week commentary, American Enterprise Scholar Frederick Hess has it right when he says that the key attribute of this position is “a willingness to put students first.”  Of course, no one is going to say that they don’t put students first. We hear it daily from the heads of the teachers unions even as they are forcing city and state officials to entirely shut down schools despite mounds of scientific evidence that schools are not super-spreaders. Says Hess: “The reality is that Washington is swarming with organizations that represent influential institutions, systems, and employees. There can be great pressure to focus on the care and feeding of these groups. For better or worse, and even when it annoys allies or powerful interests, the secretary needs to be the one steadfastly bringing the focus back to the students in our nation’s schools and colleges.”

It’s About Learning, Not Teaching

Washington is a beast, there’s no question. Regulators re-interpret and mis-interpret the intent of law regularly and an Education Secretary either must intimately understand how that’s done to correct the problem, or have people around her who can do so. But the most important attribute that a successful Education Secretary needs is to be a great learner. The position requires someone who is a great student in the strictest definition of the word, someone who is always open to studying and learning what it takes to be successful, and one who is willing to ask the right questions, be innovative, and not be tied to one way of behaving, simply because your profession demands it.

So who are great learners? Most successful entrepreneurs are, as they must identify and adapt ideas regularly. Innovators are great learners too – they are open to looking at everything differently. Parents are learners of the first degree – they have to lead, follow, and change; they are constantly surprised as they learn each different way a child is moving forward or not and must learn what to do about it, even years after childhood.

But to say that only a teacher should be Education Secretary ignores the vast reality that teachers are rarely in a position to study, review, and understand every innovation, idea, and approach to learning that is being developed and tested in real time as they are working hard in and around the classroom (in-person or not) to instruct students.