As president-elect Donald Trump continues to pull together his cabinet, the controversial name of Michelle Rhee has emerged as one of the hot favorites to be the next education secretary.

The former chancellor of schools in Washington DC, who fired 241 teachers and forced through performance related pay reforms, met with Trump over the weekend at his estate and golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

The incoming president also met with education activist Betsy DeVos, chair of the American Federation for Children, which promotes charter schools and private-school vouchers, for the vacant role.

A statement from Trump’s transition team said that the president-elect and Rhee had “enjoyed an in-depth discussion about the future of public education in our country. This included the possibility for increasing competition through charter and choice schools”.

The statement added that increasing the scope of merit based pay for teachers had also been discussed.

Trump’s team said that his conversation with DeVos had been “focused on the Common Core mission, and setting higher national standards and promoting the growth of schools choice across the nation”.

Trump said relatively little about education during the presidential campaign, but he did promise a $20 billion fund to introduce for more choice and competition in public schools. He is an advocate of the charter school movement and private school vouchers.

He also declared his intention to cut the US Department of Education “way, way, way back” and criticized key reforms introduced under Barack Obama, labelling the Common Core “a disaster”.

Rhee’s record in charge

Rhee would prove a controversial choice for education secretary, given that she is a Democrat, but her record in charge of schools in DC could prove attractive to Trump’s desire to curtail the power of the unions.

She pushed through reforms that tied teacher pay to test scores and fired large numbers of teachers who received poor evaluations.

After three years in post, she left the Chancellor role in 2010 to found Students First, a non-profit education reform organisation. She stood down from that role in 2014 and has remained largely out of the public spotlight since.

DeVos is a Republican and former chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party.

It is notable that both of the main frontrunners for the education job are women, with Trump facing criticism for choosing an overwhelmingly male cabinet so far. There is speculation that only 10 per cent of cabinet positions could end up being held by women.

Kelly Dittmar, assistant research professor at the Centre for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, New Jersey, told the BBC on Monday: “In the selections he has made thus far we have not seen any evidence that women were at the top of the list or really even on the list.”

Eva Moskowitz, a former New York City Council member and founder and chief executive of Success Academy Charter Schools, met with Trump last week, but said afterwards she was committed to running her schools.

Other names that had been mentioned in relation to the education secretary role include Ben Carson, who also ran for the Republican presidential nomination.

His appointment would have proved highly contentious given that he denies the theory of evolution, but he now seems unlikely to take up a cabinet role and will instead act as an informal adviser to the new president.

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