Updated  Monday, December 13, 2004
Spellings Emerges From Shadows to Cabinet Post
HGSE Sounds Off On Bush's Nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education
By Michael Lisman
APPIAN STAFF WRITER

To those inside the White House, Margaret Spellings is a trusted domestic policy advisor, a chief architect of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and -- if confirmed by the Senate -- the country's eighth Secretary of Education. 

But those interviewed in Cambridge are scratching their heads at President George W. Bush's nomination.

“I really don’t know very much about her, but my first impression is that it looks like the spoils system at work,” commented Matthew Deninger, of the Education Policy and Management (EPM) program.

Among those interviewed by The Appian, several students and faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) said they believe Spellings' appointment went under the radar in the midst of high profile post-election issues, such as the war in Iraq and more prominent Cabinet shuffles. Others more pointedly are viewing the appointment as a blow to bipartisanship and the best interests of the nation’s youth.

At 46 years old, Spellings will become the youngest Education Secretary since the post was created in 1979, and she will be the first appointee not to hold a graduate-level degree. Spellings graduated from the University of Houston with a bachelors degree in political science and journalism.

Moreover, her predecessors came to the position from prominent private or public leadership posts with substantial policy-making experience.  Lamar Alexander and Richard Riley both served as governors before leading the Department of Education, and outgoing Secretary Rod Paige was the Superintendent of Schools in Houston, the seventh largest district in the country.  Once the Associate Director of the Texas School Board Association, Spellings has worked for Bush since 1994, when she began to advise him on Texas education policy. 

"She is not qualified in any respect, other than her loyalty to the President,” Anrig Professor of Educational Leadership Richard Elmore told The Appian. “The fact that she can be appointed, however, speaks to the weakness and disarray of educators as a profession in relation to the political environment they work in."

All indications in the media suggest that her pending Senate confirmation will be automatic, having already received bipartisan support, including that of U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who recently lauded her for “having the ear of the president.”  Loyalty and access are also traits attributed to incoming Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The National Education Association (NEA), whom outgoing Secretary of Education Rod Paige referred to as a "terrorist organization," released an immediate endorsement of Spellings’ appointment on November 17, concluding with the lukewarm statement that “we look forward to finding common ground with Ms. Spellings in her new role." The National School Boards Association (NSBA) issued a similar statement the following day, adding that it “fully supports” her Senate confirmation.

While such national organizations may have a rational stake in establishing good relations with the incoming Secretary, members of the HGSE community with whom The Appian spoke have taken a decidedly opposite stance on Spellings’ nomination.  

Fernando Reimers, Ford Foundation Professor of International Education, said he thinks the prospects for Spellings’ term seems bleak. 

“I believe Secretary Paige and NCLB did very little to help schools in America promote deep understanding of complex issues, or to develop tolerance and social skills and dispositions for effective citizenship in a pluralistic and diverse society," he told The Appian.  "He did even less to help American students become literate or curious about world issues and to prepare them to live in an interdependent world. I have no reason to expect that Secretary Spellings will be much different in this regard."

Reimers, who was born in Venezuela, also noted that the he views the problems of the U.S. education system extending far beyond questions of standards, explaining: “I very much hope to be wrong, for it will be tragic to see intolerance and civic illiteracy continue to spread and for democracy in this nation continue to break down as it did in recent history in other parts of the world.”

HGSE Professor Bob Schwartz described the unprecedented move Bush made by nominating Spellings.

“The typical pattern is for Presidents to select highly visible leaders with somewhat independent constituencies as Secretaries like Powell, Ashcroft, and Paige, but then put trusted loyalists like Spellings in less visible number two or three positions to watch over them," Schwartz told The Appian, adding that leading and serving as spokesperson for a public organization requires far different skills than being a behind-the-scenes advisor.  "I guess the new Bush strategy at least has the virtue of transparency: the person who is nominally in charge really will be calling the shots… and accountable."

Others see Spellings’ appointment as the embodiment of more problematic forces at play.  Elmore offered a scathing commentary of these forces, implying that political maneuverings and ulterior motives may actually render Spellings’ qualifications a moot point.

“My prediction is that, to deflect attention from this disaster [NCLB] and to provide the illusion that the administration has an education policy, the Secretary and the President will push hard on further privatization,” Elmore said.  This will likely be “an easy sell, since no one on the Republican side is really interested in education for any reason other than ideological point-scoring. The running line under this scenario will be ‘we gave public schools a chance to respond and they failed to do it; now it's time to make increased use of the private sector.’”

Elmore also noted, however, that the problem exists within the education interest organizations such as NEA and NSBA, as well as on the other side of the political aisle. “The Democratic leadership in education -- [Senators] Kennedy and Miller- - got badly rolled in NCLB, and they have taken the completely irrelevant position that the problem is that NCLB is under-funded, so they've effectively taken themselves out of any serious policy debate on NCLB,” Elmore concluded.

Masters students at HGSE with whom The Appian spoke agreed that Spellings’ nomination was unsettling, citing general grievances about the Bush administration, but also specific concerns about the Bush appointee.

EPM student Alexander Hoffman sees Spellings’ qualifications as particularly troublesome. He commented that “this is not an administration that cares about qualifications. Her nomination indicates that the Bush administration is totally unapologetic about any of the known problems facing NCLB.”

“It seems to me that she is too well-aligned with the President,” opined Patrick Purcell, also of the EPM Program. “In cabinet-level positions, it's important to have someone who is willing to work with both sides of the aisle, while challenging the President when necessary,” he said, referring to other recent Bush cabinet appointees that up to now had served as the president’s close personal advisers.

Kasia Razynska, a Masters candidate in International Education Policy, took issue with Spellings’ repeated calls for increased funding for “abstinence only” sex education programs in public schools, a policy which White House spokesperson Scott McClellan recently defended on behalf of Spellings and the President as “focusing on what works.”  

“In the 21^st century,” Razynska, told The Appian, “teaching only abstinence to kids and thinking that it will solve the problems at hand like sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancy is like teaching advanced math using only an abacus – it’s outdated and unlikely to address the reality many kids face.”

Several other HGSE students declined to comment on Spellings’ qualifications or her agenda, explaining that they had not followed the cabinet appointments very closely and did not yet have sense of Spellings’ background.

EPM doctoral candidate and former New York City Schools Spokesperson J.D. LaRock said he is reserving his judgment until Spellings assumes her new position.  Spellings' "role has been behind the scenes at the Domestic Policy Council, so she hasn't had the opportunity to be very much in the public eye," LaRock said.  "She'll have that chance at her confirmation hearing, and people ought to make their decisions then."

According to the Washington Post, Senate confirmation hearings for Spellings have not yet been scheduled.

Michael Lisman, an Ed.M. candidate in the International Education Policy Program, is a member of the Appian Board of Editors.