Next UNC president is study in contradictions | News & Observer:
Next UNC president is study in contradictions
Margaret Spellings apparently wasn’t angered years ago when a Texas teachers group referred to her as the “princess of darkness.” Instead, she got herself a black cape with the moniker stitched on the back.
Spellings, who’s leaving the George W. Bush Presidential Center to become the president of the University of North Carolina system, once told a Washington Post reporter that she didn’t like the limelight. But in one of her first acts as Bush’s education secretary, she touched off a culture war skirmish when she denounced PBS for spending money on an episode of the animated children’s show “Postcards from Buster” that included lesbian characters. Gay rights activists pounced, and Rep. Barney Frank fired off a letter calling out Spellings’ “meanness.”
Conservatives didn’t like it, though, when Spellings responded “So what?” to a question about the decline of traditional two-parent families. There are all types of families, argued Spellings, who at the time was the divorced mother of two young children who had moved to Washington to work in the West Wing.
Spellings’ blunt words are softened by a Texas drawl. She doesn’t mind ruffling the feathers of the education establishment when she talks about productivity and accountability. She is insistent about the need for schools and colleges to serve more and better serve low-income and minority students.
“She brings out strong feelings. She is a bundle of contradictions,” said Andy Rotherham, a former policy adviser in Bill Clinton’s administration, who describes himself as “a Margaret fan.”
“She is this big, bold woman from Texas, but she has a heart of gold,” said Rotherham, co-founder of Bellwether Education Partners, a Boston area education nonprofit. “She is someone who cares and believes deeply in public education ... but she also believes public education needs to do much better.”
Spellings has spent her career in education policy and didn’t mind a little hard knuckle politics along the way. Karl Rove first brought her in to advise Bush on education when he ran for governor of Texas, after she had worked in the Texas legislature and the state school boards association. From then on, she would be in Bush’s inner circle, becoming domestic policy adviser in his first term and as education secretary in the second term. She’s now head of Bush’s presidential library and institute in Dallas.
Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said Spellings navigates the world of politics without ever talking like a politician.
“She comes off as very down to earth,” Petrilli said. “She’s tough. She’s a tough cookie, and she likes that reputation of being a tough cookie.”
I’M ASSUMING THAT (THE GOVERNORS) AT UNC KNOW THAT THEY’RE HIRING A CHANGE AGENT.
Michael Petrilli, president of Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Spellings, he said, is a big believer that the higher education system needed more accountability, that it had become complacent and that its outcomes weren’t as good as they could be.
“I’m assuming that (the governors) at UNC know that they’re hiring a change agent,” he said.
Envisioning a data revolution
Last year, Spellings wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal in which she described what education would look like in 20 years.
Students and parents will be empowered by the data revolution, able to choose education in an a la carte fashion without regard to geographic or institutional boundaries, she wrote. Students will move at their own pace and individualize their education based on the outcomeNext UNC president is study in contradictions | News & Observer:
Margaret Spellings speaks after she was elected president of the University of North Carolina system during a meeting of the UNC Board of Governors at the Spangler Center in Chapel Hill, N.C., Friday, Oct 23, 2015. Ethan Hyman ehyman@newsobserver.com
