Margaret Spellings

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I think it’s the right calibration based on the policy we now have. We have a system that says to states, because they are the primary investors, “You set the standards. You devise the assessments around them. You decide what a passing score is. You tell us your graduation rate and how many kids have to congregate before the group of students even counts for accountability purposes.”

And yet there are states that have said, “You’re asking us all to adhere to the same cookie-cutter standard.”

That is absolutely not the case. In fact, on the other side, some criticize us for giving too much local latitude. They say we need national curriculum standards.

Let me ask you about the thing that we have heard almost since the moment the phrase “No Child Left Behind” came together and that is “too much of an emphasis on testing.” All over Texas over the past couple of election cycles, Democratic candidates have, to a person, said, “We’re going to end all this testing.” They all think they can somehow run against you.

We tried for forty years to put the money out and hope for the best, and lots and lots of kids were left behind. It didn’t work. If someone can show me a way that we’re going to attend to the needs of kids without finding out where they are, without diagnosing the problem, I’m all ears. But it’s not possible. And I worry that the people who allege these things really are more worried about what it means for them: “Are people going to know how well I’m doing—or not doing?” It’s a bit of a red herring.

The outcome of all this, at the end of your time as secretary, will be what? What do you want said about your tenure?

That we changed the game in education. That we changed the conversation. That our approach was a fundamental and profound historical shift. That we finally looked ourselves in the mirror and said, “You know what? We really care about poor kids. And we’re gonna start to do the hard work on their behalf.”

Which of the problems that you’ve attacked during your tenure would you like to have gone further down the path toward solving?

Couple of things. One is what the president calls the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” No Child Left Behind is the bare minimum, the least we can do for kids. Grade level by 2014 is quite a low standard in many states, and there are lots of policy levers that get twisted to exempt kids from even that scrutiny. That this law is being castigated as unreasonable, undoable, and unnecessary is outrageous. From a more policy-wonkery point of view, we have to get to a place where we personalize instruction and allocate resources in more-strategic ways. We have to get assessment data to teachers in real time so they know that Evan needs help on fractions and Lauren needs work in long division and so that technology can help them act on what they know.

You didn’t mention the dropout problem. There’s a lot of chatter around it—how pronounced it is and that the states game the numbers so they appear to be lower.

This is another place where I wish I had done more. We haven’t diagnosed the problem adequately, and—guess what?—we don’t have a cure. Part of holding ourselves accountable is transparency, truth in advertising around dropout rates. That’s something I’m looking at.

Can’t you go to Robert Scott, the head of the Texas Education Agency, and say, “Look, cut the funny business. The community is never going to fully appreciate the enormity of the problem if you keep artificially lowering the numbers”?

I can. I was with Robert Scott today. I was with the education chief in Oklahoma yesterday. I’m having that exact conversation.

Would you have any hesitation about putting your own kids in Texas public schools?

No. I’ve had my kids in public schools most of the time, except for in high school, when they were in Catholic school. When we moved from Texas to Washington, my daughter Mary went immediately to our local public school, but it wasn’t a good transition. Freshman year, girl, cross-country move—you know, she needed to be in a different environment.

So you don’t begrudge a parent that individual choice? You’re the chief advocate for public education, but you’re also a mom and a member of the community. You’re realistic about these things.

You bet. We want kids to get a high-quality education wherever they can find it.

What are you going to do in the last months of the Bush administration?

Travel around and make sure No Child Left Behind works as well as it possibly can. Because I know, having been there on the first day of the presidential term, that the new president is not going to show up and work on George Bush’s number one domestic priority. It’s going to be tough to get the law reauthorized in an election year. I’m certainly not putting all my eggs in that basket.

They’re going to turn you into a political football.

I certainly want to make sure that, administratively, we’ve done our homework.

Has this been a fun time in your life?

Absolutely.

At the level you’ve operated, there’s an awful lot of pressure. You don’t strike me as the kind of person who would particularly enjoy wearing battle armor.

I believe in this. I love George Bush—I’ve been as loyal to him as any person around—but I believe strongly in the soap I’m selling, in No Child Left Behind, and I think Americans believe that education is the great equalizer. It is what we do that other countries haven’t done. It’s our shared value as Americans. It’s why we are the world’s innovator. Shame on us if we stop paying attention to it.

What’s the mood like in the White House? We’re halfway through an election cycle in which virtually no Republican candidate has mentioned George Bush’s name, and the president’s approval rating is not as high as he would like it to be or you would like it to be. And we’re at the end of the second term of an administration in which the wheels have come off.

I can tell you that we at the Department of Education are in full swing, and the president admonishes all of us to sprint to the finish. My hope is that we’ll sprint beyond the finish, building the culture and goodwill around this law.

You’ve known the president for a long time. How’s his mood? Does he seem like the same guy you knew so well back in Texas?

Of course he’s changed. We’ve all changed in the fourteen years I’ve worked for him. He’s grown. He’s learned a lot. He’s worn the war and the responsibility of that and the sacrifice personally. But he’s also still the same old George Bush, with the same kind of impish sense of humor and fun personality. Anyway, this idea that it’s bad to change is ridiculous. I hope to heck I’ve changed, matured, and become wiser.

You came into the job a person very committed to policy. Do you go out as a serious person and stay in the policy arena? Do you return to Texas and, as has been rumored, run for office?

I hope I’m still a serious policy person. The opportunity I’ve had is to go from behind the scenes into a more public role. I’ve enjoyed that very much, and I think it’s necessarily been a combination of things, a marrying of the policy and communications imperatives. I hope that whatever future I have will include both dimensions. And I hope it will include getting back to my beloved home state.