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That special someone: Margaret Spellings our nominee for UH chancellor-president
The editorial below provoked two letters to the editor.
by Jon Dansby
Dear Editor:
I'm usually in agreement with the editorial positions of the Chronicle, but the Aug. 5 editorial, "That special someone," recommending Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to be the University of Houston's chancellor-president, was beyond belief. You could have knocked me over with a feather.
Spellings, a former Houston Independent School District substitute teacher and a Karl Rove protege, presides over the most scandal-ridden era in the Department of Education's history.
Most recently we learned of waste, fraud and bribery in the $85 billion-a-year student loan industry. U.S. Rep. George Miller of California rebuked Spellings for saying she or her predecessor "could have stopped the hemorrhaging of money (that lenders) were not entitled to."
The federally funded $5 billion-a-year Reading First program has been mired in a cesspool of conflict of interests contracts. Most disturbing was Spellings' lax oversight of No Child Left Behind testing.
In Texas, we know NCLB testing as the TAKS test, which has become a yearly revelation of schools identified as cheating on the TAKS and their denials of wrongdoing.
Not once have I heard Spellings speak out against NCLB cheating, this crime that lowers the esteem of schools in the eyes of the public.
Working in the Bush administration, Spellings may have acquired leadership skills not possessed by other candidates, but for my money that's a good thing.
by Stephen Krashen
Spellings may have other plans
To the editor:
“It is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical
knowledge will be sufficient to get you through your
examinations, which after all, is what school is all
about” (Dolores Umbridge, Harry Potter and the Order
of the Phoenix).
The Houston Chronicle suggests that Education
Secretary Margaret Spellings should be offered the
position of Chancellor of the University of Houston
(“That special someone,” August 4).
They had better hurry. The rumor is that Secretary
Spellings has other plans when her term in the Bush
cabinet is up. The word on the streets is that
Spellings has already accepted an offer to play the
role of former Hogwarts High Inquisitor and
Headmistress Dolores Umbridge in the final Harry
Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Spellings is a natural for the part. All she has to do
is “act naturally.”
Houston Chronicle Editorial
With the unexpected resignation of Jay Gouge in March to take the helm
of his alma mater, Auburn University, the University of Houston again
finds itself in search of a leader who can chart the course of the
four-campus system.
The outcome of UH's headhunting could decide whether the city's
flagship of public higher education achieves ambitious goals or
stagnates in mediocrity. With UH aspiring to the status of a top-tier
Texas research campus, portents point in both directions.
More than a decade ago a protest by UH professors against declining
academic standards led to the ouster of then-chancellor Alex Schilt and
a bureaucratic restructuring to combine the job of chancellor with that
of the central campus president. Since then, an interim stint as
"chancident" by former Texas Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby was followed by the
hiring of Arthur Smith and then Gouge. Unlike 1994, there is no crisis
facing the school. State funding this year is better than expected, and
the faculty is largely satisfied with the current administration.
The most troubling signal is declining undergraduate and graduate
school enrollment, which contrasts with statewide trends. Statewide and
UH System plans call for steadily increasing numbers, but the student
population dropped from a peak of 35,180 in fall 2004 to 34,334 last
semester, a decline of 2.4 percent. Because state funds are allocated
on a per student basis, that cuts into the UH budget.
Enrollment in master's programs plummeted 15 percent over the last four
years. The drop not only reduces state dollars but creates staffing
problems, because graduate students double as teaching assistants and
researchers.
Board of regents Chairman Leroy Hermes is leading a 15-member search
committee of administrators and faculty to find Gouge's successor. They
hope to winnow candidates to a short list and make a final selection
early next year.
Members of the search committee have been issued guidelines. Mostly
predictable, these call for a person with vision and leadership skills,
political savvy and fund-raising expertise, a respected educator with
integrity, common sense and a sense of humor.
The guidelines do not put a premium on a leader with Texas or Houston
roots, despite UH's chronic problems amassing support in local
communities and competing with other state universities in Austin for
state dollars. A UH rival, Texas Tech, chose a former Texas politician
from that area, Kent Hance, as its top executive.
Hermes says a person with homegrown credentials, Houston connections
and the savvy to run an academic institution would be the ideal
candidate. Unfortunately, he said, "the likelihood of our being able to
find that person is pretty far-fetched."
UH's main campus has had only one woman or minority as president in its
80-year history in the person of Marguerite Barnett, an
African-American whose tenure was cut short by a fatal brain tumor.
Hermes said no preference is being given to gender or minority status,
and he has notified members of the search committee that he would
remove anyone who used those categories as criteria for the selection.
That shouldn't be a problem, because the Chronicle's editorial board,
which includes four UH alumni, thinks the best qualified potential
candidate is a University of Houston graduate, as well as the highest
ranking federal education official. She is Margaret Spellings, the Bush
administration's secretary of education and the architect of the
president's No Child Left Behind Act. She also helped to make the
landmark public school reforms in Texas during the Bush governorship.
Spellings is well-respected by both Republicans and Democrats, public
school officials and teacher union leaders. She understands the full
spectrum of public education, from preschool to graduate study, and
recently proposed the administration's Plan for Higher Education, which
aims to improve accessibility and affordability of college education.
The mother of two school-age girls will likely leave the Cabinet when
Bush's term ends. Her top goal, to get the No Child Left Behind
legislation extended, could be concluded by the time the UH search
committee makes its selection. A return to the city where she grew up
as leader of the university where she earned a political science degree
might be appealing.
Spellings might not take the job. It's up to University of Houston
officials to make their pitch. But in terms of savvy, connections and
experience, they couldn't do better than choosing Margaret Spellings as
the next UH chancellor-president.
— Editorial
Houston Chronicle
2007-08-06
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5026933.html
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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