IDEAS, INSIGHT & CIVIL DISCOURSE Issue 05 / May 2019 Voices: with Margaret Spellings
Voices
I believe in that vision of a free and dynamic nation, but it only works if it’s coupled with fair opportunity.

Margaret Spellings | Former President |
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UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA SYSTEM |
Margaret Spellings is a senior advisor for the Dallas-based, Texas 2036, a non-partisan policy organization aimed at building a cross-state coalition to tackle the state’s long-term challenges and ensure it remains the best place to live and work through and beyond its bicentennial in 2036.
In January 2019, Spellings stepped down as president of the University of North Carolina after leading the 17-institution system into a new chapter focused on improved student outcomes, data-driven decision making and increased accountability.
Previously, Spellings served as secretary of education and chief domestic policy advisor under President George W. Bush, as president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, as president of the George W. Bush Presidential Center and in numerous political and policy roles in Texas.
Margaret Spellings
Last year, the investigative reporters at ProPublica produced a searing string of articles on inequality in American schools.
They chronicled deep racial disparities in access to Advanced Placement classes in Charlottesville, Virginia. They highlighted proficiency gaps in reading and math between Native American and white students in Wolf Point, Montana. And they delved into differences in how students are disciplined across the country, with low-income and minority students far more likely to be suspended from school.
These stories resonate so powerfully because they strike at the heart of what education is supposed to deliver — fairness. The fundamental calling of public education is to provide a fair shot at the American dream for every person in this vast country.
“We live in a society that welcomes individual initiative, celebrates personal achievement and promises prosperity to those who work hard and contribute.”
When we see persistent patterns of inequity — one group of students systematically falling behind another or one group of students granted opportunities denied to another — it threatens not just our schools but the whole promise of America. People will respect the rules and abide by the outcomes of an open and fair competition. But the foundations of our politics and our civic life simply won’t hold if people come to believe, to borrow a contemporary phrase, that “the system is rigged.”
If we close our eyes to the disparities in our classrooms, if we resign ourselves to different standards for children of different backgrounds, then we give fuel to every cynic who sees our institutions as broken and the promise of the American dream as out of reach.

Over the past 30 years, the nation has undergone a profound shift in how it views education. Together, we lifted ourselves up to new ideas of high standards and strong accountability for schools. But as we look around the landscape of American education today, it’s clear we are beginning a retreat and abandonment of those ideals in favor of an easier, more expedient path that shrugs off troubling data and tolerates unequal opportunity. We’ve become comfortable advocating the very best for our own kids while suggesting alternative, less-rigorous and less-promising routes for others.
Honest data must guide our education policies. All of the reporting I cited above — and countless other examples across the country — depends on it. Reliable, publicly available information on student performance, school funding, and long-range outcomes is crucial in spotlighting and addressing our deepest educational challenges.
When President George H.W. Bush convened a national education summit with the nation’s governors in 1989, everyone recognized that making education a national concern would mean adopting shared goals and standard measurements. “The first step in restructuring our education system is to build a broad-based consensus around a defined set of national education goals,” read the group’s statement. “We must establish clear measures of performance and then issue annual report cards on the progress of students, schools, the states, and the federal government.”
We take that system of national reporting for granted today, but it took vision and political will to make it happen. Presidents, governors and congressional leaders from both parties, across nearly three decades, understood that accountability and transparency is foundational to progress.
They understood that we needed the data to see the problem and policy that compelled action to solve what was wrong. And they understood that there must be a national approach. You can’t aspire to equality of opportunity if education remains a disconnected patchwork of standards and goals.
“You can’t aspire to equality of opportunity if education remains a disconnected patchwork of standards and goals.”
Unfortunately, we’re reverting back to that patchwork. Without strong national leadership to nurture the broad-based consensus that past administrations have forged, it becomes too easy for state and local policymakers to bow to pressure to loosen standards and turn a blind eye to disparities. It’s much easier to rail against interference from Washington than it is to honestly confront the problems that real accountability can reveal.
It takes courage to look squarely at our deepest challenges. In Charlottesville, after the data-driven ProPublica story shined a spotlight on the lack of opportunity for minority students, the school district responded with admirable openness. “Our primary response should be to listen and learn from the central truth of this article,” Superintendent Rosa Adkins wrote in a letter to students and parents. “We have not made consistent or satisfactory progress for all our students.”

If education stands for anything, it’s the ideal that knowledge and information are the baseline requirements for a free society and individual prosperity. I’m a deep believer that a sound education leads to better economic prospects for individuals, that a better-educated workforce makes for a more competitive country and that our schools and universities are the wellspring of American innovation and growth.
But the core logic of public schools remains exactly as James Madison explained in 1822. “A people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives,” he wrote, praising a plan for statewide public schools in Kentucky.
We need to apply that Madisonian truth to public education itself by arming ourselves with the knowledge of what’s working and what’s not, where opportunity thrives and where it doesn’t, whose children are encouraged and whose are neglected. The American dream is a national vision, and upholding it will take a national commitment.
12 Comments
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I like that you suggest the purpose of education is to provide an equal shot at the American dream for everyone. However, I am not sure that is really accepted. Frankly, today’s public education system is fundamentally the same as that created by the Committee of Ten over a decade ago. The purpose then was really to screen people into different categories, where some would become white collar managers and other would become laborers. The way the system operates and teaches, including the basic curriculum, is essentially the same as it was then. It is frequently noted that schools are about the only place today that look pretty much the same as they did when we went to school, with a few polishes of technology added. Why do we expect that a system designed to judge and screen people would be effective at giving all an equal opportunity? If we want equal opportunity, we must redesign our education system in a way that meets the new goal. The system as practiced today is all about feeding accepted answers to kids because that met the old goal of screening. It makes little sense in a world where all known answers are readily available on a smartphone. We need kids who are confident in researching issues and finding new ways to address them, innovative problem solvers, collaborators, etc. Answers today are also much more complex. We can no longer prepare each student to meet some “standard average” criteria and expect them to be successful. We need to help each student identify their passions and strengths and develop those so each student is prepared to be the best he or she can be in today’s world.
I see very little commitment to making the kinds of changes that address that new goal. People talk about “21st Century” skills all the time, but they still try to hold schools accountable using simple exams that cannot possibly assess such skills. I am waiting for a national leadership effort to come up with clearly understood new goals for public education that fully address the needs of today. That effort should include things like a profile of a modern graduate and ways for assessing. They need to be clear enough that educators cannot just change a textbook or add some technology and say they are doing 21st Century skills when they have really just tweaked the old system. Then we need to encourage (pressure) and support all school districts to engage serious efforts to transform to meet the new goals.
A few bold pioneers have shown that education can meet the goal of giving everyone an equal shot at the American dream. They did it under all the constraints of policy and funding that others use as excuses. But they recognized that they had to unlearn almost everything they did before and make the fundamental change from “teaching” to “learning.” If there is any question, just read the recent book Timeless Learning, by Ira Socol, Pam Moran, and Chad Ratliff. When this country finally realizes the need for a fundamental transformation, and starts leading and supporting the kind of deep rethinking of education that is needed, we will finally realize that promise of equal opportunity on which our country is based. If we do not, we will become a second class country. And we don’t have decades to do it because others have figured this out and are already moving.
John Hayes
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Best argument for a national standard for school performance that I've ever heard.
Tyson Rhodes
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The school-to-prison pipeline is such an important issue that needs to be addressed.
Chloe Buckelr Henry
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This quote makes a very good point in that it reminds readers of the importance of owning the disparities in the education system today and being aware and cognizant of inequities. Before real change can be made, issues must be acknowledged.
Kelley Whelan
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This is an example of congress working together with the president, in a unified manner, to bring about significant positive change in the school system. Politics were put aside, and the future of the American people were at the forefront of the summit. This is how a successful federal government should operate.
Deja Frederick
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Lack of national standards are what allow students in certain areas to go uneducated and others to be overeducated. It also allows some schools to have updated books while others don't.
Abigail Scott
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I could not agree more strongly that the need for transparency is more important than ever before. However, I am slightly skeptical that there is a significant "demand" for this by the general public. In other words, while it is imperative for local administrators and city/county officials to supply this information, I am convinced that parents would tend to rely on personal experiences that their family/children have gone through. I believe the emotional experiences of a child's education can be much more influential than any dataset.
Mariela Muro
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A healthy democracy needs people who have the capacity to read, write and think critically, these are skill not only for the benefit of the person but its benefits those around him/her, society.
Daniel Kibuuka
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This is quite a lie, especially when we realize that public schools are also increasingly becoming more expensive, even for in-state students.
Kamaali Lama
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Absolutely. If more people could recognize the value in this, our country/education system would be making a step towards progress.
Susie Herrera
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Sometimes I wonder why it is that were not already working on this or why we havent already done this- especially because we do this in every other area that requires government funding. I think that we need to go beyond just looking at test scores or performance scores.
Danielle Goodman
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This statement is very well-put. If our American education system was working properly, it would act as an equalizer for all students, setting them up for success. Instead, we are seeing a concerning gap in education between our highest achievers and those struggling the most.