Education agenda, budget could make nominee's job tough

As the domestic policy adviser to President Bush, Margaret Spellings played an integral part in developing his education plan enacted in 2002. She has received high marks from education advocates and lawmakers as she awaits confirmation to head the Education Department.

But Senate confirmation of her bid to succeed Education Secretary Rod Paige, which could occur as soon as Thursday, could be the easiest part of Spellings' new job. She would be tasked with pushing the second phase of Bush's education policy -- expanding it to high schools.

Just 67 of every 100 U.S. students graduate high school on time, according to a recent study by the Program for International Student Assessment. "I view the results in our high school[s] as a warning and a call to action," Bush said this month while outlining the next phase of his plan, and Spellings would have to answer his call to action.

She also would implement the department's 2002 five-year strategic plan, which includes streamlining data-management systems, improving student performance and improving services to the education community by leveraging information technology.

Just days after Bush outlined his $1.5 billion initiative to improve high-school performance, even Bush's conservative allies questioned the proposal. "I think it is premature in the sense that we are still working out the kinks" in the 2002 law, said Krista Kafer, a senior education analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

Education advocates said Spellings' greatest challenge will be maintaining current support and winning new backers for tougher accountability and assessment standards in schools and for extending education reform to high schools as the federal budget grows tighter.

While focusing on mathematics, science and literacy skills and identifying learning abilities before students enter high school are good ideas, said Jack Jennings, president at the Center on Education Policy, Bush faces a different political environment now than he did in 2001, after his first election victory.

"Focusing on math and science achievement will be the right thing to do," but the test will be whether the government will fund the initiative and whether other programs will suffer as a result, he said. "There are suspicions" that money will be moved around or there will be a "reshuffling [of] the deck," to fund math and science education, Jenkins added.

In early January, meanwhile, the department released its 2004 plan to incorporate information technology into schools. It recommended that schools reallocate funds by using online and digital content, as well as establishing data-management mechanisms to reduce paperwork. Spellings would oversee that work.

The department is being graded for its efforts to minimize paperwork as part of the President's Management Agenda. The department's e-government initiative must focus on moving all of its grant-program applications online, up from 57 percent in fiscal 2003. The department also must reduce the burden of reporting student performance by implementing a central repository to measure it.

Spellings' "skills are going to be put to the test," Jenkins said, because budgetary "circumstances beyond her control may make it very difficult."