Spellings Stands Firm

I went to the National Press Club today to listen to a speech from the Secretary of Education. I was at a similar event a while back--has to have been more than a year ago--and she seemed more confident this time around. Given enough questions and enough time, you can tell if someone's just a top-line manager/figurehead type or if they actually pay attention and know what they're talking about, and she's the latter. Her friendly, folksy demeanor is a real asset in environments like that; it puts people at ease while also making them less likely to ask really sharp questions.

Her basic message on NCLB was that the President would veto any reauthorization that waters down accountability, and that if Congress won't move she's going to go ahead and implement stuff on her own during the 11 months she has left. It's never been entirely clear to me why the U.S. Department of Education is legally allowed to let some states and not others (or, for that matter, any states at all) implement accountability systems that clearly diverge from NCLB requirements, as it has with the state "growth model" pilots. I suspect the answer is that it's not legal, but since nobody's ox was gored, they just did it anyway. Back in my first job in state government, I remember asking our staff attorney"Are we allowed to do that?" and she said, "We do what we want, and if people don't like it they can sue us. Which is unlikely, because they probably won't know we did it, and even if they find out, suing a government agency is harder than you think. You need standing, you need money to pay for a lawer, and it takes forever. Our lawyers are free and we're not going anywhere."