Tag Archives: Margaret Spellings

Articles of Interest

Margaret Spellings, George W. Bush Foundation President, Calls For Education Legislation Transparency

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By The Huffington Post News Editors

At a time when there exists an unequal distribution of high-quality teachers and public school closures are being labeled as human rights violations, experts agree improvements in education legislation are a pressing necessity.

Margaret Spellings, the former George W. Bush Administration Education Secretary, joined Huffpost Live at the Aspen Ideas Festival to recommend solutions to the education crisis. Spellings, who was recently appointed as the President of the George W. Bush Foundation, advocated for Congress to reflect more specifically on past legislative results when developing education bills — more specifically the No Child Left Behind Act, which she helped design during her time under the Bush Administration.

“No Child Left Behind, as I said, is way past due for, you know, building on the lessons that we’ve learned in that period of time and making some tweeks and some improvements, and we can and we should do that,” she told Ahmed Shibab-Eldin of HuffPost Live.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

Computers

FCC looks to update school connectivity fund

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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has voted to take the first step toward revamping its program that subsidizes Internet connections to schools and libraries, with the focus in the future on big bandwidth instead of simple connectivity.

The FCC on Friday voted to launch a notice of proposed rulemaking, or NPRM, focused on updating the 16-year-old E-Rate program. E-Rate, with a US$2.25 billion annual budget, has helped bring Internet service to nearly all U.S. schools, but the program is outdated, commissioners said.

About 80 percent of U.S. schools and libraries say they don’t have enough bandwidth, Margaret Spellings, former U.S. secretary of education, told commissioners at Friday’s FCC meeting. Schools need higher bandwidth to deliver modern technology-focused education, she said.

Commissioners agreed. “We are quickly moving from a world where what matters is connectivity to what matters is capacity,” Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Articles of Interest

All The Presidents’ Women

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By Susan Stamper Brown

War on Women SC All the Presidents Women

At least Romney had binders. Binders full of qualified women to fill cabinet positions, that is. Democrats mercilessly pounded Romney for the binders comment he made during the 2012 presidential campaign, but I’ll bet the Obama campaign now wishes Romney had passed the binders on to Obama since it seems he’s having a hard time picking women to fill his second term cabinet positions.

The recently released official White House photo of a predominately pale-faced and testosterone-filled cabinet (which I have no problem with) is enough to cause any misinformed voter into wondering what has become of the so-called party of women.

To be fair, women fill about half the White House staff positions; but the highest-level cabinet positions are currently extremely male and predominantly white. This seems a bit odd, considering the media narrative over the past 50 years has painted Republicans as the party of rich white men. But that’s not the case, if you look at the actual highest-level cabinet positions women were appointed to since Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR).

FDR appointed Frances Perkins as the first female cabinet member in 1933. Democrat presidential successors Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson appointed zero.

Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Oveta Culp Hobby as the first secretary of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; and Republican president Richard M. Nixon, zero.

At that point in history, after four Democrat and two Republican presidents, two female cabinet members were appointed, one per party.

Republican president Gerald Ford appointed Carla Anderson Hills as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; and then Democrat president Jimmy Carter appointed Shirley Ann Mount Hufstedler as Secretary of Education, Patricia Roberts Harris as Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, and Juanita Morris Kreps as Commerce Secretary. The score: Democrats 4 and Republicans 2.

Republican Ronald Reagan appointed Margaret Heckler as HHS Secretary, Ann McLaughlin Korologos as Secretary of Labor, and Elizabeth Dole as Transportation Secretary. Reagan’s successor, Republican president George H.W. Bush, appointed Elizabeth Dole as Labor Secretary, Lynn Morley Martin as his second Labor Secretary, and Barbara Hackman Franklin as Secretary of Commerce. Democrats: 4, and Republicans: 8.

Democrat president Bill Clinton, who thoroughly enjoyed women in the White House, only appointed five women to his cabinet during both terms. Clinton appointed Hazel Reid O’Leary as Energy Secretary, Alexis Margaret Herman as Labor Secretary, Madeleine Albright as Secretary of State, Janet Reno as Attorney General, and Donna Shalala as HHS Secretary. Democrats: 9.

And then there was George W. Bush, God love him. Bush haters may want to take a deep breath before reading how many women he appointed to his cabinet. Gale Ann Norton was the first female Secretary of the Interior, Condoleezza Rice became the first female African American Secretary of State, Elaine Chao enjoyed two terms as Labor Secretary, Ann Veneman was appointed as US Secretary of Agriculture, Margaret Spellings served as Education Secretary, and Maria Cino served as acting Transportation Secretary (until another female, Mary E. Peters, was nominated to that position.) Christine Todd Whitman was appointed as EPA Administrator; and, for a total of nine female appointees, Bush appointed Susan Carol Schwab as US Trade Representative in 2006. Republicans: 17.

This takes us to President Obama, who, in his first term appointed to his cabinet six women including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. So far, Obama’s appointed zero new women for his second.

Since FDR, the Democrat Party has governed over 12 presidential terms with seven presidents, who combined, accounted for 15 female nominees as compared to the GOP’s nine terms, six presidents and 17 female nominees. It seems the “Party of Women” is actually the Republican Party, which doesn’t fit the mold cast by Democrats of a party filled with pregnant, barefoot soccer-moms who forgot to pay for their birth control.

Photo Credit: naralprochoiceamerica (Creative Commons)

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism