An odd definition of leadership

The US Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, has been a controversial figure. She was a major architect of No Child Left Behind - which purported to improve performance in K-12 education in the country. There is a good deal of dispute about whether the approach - which links a set of specific performance standards with some increase in federal largess - will actually achieve the goal(of improving our schools). NCLB measures a lot of stuff but as Hayek reminded us in The Counter Revolution of Science - just because you can count it does not mean you are actually measuring anything meaningful. A real issue in NCLB is whether a national set of standards is a good idea. Homogenization may improve milk, but perhaps not education.

When Spellings moved from the White House domestic policy staff to the Department of Education she began to apply the lessons she learned to higher education. The establishment in higher education has had a good long run in improving value of their product, more government money and a relatively free pass at deciding what they should tell the rest of the nation about what they were doing. Spellings first act was to create a commission, headed by a Texan named Charles Miller, who tried to run the commission like a fiefdom. He was guilty of the very sin that he and Spellings accused higher education of. He produced draft reports that had not been read by any other member of the commission. He often spoke without any evidence that he had bothered to look at more than just the most cursory level of data. The final report of the commission had a series of recommendations which ranged between mundane and outrageous. Many of the best were duplicative of current efforts going on in some part of higher education. They yammered, as many political figures have, about "college costs" without thinking carefully about the financial structure of higher education. If one were to grade the quality of their work it might get a C - they did identify some issues that higher education should work on but missed many more. But on process they deserved an F. Trouble was, much of higher education tried to diss the commission's work - and that was a mistake.

I first encountered Secretary Spellings when the report was in progress. She came to a meeting of higher education people who were supposed to advise the Department on data issues. The Secretary's deputy came into the room and told us that she would only speak when all of the luncheon plates had been cleared and would then only accept written questions. I felt like I was in the Education Policy Gulag.

Some members of the leadership in higher education now claim that we should listen to the Secretary because she represents the general public. Just because the Secretary has spoken about issues that concern the public does not in any way imply that she represents their views.

There is real concern about how much a college education costs. And not just a little worry and resignation about the haughtiness of some in the higher education establishment. But why should anyone in higher education listen to a report or to a public figure who so violates the basic principles of public debate? Higher education needs to continue and even increase the initiatives it has begun on transparency - we need to be able to tell others what we do and how we spend the dough we get. We also need to do some conscientious work on our cost structures. Both of those initiatives will have both short and long term elements but they need to continue to build. However, even if Spellings has some things right - should not suggest that we should engage with her. Working toward solutions takes listening on both sides and Spellings clearly has no appreciation for anything but her own pat solutions. That is not leadership. And I find it odd that anyone in higher education would suggest that the way to improvement is to begin where Spellings is. In higher education, homogenization is exactly not what we need. And for Spellings the rich diversity of higher education in this country - which offers students multiple opportunities to enter and grow - would be wiped out were her ideas to become real. As one who has worked with the independent sector for more than three decades that would be a bizarre thing to support.