Actually, this is more of a suggestion: Steven Teles points to Freeman Hrabowski, the president of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, as a possible secretary of education. I like this idea a lot. Hrabowski transformed his college from a middling state school without a national reputation into a nationally recognized leader in producing African American students with degrees in the sciences.
We could really use an ed secretary with deep experience in higher education; there are a host of interests, from student loan companies to the higher ed lobby, that resist reforms benefiting low-income students and have been given far too much latitude during the Bush years. And Hrabowski understands that the barrier is not just getting low-income students to college but actually keeping them there and making sure they get degrees that are meaningful -- in other words, an education that gives them real skills to build careers. Food for thought.
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