celebrated its first birthday on Thursday. The center 鈥� whose library hosted a bigger-than-expected 450,000 visitors in the first year 鈥� also includes an institute that focuses on six key policy areas. Margaret Spellings, the Bush Center鈥檚 president and a former U.S. Education Secretary, sits down with 四虎影院鈥檚 vice president of news, Rick Holter, for this week鈥檚 Friday Conversation.
Interview Highlights: Margaret Spellings鈥�
鈥� on the thinking behind writing the 鈥渉ome-rule鈥� school law, which Dallas is considering: 鈥淭he idea was this: If we were going to be honest with ourselves about holding schools accountable, how you get there is a matter of local prerogative. We ought to be very hawk-ish about local control and local authorities, provided that there are results at the end of the day. I鈥檓 sorry that the debate has seemed to deteriorate a bit, but I鈥檓 a fan of the process and the philosophy behind it that says, 鈥榃e trust local communities, provided that they鈥檙e getting results for students.鈥欌��
... on what she would have done to eliminate some confusion in the home-rule debate:
鈥淧eople didn鈥檛 really understand what it was that needed to be fixed here, and so I think the case-making for why we needed this particular tool at this particular time maybe was a little bit presumed, that people had those levels of knowledge. And, secondly, I think the supporters 鈥� and I would count myself among them 鈥� needed to do a better job of describing what the changes might be, what specifically ... and be very transparent about that.鈥�
鈥� on fighting the "sophomore slump" that plagues most museums:
鈥淲e鈥檒l be having a number of temporary exhibits this year. We鈥檙e featuring the president鈥檚 portraits through early June. President Bush is hosting our fourth Warrior Bike Ride down at the ranch, where wounded warriors come and ride with him. ... We will be partnering more aggressively with Dallas ISD. Superintendent [Mike] Miles and I have talked about some ways to work together and so we want to make a real impact in this community.鈥�
Catch up on 四虎影院's coverage of the Dallas home-rule proposal:
From Monday:
From Tuesday:
From Tuesday:
From Tuesday:
