Margaret Spellings to Arne Duncan

The following letter, written by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to the nation's next Education Secretary, ran in today's Washington Post. Here in Florida, Republicans have long advocated for accountability in our classrooms and providing a first-class education to all students, regardless of their background. We have seen major gains among Florida's African American and Hispanic students, and we have an effective method of tracking students' progress.

A Word To My Successor
By Margaret Spellings

Dear Arne Duncan,

Congratulations! I am so pleased that President-elect Barack Obama has asked you, a fellow reformer, to serve as the next U.S. secretary of education. Your experience as chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools will be invaluable in continuing the work we in the Bush administration began doing to close the achievement gap and provide all children, regardless of race, income level or background, the skills needed to succeed.

This is an important and hopeful change from the past...Thanks to the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act, we now measure student achievement annually so that we can take an honest look at our problems -- the first step toward solving them.

Is it working? Yes. Test scores in reading and math have reached record highs. And the children once left behind -- African American, Hispanic, those living in urban areas -- are driving these academic gains.

...I urge you to resist calls to dismantle the core accountability provisions that give the law its power to identify and help children in need. Without it, we're back to doling out dollars and crossing our fingers...