Margaret Spellings | |
---|---|
President of the University of North Carolina System | |
Assumed office March 1, 2016 |
|
Preceded by | Junius Gonzales (Acting) |
8th United States Secretary of Education | |
In office January 20, 2005 – January 20, 2009 |
|
President | George W. Bush |
Preceded by | Rod Paige |
Succeeded by | Arne Duncan |
Director of the Domestic Policy Council | |
In office January 30, 2002 – January 5, 2005 |
|
President | George W. Bush |
Preceded by | John Bridgeland |
Succeeded by | Claude Allen |
Personal details | |
Born |
Margaret M. Dudar November 30, 1957 Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S. |
Political party | Republican |
Spouse(s) | Gregg LaMontagne (Divorced) Robert Spellings (Divorced) |
Children | 2 daughters (with LaMontagne) |
Education | University of Houston (BA) |
Margaret M. LaMontagne Spellings (née Dudar; born November 30, 1957) is an education administrator and American politician. Spellings is currently the President of the University of North Carolina, overseeing the seventeen campus system since March 1, 2016.
Spellings worked in several positions under George W. Bush during his tenure as Governor of Texas and President of the United States. She was one of the principal proponents of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act that aimed at reforming primary and secondary education. She served as Secretary of Education in Bush's administration from 2005 to 2009, during which time she convened the Commission on the Future of Higher Education to recommend reform at the post-secondary level. After leaving her role as Secretary of Education, she founded Margaret Spellings & Company, an education consulting firm in Washington, D.C., and is a senior advisor to the Boston Consulting Group and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Margaret Dudar was born on November 30, 1957 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and moved with her family to Houston when she was in the third grade. She graduated from Sharpstown High School in 1975.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Houston in 1979 and worked in an education reform commission under Texas Governor William P. Clements and as associate executive director for the Texas Association of School Boards. Before her appointment to George W. Bush's presidential administration, Spellings was the political director for Bush's first gubernatorial campaign in 1994, and later became a senior advisor to Bush during his term as Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.