May 15

Top U.S. Higher Ed Official Resigns

Education Department

Diane Auer Jones

According to sources within the department, Jones’s announcement that she was resigning drew gasps of surprise from her staff. While it is not uncommon for executive branch officials to leave in the waning months of a presidential administration, that is far less true for officials who, like Jones, came into their positions as part of a second or third wave.

Jones formally became assistant secretary for postsecondary education in August 2007, after her predecessor, Sally L. Stroup, returned to the House of Representatives as a key higher education aide. Jones came to her position after having held a remarkably diverse array of jobs within multiple sectors of higher education and in the research and postsecondary policy world. That included stints at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Science Foundation’s undergraduate education division, the House of Representatives science committee, three years as a lobbyist for Princeton University, and early work as a laboratory manager and professor at the Community College of Baltimore County.

Jones came to the Education Department at a time of significant tension between the department’s top officials and many college leaders over the department’s aggressive efforts to implement the recommendations of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Many college officials viewed her as bringing an informed knowledge of higher education to the position and welcomed her involvement. But she seemed at times not to be fully comfortable with the positions of her superiors on some higher education issues, such as the department’s stance on regulating accreditation, where she often appeared to discourage an aggressive government role.

College leaders said they were sorry to see her go.

“Diane’s background — a senior Congressional staffer, a faculty member and a campus administrator — made her an ideal choice to be in charge of postsecondary education at the Department of Education,” said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for government and public relations at the American Council on Education. “Perhaps even more important, she had a deep commitment to making sure that the Department’s higher education programs worked smoothly. We didn’t always agree on policy matters, but she wanted to make government work and that provides a real strong basis for getting things done.

He added: “It is not surprising that she is leaving — this is the time when political appointees start thinking in terms of the futures. Personally, I hoped she would have been there to turn out the lights when the Bush administration leaves office next January.”

— Doug Lederman

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Comments

we may never know

We may never know why she left. We may never know what she hoped to have accomplished when she first signed up.

Too much of what goes on behind closed doors, the personality clashes, and the absorbtion of good intentions by the grinding wheels of a mindless bureaucracy that just keeps going — we never know about.

Even those courageous — and well connected — enough to write about it get it only partially right.

Glen S. McGhee, Dir., at Florida Higher Education Accountability Project, at 7:55 am EDT on May 15, 2008

mindless bureaucracy

Indeed. Well said. And such as: no child left behind, mindless standardized testing for all, and every one-size-fits-all plan for post-secondary assessment that has been, and can be, designed.

SeenItAllBefore, at 11:05 am EDT on May 15, 2008

NCLB isn’t as bad as you guys make it seem. Any standard is better than no standard and from what I hear, the kids are doing better.

Sorry to see her go and I wish her the best.

BDev, at 11:35 am EDT on May 15, 2008

So Sad

Diane was one of the few people who had a solid understanding of good policy and was humble enough to admit when she didn’t know an issue completely. She was a good listener and a very bright, intelligent person. Sadly, those qualities are lacking in the administration these days; she’ll be missed indeed.

Ciao, at 1:10 pm EDT on May 15, 2008

Diane ... thanks!

Diane:

Thanks for your years of dedication and hard work. We will miss yiou very much!

kind regards,

Prof. Edwin Martinez del Rio, Ed.S.Strayer University

Edwin Martinez del Rio, Professor at Strayer University, at 3:15 pm EDT on May 15, 2008

Sad Loss

It is a sad day for the Administration and Higher Education to see Diane Auer Jones leave her position at the Department of Education. Her integrity, sense of purpose, and genuine care and respect for others will be sorely missed. Ms. Jones is guided by a genuine love of learning and desire to help others far more than her own career advancement.

She will land on her feet running somewhere else much to the delight of those who await her in her next pursuit.

Let all of us who have been touched by her many talents and sharp wit wish her the best in all she seeks to accomplish.

Rob Bannster, former educator, at 5:35 am EDT on May 16, 2008

“Any standard is better than no standard” says the defender of NCLB. Well, this sort of polarized false dilemma is typical of bush’s defenders: “We must go to war or they’ll nuke us!” It’s always the crudest kind of either/or thinking. In the end, perhaps having a President who can read, and who can speak to us as if we had mature brains, would do more to enhance reading scores than all the mindless testing which, alas, seems to benefit the testing companies more than it does the teaching and learning conditions in most schools, features of the educational landscape that this regime has cared little about.

I suspect this resignation had something to do with the less than wholesome ethos that this regime has brought to so much domestic policy and which continues to infect so much of public life as we stand by and watch the debt grow and the injuries mount in Iraq.

George K, at 5:40 am EDT on May 16, 2008

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