The former Tennessee governor has a far better chance to succeed than his predecessor at Education, Lauro Cavazos, who will be remembered for nothing, other than that he did nothing memorable. Like Reagan’s education secretary, William Bennett, Alexander is skilled at building consensus and bending bureaucracies at his will. He also has plenty of experience dealing with teachers’ unions and education administrators, and, as former president of the National Governors’ Association (he directed its five-year study of education reform), he has strong relationships with state leaders across the country. “Lamar Alexander is Bill Bennett without the sledgehammer,” one Senate aide said.
An ability to adapt has always been Alexander’s strong suit. Trained as a concert pianist, he learned to play the washboard at campaign stops. He lost his first bid for the governor’s job in 1974 with a “coat-and-tie Republican campaign in an overwhelming Democratic state,” says political consultant Doug Baigley. The next time out, in 1978, he spent six months walking across state in what became his trademark red and black checked shirt.
He became an education reformer during his second term, convinced that better schools would boost Tennessee’s image and prosperity. He was an early advocate of putting computers in classrooms and won wide support for proposals to increase high school science and math requirements and to create alternative schools for disruptive children. But he also endorsed career ladders–an innovation that was supposed to reward good teachers but instead caused confusion and damaged morale.
Alexander’s allies on the governors’ council backed him for Education’s top spot, but questions about his finances delayed the confirmation. Senate investigators concluded that several high-return investments gave “the appearance of using his high public office for… private financial benefit,” but that he’d done nothing illegal. That embarrassment faded amid the praise Alexander quickly won for his finesse in dealing with a legal flap over minority scholarships. And the new education chief put together an impressive team–including David Kearns, the former chairman of Xerox Corp., and Diane Ravitch, an education professor and feisty reformer from Columbia University. When the time came for Bush to design his national strategy, the team offered him dozens of ideas. Now their task will be to package and then peddle education reform–and Alexander is likely to excel. As his old adversary, Tennessee teachers’ union chief Cavit Cheshier, said, “When it comes to selling things to the public, he gets an A-plus.”
