Considering that she’s replacing Rod Paige, Bush’s most fatuous cabinet secretary, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is already suffering from the soft bigotry of low expectations. Nevertheless, she’s managing to be unimpressive anyway.
Literally a day after getting sworn in, Spellings’ first step as the nation’s top educator was to warn PBS about “Postcards from Buster,” which had filmed an episode that took place in Vermont, where an 11-year-old girl had two mommies. (The feature was about maple syrup and dairy farming, but Spellings was worked up about inappropriate “lifestyles.” One assumes she was referring to the lesbians, not the farmers, unless the farmers also happened to be lesbians.)
But that was just her second day as Education Secretary. Surely with that sop to the GOP’s right-wing base out of the way, Spellings would start launching real policy initiatives, including Bush’s expansion of new high-school standards, right? No, she’s still worried about Buster.
The head of PBS has ordered an internal review of the children’s show “Postcards From Buster” after Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and other critics attacked an episode that featured real-life lesbian mothers.
Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive of the Public Broadcasting Service, said in an interview Thursday that she had asked an internal team to analyze events leading up to the controversial “Buster” episode. The team will outline the chronology and seek input from the series’ producers at Boston public television station WGBH, Mitchell said.
PBS is taking the steps because it “wants to avoid confusion and controversy,” she told the Los Angeles Times. Mitchell also left open the possibility of an external review of “Buster” if the team were to find that further study was needed.
This does not bode well for the future of this department. Spellings takes over a cabinet agency that has overseen an unsuccessful NCLB policy, has paid a third-rate pundit with our money, and is about to receive major budget cuts from her boss, who’d rather invest in tax cuts for millionaires than public schools.
So our new Education Secretary’s top new priority is … censoring a children’s program that happened to feature a lesbian couple? Ms. Spellings, if you’re reading, it’s time to get your priorities in check.