Can you spell jetsetter?

As far as global jetsetters go, the name Margaret Spellings doesn’t exactly spring to mind. Yet jet-setting is exactly what the secretary of education has been doing. Spellings (perhaps the best-named education secretary EVER) has hit 9 countries in the past 18 months, with two more (Greece and Spain) in the coming weeks. She says that she needs to be able to see what’s happening in the education systems of U.S. competitors, as well as where foreign aid is going. Maybe she’s been reading FP?  In the May/June issue of the magazine, Doug McGray writes about how American schoolkids are sadly ig’nunt about the rest of the world. Her critics say that she’s wasting taxpayers’ money, but frankly, I think that anytime a Bush administration member leaves the country to learn about others, it’s a good thing. Still, if competitiveness is what she’s worried about, how come she hasn’t visited India or China?