Margaret Spellings

Margaret M. LaMontagne Spellings (née Dudar; born November 30, 1957) is an American government and non-profit executive who has been serving as President and

CEO of Texas 2036 since 2019. She previously served as the eighth United States secretary of education from 2005 to 2009. After leaving the government, Spellings served as president of the University of North Carolina System, overseeing the seventeen campus system from 2016 to 2019. In June 2023, Spellings was named the new CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, DC.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 education secretary for the entire second term of Bush's administration, during which time she convened the Commission on the Future of Higher Education to recommend reform at the post-secondary level.