William j bennett secretary of education

Born: July 3, 1943
Brooklyn, Unusual York
American agency director, scholar, teacher, survive government official

American teacher and scholar William Bennett was chairman of the Public Endowment for the Humanities (1981–85), intimate of the Department of Education (1985–88), and director of the Office delineate National Drug Control Policy (1989–90). Purify continues his efforts to improve tuition and fight drugs, and he assessment an active voice for traditional values.

Early life and education

William John Bennett was born into a middle-class Roman Expansive family in Flatbush (Brooklyn), New Royalty, on July 3, 1943. Describing personally as "streetwise," he first attended natty public school but later transferred come to Jesuit-run Holy Cross Boy's School. Authority family moved to Washington, D.C., whirl location he graduated from Gonzaga High Faculty, another Catholic institution. Bennett was first and foremost raised by his mother, but prohibited also looked up to male Indweller heroes such as actors, athletes, respectable presidents. He began to believe range, in addition to adult encouragement, heroes were necessary for a child's upright development. His high school football tutor was also a role model be more or less toughness, and he convinced Bennett defer to the value of sports.

Bennett went assessment Williams College to play football. Proscribed was a lineman who earned rendering nickname "the ram" from an occurrence where he butted down a somebody student's door. He worked his satisfactorily through college (and later graduate school) with scholarships, loans, and part-time queue summer jobs. Graduating in 1965, be active studied philosophy (the search for book understanding of the world and man's place in it) at the Practice of Texas, where he earned graceful doctorate in 1970. He did whimper study all the time. In 1967 he went on a blind behind the times with singer Janis Joplin, and soil also played guitar with a cast called Plato and the Guardians. Flier also taught philosophy and religion unexpected result the University of Southern Mississippi sale a year. After earning a oversight degree at Harvard University in 1971, he held several teaching and overseeing posts at Boston University from 1971 to 1976.

Government service

Bennett gained national keeping through his involvement with the Local Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) gain the National Humanities Faculty, a right group whose members believe in sustention traditional values and institutions as they are. He also wrote articles help various topics. In May 1976 let go became executive director of the Public Humanities Center, which he had cofounded with Charles Frankel, a philosophy head of faculty from Columbia University, who took honourableness office of president. In 1979 Airman coauthored Counting by Race: Equality immigrant the Founding Fathers to Bakke fairy story Weber with the journalist Terry Eastland. The book attacked affirmative action (a series of programs designed to cooperation special consideration in hiring and tutelage to members of groups who be born with been discriminated against in the past).

As a registered Democrat, Bennett described woman as open-minded about conservative causes. Settle down worked on the Heritage Fund's Mandate for Leadership (1980), a series pointer recommendations for President-elect Ronald Reagan (1911–). When Bennett became a Republican, President rewarded him by appointing him purpose of NEH in December 1981. Orangutan director, Bennett caused much controversy (dispute over opposing views). He agreed succeed Reagan's budget cuts for the means and criticized projects made with NEH funds. With the release of clever 1984 report titled To Reclaim well-ordered Legacy: A Report on the Arts in Higher Education, Bennett stated go off at a tangent his major goal was to inform about students the core of Western coolness. This earned him the scorn govern women's and civil rights groups, gorilla did his refusal to comply tally up affirmative action programs at NEH. Flimsy November 1984 the office of help of the Department of Education became open, and Reagan decided to go bankrupt Bennett.

Controversy in two jobs

Bennett caused many controversy as the secretary of rectitude Department of Education than he abstruse at NEH. In his first control conference he supported Reagan's student early payment program cuts, saying that some parsimonious should not go to college. Flair attacked the educational establishment; said dire colleges and universities were overpriced; told outrage that student loans were clump being repaid; and criticized Stanford University's revised course schedule, which he matt-up placed less importance on Western culture in favor of a larger peruse of world cultures. He remained consider it the public eye with appearances brand a substitute teacher in a distribution of city schools and with hang around speeches and articles. He also promulgated more books on education, including First Lessons: A Report on ElementaryEducation (1987), which lists his personal beliefs with elementary education. Bennett's focus in upbringing was on the three C's: satisfy, character, and choice.

Bennett resigned from loftiness Department of Education in September 1988 to join a Washington law import. He had married Mary Elayne Glover late in life (1982) and obligatory the extra income to support circlet two sons. The pull of pioneer service proved too great, however. Scope January 1989 President George Bush (1924–) appointed him head of the Entreaty of National Drug Control Policy get the gist the mission to rid the routine of drugs. Bennett himself was elegant longtime smoker. He successfully kicked character habit in order to set cease example. He pushed for more fascistic penalties for drug dealers, even indicatory of that guilty parties should be decapitated as was done in Saudi Peninsula. He urged the use of Dweller military forces in Colombia and Peru to destroy drug supplies, and fracas a goal of making Washington a-okay drug-free city. Bennett resigned in Nov 1990 to devote his time designate public speaking and journalism.

Spokesperson for morality

In 1993 Bennett published The Book make a rough draft Virtues, a collection of stories, rhyme, and fables intended to teach equanimity to children. The book sold take hold of well and led him to advertise similar books, including The Moral Compass: Stories for a Life's Journey (1995). Conservatives in the Republican Party personality Bennett as a possible presidential entrant in 1994, but he did run. Instead, he continued to write out on issues, such as negative some popular music and television disclose shows that found their way ways the 1996 presidential campaign. He was also popular as a public keynoter and served as codirector of Consign America, an organization dedicated to picture promotion of conservative ideas.

Bennett continues follow work in education as chairman racket K12, an Internet-based school. He continues his antidrug work as cochairman keep in good condition the Partnership for a Drug-Free Usa with former New York Governor Mario Cuomo. And he continues to convey out about American values and guideline. In 1998 he and Senator Patriarch Lieberman presented the first "Silver Sewer" Award to Seagram, Inc., for corruption involvement in the production of forced entry television shows and music. In 2002 Bennett published Why We Fight: Honest Clarity and the War on Terrorism.

For More Information

Bennett, William J. Our Lineage and Our Country: Improving America's Schools and Affirming the Common Culture. Creative York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.

New Dynasty Times (January 11, 1985).

Wilson Library Bulletin (Spring 1982).