NPR: Update: Spellings in the House

Update: Spellings in the House

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Spellings testifies in her standard somber black top and pearls.

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings faced the House Education and Labor Committee today. Most of the questions were about -- surprise, surprise -- the student loan scandal. Some of the harshest questioning came from Chairman George Miller. (D-Calif.)

Miller asked if the Dep. of Ed had "blinders on" when it came to uncovering improper relationships between student lenders and colleges or student loan officials at those colleges.

Spellings said any suggestion that her department showed favoritism to the federally guaranteed student loan program "is totally without merit and has no basis in fact."

While she was testifying, news crossed on the Reuters wire that JPMorgan Chase & Co. paid five college student aid officers to do work for the bank while they were on college payrolls, earlier it was reported that the bank also arranged a $70,000 dinner cruise in New York City harbor for more than 200 student aid officers.

If you have the fortitude, you can read the pdf transcript of the hearing or -- if you have a couple of hours to kill (like we did) -- you can watch the entire hearing on the House website.

Full Committee Hearing: "Accountability for the Department of Education's Oversight of Student Loans and the Reading First Program" (U.S. House of Representatives)

I'm sure this will be the first of many more hearings and investigations into the student loan scandal. We'll continue to follow it.

On a completely unrelated and superficial note, Education Week blogger Alexander Russo wrote this morning:

Wearing a somber black top and pearls, EdSec Spellings endured repeated interruptions, refutations, and harrumphs from a worked-up Chairman Miller in the first leg of this morning's oversight hearing...

Just so happens that Spellings is wearing the exact same outfit in the stock photo we used earlier this morning. Talk about a scandal!

Matt Martinez

1:49 PM ET | 05-10-2007 | permalink

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