Hunt Institute to Tutor Governors On Education

By Jeff Archer

Washington

Former Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. of North Carolina thinks today's state leaders have a lot to learn about improving schools. With a new institute that bears his name, the 64-year-old Mr. Hunt hopes to educate the next generation of education governors on the fine art of pulling off a large-scale school improvement agenda.

And given the new federal requirements in the "No Child Left Behind" Act of 2001—and the fact that 36 governorships will be up for grabs next fall—he says it's not a moment too soon.

"We've got to have a quantum leap in the knowledge of our leaders," Mr. Hunt said in an interview here last week, "both in terms of the knowledge of what it takes to change schools, and in the skill of doing it, particularly in getting the political decisions made that are...