Tough Message, Diplomatic Messenger

Even though Susan K. Sclafani heads up a program that the Bush administration targeted for extinction, backers of vocational education praise her approach.

Washington

Supporters of vocational education have looked upon the Bush administration’s recent attempts to overhaul their federally financed programs with suspicion, and at times, downright scorn. But that antagonism does not seem to extend to the administration’s chief emissary for those policies, Susan K. Sclafani.

As the Department of Education’s assistant secretary for vocational and adult education, Ms. Sclafani has generally won praise from backers of career and technical programs, despite her demand that they recast their mission and become more challenging academically.

Many observers say the 60-year-old former Houston school official, who followed her boss, Rod Paige, to Washington after he became secretary of education, has proved adept at balancing the often-opposing interests of the administration and...