Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings last week named Kathleen Leos as an assistant deputy secretary of the Department of Education and the director of the office of English-language acquisition, or OELA.
For three years and three months, Ms. Leos has been an associate assistant deputy secretary and a senior policy adviser in the OELA. She has guided states in meeting requirements for English- language learners under the No Child Left Behind Act. She has also been in charge of developing policy and regulations regarding those requirements, which were new.
“We barely scratched the surface in the last three years with implementation of Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act,” Ms. Leos said in an interview, referring to the section of the law governing programs for English-language learners.
“We have every intent of eliminating the challenges and closing the achievement gap for English-language learners.”
Before coming to Washington, Ms. Leos was a member of the Dallas board of education. She is bilingual in Spanish and English.
