President Bush last week nominated Kerri L. Briggs to serve as assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education in the Department of Education…. Ms. Briggs, who is the acting assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and policy in the department, spent a year as a senior policy adviser in the office of Deputy Secretary Raymond J. Simon, where she worked on K-12 policy under the No Child Left Behind Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act... Before coming to the department, Ms. Briggs worked for two years as a research associate and the director of evaluation at the University of Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts, in Austin…. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, in 1989, and did her postgraduate work at the University of Southern California, where she earned a master’s, and a Ph.D. in education policy and organizational studies.

Education Week, March 14.