Margaret Spellings, George W. Bush Foundation President, Calls For Education Legislation Transparency

At a time when there exists an unequal distribution of high-quality teachers and public school closures are being labeled as human rights violations, experts agree improvements in education legislation are a pressing necessity.

Margaret Spellings, the former George W. Bush Administration Education Secretary, joined Huffpost Live at the Aspen Ideas Festival to recommend solutions to the education crisis. Spellings, who was recently appointed as the President of the George W. Bush Foundation, advocated for Congress to reflect more specifically on past legislative results when developing education bills -- more specifically the No Child Left Behind Act, which she helped design during her time under the Bush Administration.

“No Child Left Behind, as I said, is way past due for, you know, building on the lessons that we’ve learned in that period of time and making some tweeks and some improvements, and we can and we should do that," she told Ahmed Shibab-Eldin of HuffPost Live.

In the video above, Spellings also urged Congress to improve government accountability and transparency in education legislation.

Currently, House education committee chair Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.) is attempting to amend the NCLB act so that states will not be required to set annual goals for public schools, HuffPost Reports. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called Kline's bill a retreat on government accountability for the education of disadvantaged kids.

"It marks a retreat from high standards for all students and would virtually eliminate accountability for the learning of historically underserved students -- a huge step backward for efforts to improve academic achievement," he declared in a recent statement. "It would lock in major cuts to education funding at a time when continued investments in education are the only way we can remain competitive on the world stage."

This video is part of a series of interviews with speakers, attendees and panelists at The Aspen Ideas Festival, produced by The Huffington Post in conjunction with The Aspen Institute. For more videos from the series, click here. For more information about The Aspen Institute, click here.