Margaret Spellings was secretary of education under George W. Bush and now she is the president of the University of North Carolina system. Sadly, her rhetoric sounds a lot like that of former senator John Edwards, who tried to make it to the White House on boo-hoo rhetoric about class divisions that could only be solved by federal activism. Remember his “Two Americas” blather? Spellings has been talking about the “Two North Carolinas” problem that supposedly requires activism by UNC to solve.

In this week’s Martin Center Clarion Call, Jay Schalin takes issue with Spellings’s rhetoric and proposals.

Her biggest point is that there is a gap between the rural and the urbanized parts of the state, with significantly lower incomes in the former. Naturally, Spellings (like so many other education-policy types) concludes that we could reduce that gap by getting more students from rural areas into college because, on average, people with college degrees earn more. So she proposes targets for increasing enrollment and graduation from rural counties. Schalin argues that this “poverty gap” has nothing to do with higher education and can’t be solved by it.

“Poverty in America,” he writes, “whether rural or urban, is also much more a cultural problem than it is a higher education problem. Much of it is caused by broken family structures, decaying cultural institutions, substance abuse, or negative attitudes toward work. The urban poor in Charlotte and Raleigh are surrounded by affluence and opportunity; they live amidst a wide range of colleges, some of them extremely low-cost. It is not a lack of higher education that prevents them from achieving a reasonably secure existence. Lots of people in these areas have comfortable, meaningful lives without college degrees; something other than the lack of opportunity — or higher education — is holding the impoverished back.”

And what will happen if Spellings and other central-planning types in North Carolina get their way? Suppose that UNC-system schools manage to lure in more students from rural areas and process them through to some degree — will that work? Schalin points out the obvious problem, namely that few students from these areas has good preparation for college work or much interest in it. College is often an inferior option for such students. “There is also an opportunity cost to heading down the wrong path right out of high school, for there are more certain routes to getting a good start in life for those who are not academically inclined: the military, apprenticeships, vocational training, or even work experience,” Schalin writes.

Instead of this “It’s the university’s duty to fix what’s wrong with the state” thinking, what should Spellings try to accomplish? Schalin answers:

If Spellings really wants to help the unfortunate and aid the future economy of North Carolina, she should focus on getting UNC schools to re-emphasize the traditional culture of individual achievement and responsibility. This means starting the difficult process of beating back the assault on capitalism that is prevalent in the social sciences and humanities (as well as in many administrations).

That’s good advice, but it wouldn’t win Spellings any friends in “progressive” circles.