It’s hard not to notice the increasing Texas stranglehold on Bush Administration education policymaking. Obviously, Texans have always been well represented but other states also had key people on the inside, too. Now, the Secretary of Education is a Texan, as is the very very powerful Tom Luce, nominally Asst. Secretary for Planning, Policy, and Evaluation but really #2 over there, the acting Undersecretary of Education (doing double duty as Spellings’ chief of staff) David Dunn is from Texas, the NAGB Chair, Darvin Winick, is a Texan, as is the Chairman of the Secretary’s Higher Ed Commission, Charles Miller (pdf). And now comes news that the Chairman of the National Math Panel is also from Texas. More on that here.* Are all the other states really that lousy? *Eduwonk’s free headline writing service: How long before someone uses “Spellings’ math commission doesn’t add up” or some variation of that?