Actions Speak Louder Than Words : Richard Riley and Hazel O’Leary are good picks for Education and Energy

President-elect Bill Clinton has chosen well in selecting former South Carolina Gov. Richard W. Riley to head the Education Department and utility executive Hazel O’Leary to be secretary of energy. Clinton termed both Energy and Education two “departments that have failed to meet the pressing needs they were created to address.” His choice of Riley and O’Leary are meant to signal the redirection in these departments.

Riley, 59, a longtime Clinton friend and mentor, was the architect of much-heralded educational reforms in his Southern state. He shares with Lamar Alexander, the current secretary of education and former governor of Tennessee, a strong progressive belief that education is the key to economic development.

During his two terms as governor, Riley made educational reform a high priority. When he took office, South Carolina ranked low compared with other states in educational spending and achievement. Riley adeptly built a broad-based coalition for change, including business leaders, legislators and ordinary citizens. Most impressive of all, he pushed through a state sales-tax hike earmarked for public education. His package of reforms--improved curricula, tougher standards, higher teacher salaries and improved educational facilities and technology--have improved South Carolina’s schools.

We hope Richard Riley brings that same creativity and enthusiasm to his new federal post. All American children could be the beneficiaries of his selection.

Hazel O’Leary, 55, is an executive with a Minneapolis utility company, and has worked on energy policy in both the Jimmy Carter and Gerald R. Ford administrations. She faces a tough challenge in dramatically reorienting the Energy Department; in introducing the black executive on Monday, Clinton correctly termed energy policy “the Achilles’ heel of our economy.”

O’Leary shares Clinton’s campaign priorities of improving energy efficiency, reducing dependence on foreign oil, developing alternative energy sources and promoting environmentally sound energy practices. These priorities, she says, are in America’s best economic interests. We agree. Now it’s on to the challenge of making words into deeds.