Reagan:

Terrel Bell was a lifelong educator and the second ever secretary and was put in charge to shut down the Department of Ed. However he was humbled by his experiences and instead studied public ed and developed the benchmark A Nation at Risk report, which I was forced to read at some point in my licensing program.

William Bennett was a pundit and mostly known for pushing the war on drugs, a war on gangsta rap, and a controversy when he said that aborting all black babies would reduce crime. So, yeah, screw that guy.

Lauro Cavazos was a post-secondary educator and oddly a Democrat. He didn't do much of note except step down due to a scandal with using frequent flyer miles.

HW Bush:

Lamar Alexander was a career politician who, while secretary, made a bunch of profitable investments in workplace daycare, communication companies, and private prisons. He also approved the Transnational Association of Christrian Colleges and Schools the right to accredit schools, a right that they were rejected on twice before and was controversial at the time.

W Bush:

Rod Page was a former teacher (PE, Health) and football coach who had a career in higher education and sat on school boards and served as super. He created the PEER form which I still fill out every year and is also famous for the "Houston Miracle," a sharp spike in student test scores under his leadership that has later been cast into doubt due to exploiting a loophole where if a student transferred to another district they wouldn't count. He rolled out NCLB and once called the teacher's union a "terrorist organization."

Margaret Spelling was a political scientist who worked under the Texas governor on education reform and helped champion NCLB. She wrote a letter to PBS to protest a children's show depicting lesbian parents. She also took some heat over letting student loans go to for-profit schools and oversaw a large increase of post-secondary education tuition. She did make a push to have college provide more career training, which is certainly a positive.