The White House big hearts Latin pop star Shakira so much that it has asked her to be a commissioner and lead an education summit in early 2012.

The Colombian singer with honest hips was in Washington on Thursday to be sworn in as one of several commissioners for the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans.

Ahead of her arrival, the White House was super giddy. It canceled public tours, sent out a gazillion emails and hailed her coming on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, which seemed like an awful lot of excitement in our opinion.

“We are running a series of White House community action summits right now,” Juan Sepulveda, director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans tells HOH. “We are bringing the administration to communities, not just on education, but around immigration, around health care, around the economy and jobs to work directly with the community.”

The other thing it’s going to bring to communities? Shakira … and two other commissioners with expertise in early child education to help the administration plan a national Latino early childhood education summit, Sepulveda said.

According to Sepulveda, Shakira has 15 years of experience “as a global education advocate.” (Who knew?) The sultry songstress swapped her silks for a plain black dress Thursday and offered prose instead of poetry from the podium.

“There is no doubt that the future of the United States is inextricably tied to the future of the Latino community here and the education of its youth,” she said.

Sepulveda hopes that just having Shakira as part of the summit will generate excitement, participation and stuff.

“People who want to be a part of this summit have got to come with the resources and commitments because we want people to not just have a conversation about this but to contribute with a solution,” he tells us.