EDUCATION IN THE CABINET

...No difficulties can be anticipated from the White House, but perhaps no real effort on behalf of the measure, either...

...plishment of political goals...

...The pattern of speech-making on the one hand and actual performance on the other suggests that there are two definitions of American education among federat and state administrators in education, especially at the elementary and secondary levels...

...There is a certain irony here...

...Paradis spoke of "the concern that a new department may well be controlled by persons almost exclusively committed to public school education and with little understanding for and appreciation of the value and the rights of non-public education...

...Win or lose, this wottld have raised the same issues but perhaps in a more constructive context...

...Msgr...

...The present Office of Education (OE) and National Institute of Education (NIE) would be the chief components of the new Department...

...The NEA itself is now one of the chief intere~ groups calling for an increased federal role...

...At this point in the debate, the USCC joined in the fray...

...Indeed, none of these ideas is without genuine merit...

...A 1945 commission of the Ameriean Council on Edu.cmion (ACE) and the National Education Association (NEA) commented on the expanding role of the federal government in education...

...As originally designed, the parallel bills would assemble, under a oabinet-level Secretary of Education, a host of offices and programs chiefly from HEW but also from the Departments of Agriculture and Laborwall dealing with education...

...The contents of this letter were reprinted at length by the Religious News Service (3/20/78...

...B2r introduciiag the legislation the President fulfilled a promise made in his campaign visit to tlie National Education Association (NEA) headquarters, a promise he can, however, claim to have kept even if the legislation is derailed in Congress...

...This series of ideas has included PPBS (.program planning and budgeting systems), accountability and performance-based contracting, competencybased teacher education, career education, bilingual education and mulli.-cultuml education...

...The chief reason for the USCC's opposition to the new Department sheds some light on the pattern described above...

...There is a rhetorical definition and an operational definition...

...The pattern, however, has been the substantial financial investment in the advancement of ideas, when the ideas themselves need far more examination and clarification before any such massive support and dissemination would be warranted...

...In the USCC's judgment, .non-public school p~rticipation in the programs conducted by these Departments has been "far more" equitable than participation in the programs conducted by the Office of Education, which will furnish the leadership for the new department...

...The NEA has strenuously campaigned in recent months for the establishment of the Department of Education as a vehicle for an increased federal role in education...

...The rhetorical definition of American education includes all schools, public and private, that serve the Ameri.-an public...

...The NEA Reporter, in reply, contended .that the AFT was against the Department because the NEA was for it...

...When a concrete issue presents itself, however, the operational definition is controlling...

...The commitment to public education in the Office of Education was such that OE never really considered the voucher plan experiment...

...While some private schools are virtually committed to such a policy, Catholic school leaders have not considered this seriously...

...This definition allows, for example, ' the Education Commissioner, Ernest L. Boyer, to affirm that "Private education is absolutely crucial to the vitality of this nation and public policy should strengthen rather than diminish these essential institutions...

...The National School Boards Association, the National PTA, the American Association of School Administrators, the Council of Chid State School Officers, and the National Association of State Boards of Education (the "big six") organized the "Citizen's Committee for a Cabinet Department of Education...

...The rival organization to the N'EA, the American Federation of Teachers (.AFT), has actively opposed the establishment of the new department...

...T, heir operational definition of American education includes only government-provided or public education...

...A second reason for Catholic school opposition to the new department advanced by Msgr...

...One reason for opposing the cabinet post was expressed as "a genuine and well-founded fear flrat the services provided by the Office of Education will gradually erode into excessive and unwarranted intrusion and control by a Department of Education...

...In support of this concern, it must be acknowledged that federal aid withou.t federal control is now and has ever been a myth...

...These schools fall outside their operational definition of American education...

...According .to Senator Moynihan, "The bureaucracy that would inexorably move from the Office of Education to the Department of Education is a bureaucracy devoted to the demise of [church] schools...

...Paradis dealt Commonweal: 627 with the inclusion in the new Department of ,Education of certain Department of Agriculture and Department of Labor programs...

...The headline in the Reporter read--'~NEA Gets Plum, AFT Munches Sour Grapes...

...Paradis gave basical...

...I I [ I II I GEORGE ELFORD is a New England-based educational researcher and administrator...

...It is worth recalling that the federally funded effort to test the educational voucher was undertaken by the -Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and not by OE...

...In a 1968 report, Erickson and Greeley pointed out that: In keeping with a well-established pattern, federal aid flows rather easily through private pipelines when (as under OEO) the beneficiaries fall into "preschool," "dropout," or "postsecondary" categories or if the services are viewed as "welfare" rather than "education...

...With the establishment of a highly visible Secretary of Education ~and the attendant expectation that the federal government will come up with new answers, this kind of federal intrusion promises to continue at a quickened pace...

...Public schoolmen either are more sensitive than other citizens to church-state issues or have special reasons (such as fear and dislike of non,public education) for opposing the assistance...

...On the question of folding programs from other federal departments into the proposed Department of Education, the USCC is apparently aligned with some stronger forces--those within Agriculture and Labor whose programs are at issue...

...Whether these reach the point of being "excessive and unwanted" depends on one's definition of these terms...

...ly three reasons for the opposition of Catholic school interests to the new department...

...but severe restrictions appear when (as under ESEA) the elementary and secondary levels of schooling are involved...

...This USCC position seemed curious to some, who wondered whether the Catholic opposition, albeit token opposition in this case, might well be legitimate or if it migh~ be an instance of Catholic paranoia...

...Federal influence generally aims not at at~ining academic excellence but at social engineering and the accom...

...Despite the worthy efforts of several OE officials, research continues to show that private school students receive less .than their share from federal programs administered by OE...

...While the NEA argued in favor of the new department because it would provide efficiency in the use of federal funds and increased visibility, prestige and attention for education, the AFT contended that education will be more effectively represented in the kinds of political coalitions that HEW tends to generate than in an isolated cabinet post...

...The NEA is currently calling for onethird of the cost of elementary and secondary education to be assumed by the federal government, in part, to offset "Jarvis-Gannqike" assaults on the property tax...

...The American Council on Education has estimated that added costs imposed on colleges and universities alone, as a result of federal controls, run between $2 and $4 billion a year...

...Catholic Conference (USCC), went on record as opposing the establishmen~ of the new Department of Education in a letter to Senator Abraham Ribicoff...

...If the establishment of a Department of Education does indeed lead to increased federal funding, federal government intrusion and control will undoubtedly expand...

...The new department and an expanded federal role are now clearly in the interest of the NEA and those whom Daniel P. Moynihan has somewhat critically termed "the men of the public sphere...

...The obstacles that have now arisen in what once seemed an easy legislative passage to the President's desk only emphasize the complicated politicking, including that of the United States Catholic Conference, that has surrounded the proposed reorganization...

...The federal government, however, has in recent years, especially through the Office of Education, attempted to contribute to the advancement of education by heavily funding a series of educational ideas that have captured the attention of federal officials...

...The issues raised in the Paradis letter are significant, indeed deserving more attention than they receive...

...The position taken by the USCC merits some discussion...

...For Catholic and other private schools, the only way to block any increase in federal intrusion and con'trol is to avoid taking federal monies or even being interested in these monies...

...It will come, not because the people approve a policy of gradually shifting predominant educational control from the 29 September 1978:626 states and localities to the nation...

...All signs indicate these departments will succeed .in keeping their educational efforts independent of the new department, and their success may amount to an unraveling of the whole concept...

...EDUCATION IN THE CABINET GEORGE ELFORD The proposed Department of Education runs into snags Until recently, legislation establishing a new Department of Education was moving smoothly through both houses of Congress...

...Msgr...

...And yet, given the political realities .the USCC statement recognizes, the question must be asked, "Was this approach, opposition to the new cabinet post, the most effective way to raise these issues...

...The co-chairman of this committee was the executive director of the Coalition of American Public Employees...

...The Reporter quoted, with approval, Eliot Morrison's comments in the New Republic, ~aying It would be particularly irritating to let an independent union like NEA--vchich surely would dominate the new Department--get its hands on pieces of the Labor machinery...

...As reported by the RNS, Msgr...

...It is the mature conclusion of the commission that a continuance of recen,t and current trends in federal-state relations in education will, within a measurable period of time, transfer predominant responsibility for the control of education in the United States from the states and localities to the national government...

...If education becomes federalized in the United States it will not be because .the people want this to happen . . . . Rather, national control of schools will come by a process of accretion and infiltration...

...Rather, it will result from responses to many small emergencies and from pressure of many special interests...

...Might it have been be~ter, for example, to have supported the new department, arguing for provisions in the legislation that would provide non-public, schools with effective representation...

...The judgment is not without some basis...

...Wilfrid H. Paradis, secretary for education for the U.S...