Why the Right May be Right

...Every time you create a funding stream, you create an interest group or a lobby [that will fight for that money...

...Ravitch recently briefed incoming Congress members about the billion-dollar-a-year program, and suggested the time has come to look at its effectiveness...

...Right now, in far too many districts, incompetent teachers with tenure often cannot be fired...

...The plan included $7.50 million to fund 30,000 reading specialists and coordinators to train tutors across the country...

...Beginning in 1994, the government mandated that each college reserve 5 percent of its work-study slots for community service...

...And often, it is the smaller abuses that most glaringly illustrate this tendency...

...This is exhibit A of how the department is a captive of the interest groups,” says the source...

...The National Assessment of Educational Performances’ 1992 Report Card revealed that 75 percent of students were below proficiency levels in math, and 66 percent were sub-par in English...

...And at the same time, we have to ask conservatives, What do you suggest instead [of abolition?]”’ Currently, it looks like the Right’s answer to that question is: nothing...

...If laws need to be changed, get on with it...

...Under the federal work-study program, established by Lyndon Johnson in 1964, students earn money for college by working in campus libraries, cafeterias, and student centers...

...And too many bright people who could be wonderful teachers are kept out of public schools-even though they know their subject better than most who are teaching it-because of credentialling requirements that have much to do with the prosperity of teacher training institutions and little to do with the competence of teachers...

...This is the kind of hard talk that can shift the focus onto the basic problems plaguing our schools...

...But according to one New York City teacher who recently left the DOE3 training division, teachers rarely have any say over the types of “development” they receive...

...If kley’s “State of American Education” speech delivered last month is any indication, the DOE is fmally beginning to show leadership in the crucial areas...

...The 20-plus facilities scattered across the country were created in 1965 to investigate models for teaching and testing...

...There were signs the issue was a real stinker for them back in September, when GOP pollsters found that 54 percent of registered Republicans were apnst eliminating the DOE...

...Closed to Suggestion In 1992, Diane Ravitch, then assistant secretary for educational research, hired social scientist Maris Vinovskis to assess the effectiveness of the federally funded research centers and education laboratories...

...After 18 years of the DOE, the situation in D.C...

...Schools across the country have teachers and administrators paid to run the voced courses...

...But behind the scenes, a different drama was playing out...

...See “Teachers’ Pets,” JanJFeb...

...But after school is precisely when second graders are most tired, frustrated, hungry, or pre-occupied, and least likely to focus effectively...

...If a school is bad and can’t be changed, reconstitute it or close it down...

...Conservatives considered the department a waste of taxpayers’ money and a federal intrusion on a local issue...

...The money creates the constituency,” Ravitch says...

...There was pressure to keep the report quiet...

...There is at least one glaring reason why the department has failed to take on these thorny problems-instead, spreading its resources among the hundreds of smaller programs now under review...

...On April 30, 1993, Mary Kennedy, head of the research centers, wrote a letter to Vinovskis (which was cc’d to Robinson) warning: “We strongly urge you not to publish this report as it currently stands...

...For 12 months, Vinovskis poured over five years of R&D data, looking at facilities from Johns Hopkins to U.C...

...We’re not involved in the hiring of teachers...

...These people will come to Washington this year when Congress debates reauthorizing the program, and they will testify to its greatness...

...bour said recently...

...And even after-school tutoring has raised the hackles of some teachers...

...I wouldn’t say it’s not a worthwhile issue,” says filler...

...Miller points out that the department does run a teacher training program: It is spending $310 million on professional development this year, and has spent more than $1 billion over the last four...

...Many local administrators use federal dollars to hire slick consultants who spend only a few hours with teachers, then disappear...

...In a report on the decidedly non-educational bent of the annual American Association of School Administrators conference, Mary Clayton Coleman noted in the September 1990 issue of the Monthly: “Such conventions aren’t about education...

...While he found some examples of excellent research, his overall conclusions were grim...

...In many cases, it’s worse: According to a February article in The Washington Post, cronyism has become a problem of epic proportions right here in the nation’s capital...

...The conflict developed when Clinton proposed linking the college work-study program to community service, as part of the America Reads initiative...

...And for good reason...

...Everybody’s got buddies, friends, associates, relatives,” James R. Daugherty, formerly director to the superintendent, told the Post...

...What the department really needs is not the support of all teachers or of their unions, but of the good teachers, those who have the ability and dedication needed to create better schools...

...One study at Berkeley drew general conclusions from case studies of one or two students in a class...

...1993 The issue should not be between local and federal control, but between those who are willing to take on the big obstacles to better education and those who are frightened into ineffectiveness by the power of the lobbies...

...But they should, because nearly 20 years after its founding, the Department of Education is still failing to address the root causes of America’s educational decline...

...whole classes of tenth graders doing sixth and seventh grade work...

...But by ignoring the AmeriCorps model, the department may have jolted the foundation of an initiative designed to reach three million children...

...The American Council on Education, which represents 1,800 colleges, told the administration it opposed any such mandate, insisting that some colleges don’t have the infrastructure to set up tutoring programs...

...Problem students are frequently returned to class, where the cycle of disruption begins a p n . Consider this recent example from a school in New Jersey...

...When the child is in class, the teacher is constantly struggling to keep the attention of other special ed students who are easily diverted by his antics...

...Nor is the situation inside school administrations any better...

...When asked if GOP members see the investigation as an opportunity to scrounge up dirt for use against the department, a key Republican official on the committee gasped...

...The DOE should be on the side of those who have the necessary ability and dedication and opposed to the feather-bedded incompetents...

...Last month, it finally came up with a $5 billion drop-in-the-bucket plan to meet the estimated $112 billion needed for school repairs...

...But one reason SLICE is thought to be so successful is that tutors work with children during the school day...

...The prevalence of bloated, inefficient school bureaucracies is a problem that cries out for solving...

...But according to one source, many universities opposed the requirement because they don’t want to lose a portion of their federally subsidized labor pool of work-study participants...

...People were upset with what I’d written,” says Viiovskis...

...With so many disparate groups pushing for their parochial needs to be filled, it’s no wonder the department is bogged down in a forest of specialized programs...

...Agamst this backdrop, it is not surprising that talk of eliminating the DOE has dwindled from its frenetic height in 1995, when Florida Republican Joe Scarborough declared, “The great federal experiment in education is ovef Today, instead of bluntly askmg, “What good is the Department of Education?’ some Republicans are taking a more moderate (and politically savvy) approach...

...But Ravitch says the researchers considered the federal dollars theirs by right, and fought to stop publication...

...1. Consider the 1996 General Accounting Office report on school facilities: After surveymg 10,000 schools, it concluded that about $112 billion was needed to repair dilapidated facilities...

...When confronted with the argument that the DOE is too wedded to special interests, they put up their defenses automatically, m o u h g tired excuses about insufficient funding and a lack of qualified educators entering the field...

...graduates...

...But the GOP3 rigid insistence on local control also misses the main point...

...Today, the need for addressing the basics is clearer than ever...

...Another example of special interest influence can be seen in the vocational education program...

...Haley Barbour had this to say during one of his last addresses as head of the Republican National Committee: “The sad fact is, while most women heard us say we want to get rid of the Department of Education, they never heard us say our goal is to have education money spent in the local schools instead of for the Washington bureaucracy...

...Such denials would look foolish in the face of...

...A more recent example illustrates how constituenciesin this case teachers and college presidentscan prompt the department to water-down creative initiatives...

...As Maureen D1Marc0, former chief education advisor to California Gov...

...Roofs leak, floors buckle, pipes rot, and walls crackle with age...

...Some programs were spending half of their funds on administrative overhead, allocating only meager amounts to research...

...With Clinton’s plan, however, the DOE is “pushing to avoid any mention of in-school tutoring,” according to one source, who says that department officials have gone so far as to discourage such tutoring because teacher unions view it as an affront and an indictment of the school systems...

...Local governments would seem even less equipped than federal to contend with special interest groups such as the powerful state teachers lobbies...

...But it’s not something we play a role in here...

...In the poorest schools, the report notes, “[t]housands of chddren are taught...

...Vocational education is not the only area where this a problem...

...Having learned from last year’s political fiasco, they’re honing their message...

...Vinovshs sums up this way: “The problem with the liberals is, if you believe in a program, you want to protect it from conservatives,” he says, “so you downplay the problems it has...

...It absolutely should be a department priority to help make it possible for public schools to hire smart, competent, caring teachers through alternative certification methods-as well as to help reform the process by which schools can get rid of incompetent teachers...

...Robinson says she considered the report “an academic work rather than an official departmental document,” and denies that pressure from lab supporters played a role in the decision not to publish it...

...Clinton saw the potential to expand that percentage, and set out to assemble a corps of about 100,000 tutors from the work-study pool...

...In other words, it must translate Riley’s speech into everyday policy...

...Instead of talking about abolishing the Department of Education,” Sen...

...The same applies to the support of administrators...

...When asked what the DOE has done to enhance teacher quality, department spokesman IGck Miller says, “There are not really any programs...

...and one third “reported needing extensive repair or replacement of one or more buildings...

...On administrators: “If a principal is slow to get the message, find strength in a new leader...

...in the meantime, 56 percent of high school students taking physical science are taught by out-of-field teachers...

...high school seniors who can’t read...

...And liberals’ failure to address this conflict may have undermined their own education goals...

...Support seemed to be coalescing...

...In December, a group of 20 college presidents signed onto the program...

...The report, citing the National Center for Education Statistics, found that half of all school system staff in the nation are not classroom teachers...

...A February series on District schools by The Washington Post revealed a system in which 70 percent of 11th graders score below grade level on standardized tests, and at least 40 percent of students simply drop out or leave...

...Spencer Abraham of Wchigan told The Washington Post in November, “we should be talking about sending more money back to mothers and fathers...

...As one official with a federal agency that works closely with the DOE notes, ‘ W l e there are lots of talented, well-meaning people in the department, they are so tied to their constituency groups and the education establishment that they’re in no position to lead reform...

...But, she says, the department will not advocate reforming the program or redirecting its finding...

...The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future had this to say: “Our schools are cumbersome bureaucratic inheritances from the 19th century, not the kinds of learning orpzations required for the 21st...

...And on teachers: “If teachers are burned out, counsel them to improve or leave the profession...

...Pete Wilson, observed in a recent Los Angeles Times article detailing the decay of a local school district: “If these schools were prisons, they would be shut down...

...If students happen to be classified as special education pupils, the problems can be worse, because federal law generally blocks administrators from suspending children with disabilities for more than 10 days, regardless of the trouble they’re causing...

...If the DOE can rally the good guys to its side and summon the courage to take on the black hats, it will deserve the support of us all, liberals and conservatives alike...

...Women voters most concerned about education generally didn’t vote for [Dole],” Haley BarGREIG M. O'BRIEN is an editorial intern...

...In August, President Clinton announced a plan to spend $2.75 billion over five years on a new literacy program...

...To do this, the President called for a 35 percent increase in work-study funding, and proposed dedicating half of the new funds to pay salaries for college students working as reading tutors at local schools...

...Privately, organizations representing the colleges pressured the administration not to require universities to use the new funds for off-campus tutoring...

...Conservatives would have other government departments run programs (such as student loans) currently under the auspices of Education...

...60 percent of schools cited at least one major building problem...

...Teachers are afraid this is a criticism of what they are doing,” said Jennifer Ballen, a DOE spokeswoman...

...The fact is, we’ve known what has been undermining America’s public school system since before the DOE was founded in 1979...

...Maris Viiovskis, a senior adviser to the department under both Bush and Clinton, puts it thls way: “If the value added by the federal government...

...Maybe...

...One possible reason: pressure from a veritable vocationaleducation industry that has bloomed from two decades of federal funding...

...The department often tailors its actions to address the narrow interests of these “constituents,” regardless of whether such actions best serve students, their parents, or the national interest in a better-educated populace...

...To compound the problem, before the initiative had a chance to pick up speed, interest-group politics intervened a second time...

...And next time around, if the department can’t point to solid success stories, the GOP will be better prepared to discredit-and dismantleit...

...by a parade of teachers without preparation in the fields they teach...

...As in the case of vocational education, federal laws regulating special education are up for reauthorization this year...

...Time and again, while navigating a maze where constituents dwell around every corner, the department sacrifices smart reform to bureaucratic self-interest...

...But as of yet, there’s little sign DOE officials will march to this new tune...

...firing good teachers and firing bad ones is an “issue” for anyone interested in this country’s childrenand its future...

...But by failing to face the department’s failures, liberals hurt the cause of reform, and provide fuel for abolitionists, who are waiting for the political winds to shift again to relaunch their attack...

...It is a crony systemthat’s what it was all about, and it still is...

...Still Not Making the Grade Republicans have been ashg this question since the department’s inception in 1979, when it was created by President Carter in part to satisfy a campaign promise to the National Education Association...

...That’s a question that liberals-still basking in the warmth of an issue they owned in ’96-will not pose...

...by 1992, the government was spending about $50 million a year on research and development...

...As his model, Clinton pointed to AmeriCorps’ SLICE program in Simpson County, Ky., where after nine months of intensive tutoring by AmeriCorps volunteers, reading comprehension for 128 second graders jumped by an average of 2.8 grade levels...

...Administrative bureaucracies, especially in large cities, tend to be feather-bedded, sometimes grotesquely so, and too many administrators are selected on the basis of cronyism rather than merit...

...the department’s homebase-is even worse...

...A neurologically impaired student with a history of cursing out his teacher, drug dealing, and vandalism is booted from class nearly 20 times...

...Many teachers will tell you one of the toughest challenges they face is dealing with hds who act out in class...

...Compare this to the Commission’s fmdings that, in other countries, teachers typically constitute 60 to 80 percent of total staff...

...The reason is clear...

...Why would DOE officials bury a report that outlined concrete problems and offered suggestions for improvement...

...That would be intruding on local control...

...According to the GAO, one poor urban district can only allocate enough to paint classrooms every 100 years: Is there a prison in the country that was last painted in 1897, a year before the start of the Spanish-American War...

...Republicans know their constant harping against the Education Department cost them among women voters in 1996-and they know the gender gap at the ballot box cost them the White House...

...education system do anyhng to convince DOE opponents of its value...

...Up to this point, most liberals-the very people you would expect to be most interested in making the department run effectively-have refused to acknowledge this problem...

...To some degree, this reflexive response can be understood when we consider all the years liberals have spent defending the department from abolition: When attacked, a good defensive posture is to withdraw like a turtle into a warm, comfortable universe free of tormentors...

...But instead of researching how to address the crisis, or even highlighting the issue at the national level, the DOE has balked...

...The current plan is for the program to focus on after-school and weekend tutoring...

...If you printed it like that,” she said, some Republicans would “just have a heart attack...

...Ml they heard was, ‘Get rid of the Department of Education...

...The fact that ability often has little to do with the hiring of administrators shouldn’t surprise anyone...

...Considering our mission, I don’t think getting involved with local school bureaucracies is where we see the department going...

...Such conditions are hardly conducive to learning, yet, until recently, the department had no major initiatives devoted to stopping the decay...

...Jeanne Allen, president of the non profit Center for Education Reform, points to one reason why: the powerful special education lobbies, such as the Council for Exceptional Children...

...Instead of stepping back and marshalling their resources to address the general ailments that hold back our schools, officials are dabbling in a wide array of programs that cater to a rainbow of constituents...

...In juvenile court for violation of probation, the child’s attorney tells the judge his client has been suspended too many times...

...If trends tell us anything, the department will not be quick to act, and program flaws will linger...

...That’s a state and local issue.’’ Wrong...

...Ravitch, who has written extensively on departmental flaws since leaving, notes: “There are different ways for government officials to respond to their jobs...

...It’s a program that works...

...And such pointless obsession with whose jurisdiction certain problems fall into is a sure way to guarantee that the situation will never improve...

...They’re about making connections in the network of educational consultants who ultimately place most of America’s school superintendents...

...Without explanation, the DOE opted not to publish it...

...If you see yourself as representing a constituency, it’s not your job to ask, Are you effective?’ but rather to deflect criticism and become an advocate...

...Well, in light of how the situation has been “progressing” for the last two decades, it’s clear that someone needs to intrude before public schools are bled dry by inept and unneeded administrators...

...But we’re not helping kids by protecting programs that don’t work...

...When students misbehave, teachers must spend time and energy to deal with them, and lesson plans fall by the wayside...

...Nor has the situation improved throughout the rest of the country...

...The goal, say GOP officials, is to improve educational services for students from kindergarten through high school, and the central issue is-do federal programs under the DOE support that aim...

...But don’t take our word for it...

...We weren’t keeping track of the money we spent on professional development,” the teacher recalls...

...He continued his work into the Clinton administration, and in 1993 handed then assistant secretary Sharon Robinson a report addressing key problems and offering suggestions on how to solve them...

...By the start of the 1990s’ nearly 2,000 students were dropping out of school each day, and the work force was flooded with graduates who lacked basic skills...

...According to a September 1996 study by the National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future, 23 percent of all secondary teachers have not even minored in their specialty fields...

...Far too many people sit in offices at the sidelines of the core work, managing routines rather than promoting innovation aimed at improved quality” In other words, school administrative staffs are simply too big, and often preoccupied with matters that are irrelevant to the main purpose of education...

...in other places, teachers with a degree in the subject they wish to teach can’t enter the classroom until they pass an education curriculum...

...Too many teachers can’t teach, either because they don’t know the subject they’ve been assigned or because they’re just plain inept...

...the teacher gets a call from the parole officer: ‘Watch your back.’’ Since then, the teacher has resorted to what he calls ‘%reative ways of keeping the student out of class...

...Republicans, in fact, have begun strategizing for a future attack on the department...

...DOE officials often have ties to (or come from the ranks of) the “constituents” they advise: the teacher unions, researchers, administrators, college presidents, and lobbyists...

...And a clue as to the quality of these networks and networkers-can be found in Susan Ohanian's piece from the same issue, which noted that, for its 1989 convention, the AASA chose that renowned educator George Steinbrenner as keynote speaker...

...America Reads” would dispatch reading specialists to train volunteers, who would in turn help elementary school children with their reading slulls...

...But at least the plan calls attention to a major problem, something the DOE, in its deference to its constituent groups, so often fails to do...

...Students in schools with large minority populations have less than a 50 percent chance of getting a science or math teacher with a license and degree in the field...

...Allen says the department’s special-ed experts have become “intertwined” with leading lobbyists...

...who aren’t even able to understand bus signs...

...We were spending millions on programs and nobody knew what was going on...

...What good will all of the department’s research data and special programs do us if there aren’t enough competent teachers inside the schools...

...In the face of such opposition, the DOE reportedly lined up behind the colleges, arguing against a mandate...

...BY GREIG M. O'BRIEN AND CHARLES PETERS THE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTE THAT led the 1995 charge to abolish the Department of Education has embarked on a new mission: Officials are examining more than 200 DOE programs to determine if any stars in the vast universe of federal education programs are actually shining...

...It’s the same story with crumbling infrastructure, which is rapidly becoming Public School Enemy No...

...Ravitch notes there is strong evidence vocational programs are not working: Students on the voc-ed track often miss out on core curriculum courses, and are less prepared than their peers...

...For example, he’ll suggest the student take some time off, but he won’t call it a “suspensionl’ The department, the perfect pulpit for addressing the problem while remaining sensitive to the needs of disabled children, has remained strangely silent...

...Berkeley...

...As an administration official said recently, “If the department doesn’t have the teachers’ support, they don’t have anything...

...In the same year that the department was founded, Joseph Nocera reported in the May issue of this magazine that public schools around Washington had degenerated to the point where “no one connected with them tries to gloss over the problems...

...The system is currently under the supervision of D.C.’s financial control board, which, having given the school system straight Fs in a comprehensive performance evaluation, assumed oversight of area schools in 1996, essentially rendering the school board obsolete...

...If it doesn’t, it will deserve the support of none of us...

...A typical story is that of a chemist in Tennessee: She has a masters in chemistry and wants to teach, but needs to go back for 15 hours of undergraduate education comes, then complete an internshp, before she can set foot in a classroom...

...Nor did the subsequent performance of the US...

...Their post-election analysis has harped on the point...

...doesn’t really help the kids, who needs us...

...Clinton’s aim: an army of no less than I million tutors...

...Here’s &ley on failing schools: “We need to stop making excuses and get on with the business of fixing our schools...

...The DOE will not risk offending these constituents...