Four “Ex-Feds” Discuss Federal Education

A Forum —July 1, 2004

Considering the increasingly important role that the federal government plays in education, it is important to consider the successes, failures, and possible futures of federal education policy. Accordingly, the American Youth Policy Forum gathered a panel of four senior veterans of federal education policymaking to share their insight. Each panelist discussed the most beneficial federal education policies of the last several decades, the most unsuccessful federal education policies of the last several decades, and made recommendations about the future of federal education policy. Brief biographies of the panelists follow this report.

Over the last 20-25 years, what federal policies in education do you think were the most beneficial and effective?

Christopher Cross, a former Assistant Secretary for Education Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education and former Republican staff director of the House Education and Labor Committee, highlighted the legislative successes of federal education policy by discussing what he considers the most important and effective federal laws related to the issue. First, he discussed the significance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Emergency School Aid Act of 1972, which, together, mandated and funded the desegregation of public schools across the United States and paid the extra costs associated with dismantling dual school systems in southern states. Second, he referenced the Pell Grant Student Aid bill of 1972 and the expansion of student loan programs in the Higher Education Act, explaining that those changes represented a fundamental shift in the philosophy of student aid because it put money in the hands of students for the first time. However, Cross believes that the success of these changes has recently been tempered by the bureaucratization of the financial aid program. Third, Cross discussed the importance of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), passed in 1975 as the Education of All Handicapped Children Act, , which opened the door for millions of handicapped children to enter education and represented an important change in society’s commitment to students with disabilities. Fourth, Cross argued that the Elementary Education Act of 1965 and the Improving Student Achievement Act of 1975 started trends that are now evident in the current momentum behind the No Child Left Behind Act. Finally, Cross argued that Title IX of the Higher Education Act, prohibiting sex discrimination at public and private higher education institutions and also having a major impact on K-12 education, was one of the most important achievements in federal education policy in the last several decades.

Emerson Elliott, serving nearly 40 years in the U.S. Departments of Education and Health, Education and Welfare, and in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), took a more categorical approach to highlighting successful federal education policy by exploring successful legislative initiatives, commissions, and collaborations with state and local officials. Elliott described the strategy for formulating a role for federal education policy around compensatory education and special needs as the “watershed event” of the last four decades, as it “turned education policy to basic constitutional issues of fairness and equity.” Prior to this policy strategy, which served as the basis for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and the Higher Education Act of 1965, the federal role in education was extremely limited. Virtually everything the government did for education was done to promote other governmental goals or initiatives. Next, Elliott stressed the importance of policies that led to the creation of the Commission on Excellence in 1963 and its report “A Nation at Risk.” This report included a set of themes and ideas, including tougher graduation requirements, standards of performance, the use of achievement tests, and more challenging textbooks that have been a crucial part of the debate on public education ever since. Finally, Elliott described the critical importance of collaborative efforts between the states and the federal government to gather and use data in order to monitor, ensure accountability, and evaluate programs in education.

Milton Goldberg, former executive director of the National Commission on Excellence in Education and former director of the Department of Education Office of Research, affirmed many of the ideas presented by the first two speakers. In addition, he described the last 20-25 years of federal education policy as the “era of standards and assessments.” He argued that federal policymakers redefined equity in education by uniting excellence and access. He echoed sentiments about the report “A Nation at Risk,” and further argued that it was critical primarily because it affirmed the federal responsibility for education and because it helped to galvanize an interest in data collection. Finally, Goldberg explained that President George H.W. Bush’s “Goals Summit” was a critical step in education policy because it was the first time in American history that the state governors were convened by the president to discuss national educational goals.

P. Michael Timpane, the former director of the National Institute of Education and former director of Education Policy Planning for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, outlined two criteria by which he determined whether or not federal policy had succeeded in recent decades: 1) whether or not programs were focused on “more appropriate intended and actual results,” and 2) whether or not education policy has been “responsive to a changing national, social, and economic context.” During the past 20 years, a dominant new policy emphasis had emerged: namely, the economic benefits of education. Reconciling it with the original and path-breaking federal emphasis on equal educational opportunity has been at the heart of federal policy development. Timpane described education policy as the product of specific tensions, such as between equity and excellence, between investment in a program and the performance of the program, and between market forces and government regulation. While arguing that balance is the key, Timpane noted that federal education policy had been successful in resolving some of these tensions over the last few decades. First, Timpane argued that no other country has attempted the same degree of equal educational opportunity as has the United States. Although the United States let some standards slip early on, the great hope of No Child Left Behind is that policymakers can ease the tradeoff between equity and excellence. In addition, Timpane argued that evolving standards of assessment have been an important step to ensure that the performance of programs justifies taxpayers’ investments in them.

During this recent period, where do you think that federal education policy went “off-track”? What were your greatest disappointments in this regard?

Chris Cross argued that the federal government has failed tremendously to invest in research and statistics in education. This is in contrast to a great deal of federally-funded research in the health and agriculture fields. Moreover, there is no sense that education research is an important federal priority. The degree to which education has been politicized has proven to be an impediment to constructing and implementing federal education policy. Elevating education to department status has made it more political. The bureaucratization of education is another problem in federal education policy because it places far too much power in the hands of lawyers and auditors and results in worst-case scenarios driving policy. It frustrates the objective of providing adequate services to children and ultimately policymakers are unable to get a handle on the quality of teachers as well as the quality of teaching taking place in the classroom.

Emerson Elliott began his analysis of the failures of education policy over the past three decades by stating that the government has consistently failed to use research as a means of developing and testing education policies. He contended that the federal government has failed to clearly outline and articulate to teachers and administrators what can be done to close the achievement gap and what can be done to make a difference in the learning environment. Attacking teachers in the education debate is unproductive. Few federal policies, in reality, make any attempt to change curriculum and instruction in the classroom. Elliott concluded that one of the biggest failures is that higher education has fallen several decades behind in the application of data-based strategies so that policy decisions can be better informed about outcomes and benefits.

Milton Goldberg outlined five major disappointments in education policy over the past three decades. He began by arguing that a majority of education policy is made without reference to history. Many policymakers fail to know, study, or respect previous interventions adopted in education policy. Policymakers’ failure to remember and learn from the past greatly inhibits our ability to construct more effective policy in the future. Second, federal education policy has failed to address the “problem of time” when formulating, implementing, and evaluating education policy and initiatives. We have been unable to utilize time in school as a variable instead of a constant. Third, there is a disconnect between education policymakers and practitioners. He proposed more dialogues and partnerships between state and local practitioners and federal policymakers. Fourth, federal education policy has failed to pay attention and confront the unique problems associated with big city schools. Finally, he regrets that there is only limited evidence to show that education policymakers take into account the relationship that federal education policy has to the policies of the other executive agencies. Goldberg reiterated the need for more investment in research and development in education policy over the coming decades.

Michael Timpane identified two disappointing aspects of education policy. First, he noted that policymakers and politicians have placed too much emphasis on the individual benefits of education policy, such as the financial benefits derived by individuals, and have simultaneously failed to emphasize the social benefits of education policy, such as good citizenship. Policymakers’ motives, when crafting education policies, should be focused on more than achieving individual economic outcomes. Second, he believes that a focus on institutional improvement rather than on programmatic success, a significant development in federal education policy over the past three decades, has now become too much of an orthodoxy, so that no one thinks new programs are needed.

What counsel for the Congress and the President would you offer to reshape and/or strengthen the federal role in education?

Christopher Cross recommended that the Department of Education reduce the number of political appointees by half, claiming that such appointees create inefficiency with regard to the delivery of services from the Department. The political leadership of agencies needs to find better ways to motivate the career service. Policymakers would be better served to listen to practitioners in the field rather than interest groups. Cross also argued that the walls that divide the programs in the Department of Education are counterproductive to the mission of serving children. There are eight different offices serving K-12 education and that is antithetical to the needs of children and results in states organizing along those same lines.. Finally, he encouraged policymakers to eliminate special earmarks and set-aside pork barrel programs in order to fund programs that are more effective.

Emerson Elliott urged that the emphasis on investment and research needs to take a more prominent position in the national debate, while noting that effective change takes considerable time. He also encouraged efforts to make higher education more cost-effective, including increasing research for exploring the link between the goals of higher education and students’ learning. Elliott emphatically called for the increased use of political and conceptual analysis regarding the issues of poverty and student motivation as an important step to developing sound policies. He concluded with a proposal to influence curriculum and instruction in the classroom directly by reestablishing the 1960s "teacher institutes" and "curriculum development" projects. These were very successful in applying the best that we knew at the time about instruction, subject by subject, and using that to write instructional materials and to conduct teacher professional development.

Milton Goldberg warned policymakers to avoid ideological squabbling, with the hope of finding policy that can transcend differences and incorporate research about effective practice. One tool he recommended to accomplish this goal was the use of non-partisan commissions to focus on problems and create recommendations. Goldberg echoed the sentiments of Cross by agreeing that the Department should rely more heavily upon the institutional memory of the civil servants rather than on political appointees. He called for a more substantive investment in research and development of effective practices, while noting the unique problems inner-city schools pose to the future of education policy. To have better policy options, the states must be more involved in the creation of federal policies and links must be made between education policy, social services and health policies.

Michael Timpane recommended that America’s educational system should perform better at what it is already doing before trying to create too many new initiatives, citing the need to stay committed to and make a success of the standards and accountability movement. He suggested that teacher quality should be a focus so that every teacher knows what quality teaching is and has the skills and support to accomplish it. Timpane concurred with the other panelists that there was a need for research to build on what we have already learned about effective methods of education. Higher education systems should have a greater role in the K-12 system while simultaneously improving connections between the two. Finally, Timpane worried that current trends of schooling could create 280 million self-interested individuals, without sufficient attention to the benefits for society.

Panelist Biographies

Christopher “Chris” Cross was Assistant Secretary for Education Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education, president and CEO of the Council for Basic Education (CBE), director of the Education Initiative of the Business Roundtable, and president of the Maryland State Board of Education.

Chris chaired the National Assessment of Title I Independent Review Panel on Evaluation for the U.S. Department of Education and the National Research Council Panel on Minority Representation in Special Education.

Currently, he is a director of the American Institutes for Research, a trustee of Whittier College, a director of The New Teacher Project and EdSource, and recently facilitated the negotiated rule-making process for Title I.

To prove that there is “life after Washington,” Chris, who lives in California, serves as a senior fellow with the Center for Education Policy, distinguished senior fellow with the Education Commission of the States; a consultant to the Broad and C.S. Mott Foundations, and as advisor for the School Evaluation Service of Standard and Poor’s. He recently authored Political Education: National Policy Comes of Age, Teachers College Press (2004).

Emerson “Em” Elliott has served for over 40 years in the U.S. Departments of Education and Health, Education and Welfare, and in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). He headed the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) for 11 years, and became the first presidentially-appointed U.S. Commissioner of Education Statistics. Prior to that he was deputy director of the National Institute of Education, OMB deputy chief for human resources programs, and chief of the OMB education unit. He was recognized with Presidential Rank Awards for distinguished performance in the Senior Executive Service of the federal government and was elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.

Elliott has served with the National Education Research Policy and Priorities Board, National Academy of Sciences panels, The College Board, Science Resources Studies Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation, and the National Survey of Student Engagement. He chaired the Board on International Comparative Studies in Education at the National Research Council. He is currently a member of several advisory groups, including one on state higher education indicators, and the Pew Project on college level learning. He is employed by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, where he works on developing a performance-based approach for accreditation..

Milton Goldberg was executive director of the National Commission on Excellence in Education which issued the landmark 1983 report, A Nation at Risk. As director of the Department of Education Office of Research, he played a key role in the development of the National Education Goals which emerged from President George H. W. Bush’s education summit with the nation’s governors. He directed the congressionally-created National Education Commission on Time and Learning and its report, Prisoners of Time. Later, he served as executive vice president of the National Alliance of Business and its efforts to foster education improvement.

Dr. Goldberg presently serves on the boards of National Center for Adult Literacy, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing, National Board on Professional Teaching Standards, National Forum on College-Level Learning, Albert Shanker Institute, George Lucas Education Foundation, Jones International University, and as a distinguished senior fellow with the Education Commission of the States.

P. Michael “Mike” Timpane was deputy director and director of the federal government’s National Institute of Education and, before that, director of Education Policy Planning for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Earlier he was an historian for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and special assistant for civil rights in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower).

Among his many non-government leadership posts: president of Teachers College, Columbia University, vice president and senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, senior advisor for education policy for the RAND Corporation, and senior staff member at the Brookings Institution.

For the last two decades, Mike has helped direct the Aspen Institute’s Program for Education in a Changing Society and advised state and federal policymakers on virtually all aspects of schooling and education more generally. Mike serves or has served on the boards of the Institute for Educational Leadership, Southern Education Foundation, Jobs for the Future, Children’s Television Workshop, American Council on Education, and American Association of Higher Education.