Education: The Agency That Won’t Go Away

Less federal role in schools is more, under Secretary Bell

In 1976 Candidate Jimmy Carter vowed to consolidate federal educational bureaucracies into one Cabinet-level Department of Education. Three years later, with Congress’s help, he did. In 1980 Candidate Reagan promised to abolish Carter’s creation. But nearly two years later, stymied by congressional opposition, he hasn’t. In fact, the Department of Education (ED), with a $14 billion annual budget, 5,000 employees and an articulate Cabinet Secretary, Terrel Bell, is as controversial and potent a force in American education as it has ever been, operating at the cutting edge of many major issues.

Last week, for example, Secretary Bell appeared at a public hearing in Washington held by ED to clarify its position on the touchy question of what rights handicapped students should have. The department’s proposed regulations would put “reasonable limits,” to be determined by states or school boards, on services schools must provide to handicapped students, limits that many critics believe could allow school districts to duck their responsibilities. At the hearing, Bell told the overflow crowd that the proposed regulations may need revisions. Said he: “We’re not dug in.”

Bell, 60, a former Commissioner of Education under Nixon and Ford, defines ED’s role in these terms: “There will always be a need for federal leadership activity, but we ought to keep in mind who’s in charge of the schools.” By which Bell means state and local control, the political byword of the Reagan Administration. Since the election, Bell has moved quickly to reduce federal funding (generally by 20% to 25% for most programs) and rule making in the field of public education. Indeed, according to a 530-page study called The Reagan Experiment, to be released this week by the nonpartisan Washington-based Urban Institute, the Reagan Administration withdrawals and reallocations of resources add up to a historic movement away from federal support of public schools. The report concludes that by the time the Administration’s planned cutbacks take full effect in 1984, federal funding for elementary, secondary and vocational education will be about half of what it was in 1981, when it totaled $7 billion.

Even more significant, according to the Urban Institute, the Administration-supported proposal of tuition tax credits for parents who send their children to private schools, if approved by Congress, would by 1986 amount to 40% of the Federal Government’s total projected expenditures for public school programs. This, concludes the Urban Institute, would be “a marked shift in the balance of federal support from public to private schools and from the disadvantaged to higher-income groups in the population.”

Bell maintains that tuition tax credits would foster healthy educational competition while protecting diversity. He also supports the Administration’s system of block grants, which simply transfer a sum of money to the states with no guidelines or regulations as to how it should be used. Says Bell: “Many feel our move to use block grants is a putdown to education. We feel that education is one of our highest priorities, but over the decades we had moved slowly and steadily from a federalized system to one that was nationally directed and managed. There is no question that some states were not meeting important needs in the past, but some of them were, and were doing it quite well. We ought to encourage them to do more. But it shouldn’t be done so that every little detail is specified in Washington.”

In civil rights enforcement, especially busing, Bell says, the department is simply changing its approach from confrontation with the states to cooperation. And he views the proposed revision of regulations for the handicapped as a relief to local districts rather than an encumbrance. As for federal cuts in education programs, Bell appeals to Reaganomics. Says he: “If we can strengthen our economy, we’ll have the state and local tax base to support education.”

To Bell’s critics, the Government only seems to be passing the buck without the bucks. When the Administration’s revised regulations and budget cuts trickle down to localities this fall, federal policies and funding will be felt as keenly by their absence as they once were by their presence. State legislators and school boards may be delighted with more discretionary power and less federal interference. But they will also find that they have less money to spend. This year’s 26% decrease in funding will sharply affect Title I (aid for the disadvantaged), handicapped and vocational education. In addition, 33 programs will henceforth have to vie on their own for a share of block grants, including voluntary school desegregation projects like magnet schools that provide alternatives to busing.

Professional educators’ groups and public school associations strongly oppose Administration policies, pointing out that federal help has almost always been aimed at groups not served by local school districts. Says Willard McGuire, president of the National Education Association: “Block grants have been used to shift the battleground to the local level.” Argues National School Boards Association President Thomas Shannon: “We don’t know yet if the New Federalism … is Orwellian Newspeak for the old federalism that existed in 1917 before the enactment of the Vocational Education Act and the Child Nutrition Act.” James Gordon Ward of the American Federation of Teachers claims Reagan and Bell have set up a ridiculous choice: “Federal control with lots of money, or local control with no money.” But for public education today, an additional concern is the Department of Education itself. Established to advance the federal role in education, under Secretary Bell it seems to be becoming an instrument to reverse that role.

— By Ellie McGrath.

Reported by Jeanne Saddler/Washington