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* DOCUMENT' RESUME ED 207 101 EA 013 974 AUTHOR Miller, Robert A., Ed. TITLE The Federal Role .in Education: New'Directions for the Eighties. INSTITUTION. Institute for Educational Leadership, Washington, D.C. PUB_ DATE 81 . NOTE. 177p. AVAILABLE FROMInstitute for.Educ,ational Leadership, Suite 300, 1001 Connecticut Ayenue, Washington, DC 20036 ($9.50) : EDRS PRICE MF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available,from EDRS. DESCRIPTORS Cooperative Programs;,Coordinaon; *Educational - Policy; Elementary Secondary Education; Federal Aid; *Federal Government; *Federal Programs; *Federal Regulation; Federal State Relationshtip; *Government Role; Higher Edubation; Trend Analysis IDENTIFIERS Categorical Lid; Department of Education ABSTRACT Thirteen articles, with an introduation, focus on the overall nature and effect of federal involvement ineducation and suggest what the federal role oughtto be. The first five articles examine federgl policy dilemmas in he areas of federal' educational expenditures, fragmentation of fedeal programs, elementary and secondary education, criteria for the federal role, andcategorical programs for the disadvantaged. The relationshipbetween federal and state roles in education, including the impact of the newU.S. Department of Education, is examined in the next threearticles. Finally; five authors present various prescriptions for federal edUcational policies in the 1980s. These articles include areview of the 1980 Democratic and Republican.platiorm planks oneducation, a plea for changes in federal requirements for localaccountability, a conservative critique of the Department of Education, a suggestion, for improving coordination among federal elementary andsecondary programs, and an assessment of the effectsof future economic, technological, demographic, governmental, and cultural trends on federal education policies. (RW) L' ,)---- . -4440 . sic**********************************************4********************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can bemade * * . from-theoriginal document. **********A*********************************************************** U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NAIIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION EOLliATIONArt RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER 'ERIC, X T., cluitvh4ht has been reproduced reowed howl tho as Person Or orgentiatiOn orlymatioy .t Stner hanges have beenmade to tmproe ,eproduc non 4 Prorts or v(vv pr oointonS stared inthis doco lot 115,,,ardv ',present official ME J The FedeKal Role in Education: New Directions foicthe Eighties Edited by Robert A. Miller, The Institute for Educational Leadership, Inc. T" "PERMISSIONTO REPRODUCE THIS MOERIAL INMICROFICHE ONLY HAS BEEN GRANTED BY p IIF fl 1 1. TO THE EDUCATIONALRESOURCES 't INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." Library of Congress Catalog Card No.81-81829 Copynghl. 1981 by Institute for Educational Leadership Inc All rights reserved. N For information address Institute .1' or Educational, Leadership Suite 310 ' 1001 Connecticut Avenue. NW. Washington. D.C. 20036 Manufactured-in the United States ofAmerica:1 CONTENTS Introduction Robert A. Miller..... .. .. 1 'CURRENT PdLICY DILEMMAS TheNFederal Role in Paying for Education in the 80's Joln F. JennIngs .... 5 Education Policy for the Eighties: We Can't Get There From Here Samuel Halperin 15 Federal Polpy Issues in Elementary and Secondary' Education Ins' C. Rotberg 23 Clarifying the Federal Role in Education Cora P. 13eebe and John W. Evans 39 Categorical Programs: Past and Present Harriet T. Bernstein and Daniel W. Merenda 51 Improving the Federal Government's Respons?- bilities in Education 77 FEDERAL/STATE RELATIONSHIPS Notes on Iniergo'vernmental Relations Arthur E Wise .. R5 A Statehouse View on the Federal Role In Education Robert C. Andringa 95 WHAT POLICIES FOR THE EIGHTIES? SOME PRESCRIPTIONS The 1980 Democratic and Republican Party Platform Planks qn Education 101 Federal Education Strategy During the 1980s Charles Cooke 113 TheDepartmentof Education & Ronald F. Docksai . 133 Directidns for Federal Elementary/Secondary Education Policy Alan L. Ginsburg,arshall S. Smith, and Brenda J. Turnbull 151 The Need for a New Federal Role in the 1980s Christopher Dede 171 ( INTRODUCTION What is the proper federal role education? Over the years this abstract question has generated a emarkable degree of passion and partisanship, dividing educators and the genera] public while mak- ing federal education policy a major political issue. The debate is at least as livelyand as far from resolutionin -the early Eighties as it was during the Great Society period. At this wiging (early 1981) the federal role in education appears to be destined for its most searching examination, and perhaps most wrenching changes, since the mid-xties. An outside observer, reviewing the numbers, may find the ar- gumep,t,,,perplexing. Next to health care, education is the largest public "industry" in Americaabsorbing nearly 8 per cent of the Gross National Product, and over 20 per cent of all governmental expenses, employing well over 3 million adults and directly touch- ing the lives of every American family. But as Jack Jennings points out iri the first selection of this, volume, the federal contribution to education is now and always has been relatively small. State and local government each contributes roughly four times the money into education that Washington does.* But moneyat least, where governments are concernedis far from everything. Federal officials have at their command a goodly mix of carrots and sticks, as well as a potent degree of influence. All of these have increasingly come into play in recent,years, As a result Washington's influence over education has grown far more than bare budget figures would indicate. Forty years ago a "typical educator" could plausibly assert that the federal government was almost totally irrelevant to his or her job. Few would make this claim today. For better or worse the federal government, while still a minority shareholder in the educational enterprise, is generally conceded to have attuned a position far greater than its modest * See, generall, The Condition of Educcition, 1980 edition, Nationa Center for Education Statistics, U S Department of Education, Washington, DC 1 9 Ilttr Odllet1011 financial contributions would suggbst. This growing federal presence has now stimulated a growing cho- rus of criticism, which is transforming the natureof debate over the proper federal role . 'Reviewing the arguments and confrontations over iederal edu- cational policy during the Seventies, hindsightcomfortAbly at the ready, one is struck by the way in which these often bitter debates focused on means rather than ends. Arguments revolved aboUt the structure of federal agencies (culminating, of co rse, in the three- yea:r struggle over the creation of the Depart nt of Education), the amount of prescriptive regulation (affirmative action, Title IX, bilingual education mandates, etcs) and funding levels for estab- lished programs, but generally accepted both the progfammatic ap- proach of federal efforts and/the implicit assumptions about public Viucation that lay behind these programs. As the Eighties begin, it appears that the modern period of federal 'education policy makingwhich, we should remind ourselves, only dates back about fifteen yearsis about to enter a new phase, one that is likely to be 4-narked by far more questioning of basic premises and established approaches than in the recent past. More than ever, the overall nature and effect of the federal pres- ence, rather than specific directions, has come in for searching crit- icism Fairly or unfairly, the purposes, methods and conseqef ienees of federal involvement in education are all under attack.omfort- able assumptions about the federal role, and for that matter the place of public education itself, are being challenged in ways both new and old. The legislative battle over the Reagan Administration's consol- idation proposals, which appears likely to continue through much of the 97th Congress, is one sign of this "rethinking." But the larger issue of what is the proper federal role in'education will continue to be debated long after the specific question of program consolidation is answered. This volume, the fourth in a series.of IEL Policy Papers tracing the evoking debate over federal education policy, is designed to contribute to that debate It' looking at both the current dilemmas facing policymakers and some possible solutions to tlse problems.* " Earlier volumes in the series arePervectities on Federal Educational Policy An Informal Culloilitoni (1976), Federalism at the Crossroads Inzprou tag Educational Policymaking11976),and Educational Policyniakrag in the Carter Years (1978)All are available from the Institute for Educational Leadership, Bo,,x B, Suite 310, 1001 Connecticut Avenue N W , Washifig-ton D C. 20036, at prepaid prices of $1 50, $3 00 and $4 00, respectively O." In tt oductietz 3 Like its predecessors. this()luny includes a,,bruad cross - section of 'cwt., about what existing federal polrcies really are, and what they ought to he "Volumes such as this are part of the Institute's effort to strengthen and impro e the policy making system in American education. The AI* Institute is a priately supported, politically neutral forum and trainingcenter th4t emphasizes three,objectives, ---strenk,rthemng the formal and informal cuMmunicattuns links among policy makers. educators. researchers and those who pay for and who consume educational services. offering talentetl indi 'duals mid-career