The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; 7051; Interview with Terrel Bell

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. Labor Day, of course, means school has just begun, or is about to, for millions of students in this country -- from first-timers in kindergarten to old-timers in graduate or professional school. They all enter or re-enter an American education system that is teeming with unhappiness and turmoil, in some cases even despair. Unhappiness over the quality of the learning; turmoil over whose fault it is; despair over whether anything can or will be done about it. The specific problems are over budgets and priorities, curriculum and basics, discipline and discrimination -- among many, many others. They`re all problems the Reagan administration is trying to deal with, now, in a new approach to the federal government`s role in education. It`s an approach some think is right on the mark, others believe is going to turn the education system into an even bigger disaster. Tonight, we talk to the man in charge. Secretary of Education Terrel Bell. Robert MacNeil is off; Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Jim, the man in charge of that new approach is no stranger to education. He`s been a high school athletic coach, a science teacher and U.S. commissioner of education. And since taking over the Department of Education he has been no stranger to controversy. He`s made waves in some quarters with his support of a reduced federal role in education -- block grants and budget cuts -- as well as things like his plan to limit the Department`s role in pursuing sex discrimination cases in athletic sports. Calling the current decline in the quality of education a national disgrace. Secretary Bell has also set up a national commission on excellence in education. The commission will look at schools with high standards, and report back on how those schools are achieving those standards. Jim?

LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, welcome.

Sec. TERREL BELL: Thank you.

LEHRER: First, what do you see as the major failures of our education system?

Sec. BELL: Well, I think our major failures are on the teenage level. Our teenagers are just not reaching the levels of accomplishment that, by measures that we have, that we had expected. The college entrance examination scores, for example, have been declining now for 12 consecutive years. We simply have to do something about that. I`m concerned about the fact that we`ve stopped teaching, or the enrollments have tapered off considerably in teaching, foreign languages in a country, in a world, that`s shrinking, and in a nation where our international commerce is expanding. You can get a college degree in the United States without knowledge and competence in any language but English. And so on the higher education level, we surely need to do something about that as well as increase instruction on the secondary school level. I`d have to say that the achievement measures that we have on elementary school children are going up. But something happens on the teenage level, and in our high schools.

LEHRER: What do you think it is that happens?

Sec. BELL: Well, I don`t want to be too simplistic about a complex question. But I believe that we`ve lost some of the rigor and discipline that we used to have in our secondary schools.

LEHRER: What do you mean by discipline? Define discipline in your context.

Sec. BELL: Yes. I would refer to that in a broader context than just behavior. I would use "discipline" as it relates to the standards that you have, the requirements that you place upon students, and the students` ability themselves to discipline their minds and to pursue serious subject matter in a way so that they attain mastery.

LEHRER: What`s your impression or your reeling as to why this discipline has not been there? What has caused it to go away?

See. BELL: Well, I think it`s part of the total limes that we`re in. I think it relates to the home. I think it relates to the fact that we`ve been so concerned about the bottom level of the education ability span that we`ve been neglecting --

LEHRER: "Bottom level" meaning the people coming from disadvantaged circum- stances?

Sec. BELL: Yes. And slow learners and handicapped children. I don`t think we ought to abandon that, but I think we`ve been so obsessed with it that we have not challenged our able students or even the students that are in the mid-range of ability.

LEHRER: When you say "we" -- "we" haven`t challenged -- who do you mean?

Sec. BELL: Well, I`m speaking about the academic community, and I have to include myself in that. All of us that labor in the vineyard of education, I think, need to be seriously concerned about this, and soberly resolving to do something about it.

LEHRER: Where do you see the major responsibility? I mentioned at the beginning that, you know, there`s everybody`s talking about whose fault it is that all these bad things are happening, and the kids can`t read and write, and all that sort of thing. Where, very specifically, would you place some blame? Or responsibility, if not blame?

Sec. BELL: Well, I think that the local officials that set the standards and the requirements, and the state structure, has to carry most of the responsibility because the Tenth Amendment has delegated that to that source. Now. many would say, well, what about all the federal regulations that have been bothering us, and what about the federal priorities and requirements that come on, that they have to meet the rights of low-income and disadvantaged and minority and the handicapped children? So I know that federal intervention has had something to do with it.

LEHRER: A negative impact, do you think?

Sec. BELL: Well, I wouldn`t say "negative" in that it`s a negative thing to meet the needs of these students, but I`d say that I -- I think our pressure have shifted the priorities down to the lower range of ability of students, and I think that that`s had quite a bit to do with the fact that our teenagers are not achieving. One of the reasons I emphasize that is. we target over $3 billion on disadvantaged children. And that`s largely spent in the elementary schools. And that`s an area in which achievement has been going up. But the academic achievement of teenagers has simply got to be improved, in my opinion.

LEHRER: Well, when you say people at the local level, what you really mean are the citizen members of local school boards, right9

Sec. BELL: That`s right. And the school administrators, and the high school principals and the faculty members. I think, for example, if you permit a student to have too many electives on the high school level that they`re going to elect to not put too much stress on themselves. That`s sort of human nature. We all are inclined to go up to the level of expectations that are placed upon us. I think it`s typified by the tendency toward requiring minimum competency examinations. I don`t like that term, and I`ve been emphasizing that we ought to be pushing for maximum competency. I think we`ve been moving too much away from comprehensive examinations. I think that challenge itself is something that would stimulate youngsters to want to excel more. I don`t think there`s enough motivation and reward for excellence and serious study, particularly on the high school level.

LEHRER: And that motivation you say must come from the people who are running the school district, right?

Sec. BELL: But also, I think, from the parents. They need to support that. But I think the leadership -- the leadership structure -- needs to lead out in this regard.

LEHRER: How would you rate the average teacher, or the quality of the teaching that children receive in the public schools in this country right now?

Sec. BELL: Well, I think that we could improve in the teaching area. But I`d say we`re not supporting teachers the way we should. We`re not creating the conditions for them. I`d say that we`re not providing the rewards and incentives to attract some of the more bright and able young people to move into teaching. They`d rather go into education and law -- or engineering and law or medicine than into education. We don`t have a reward system that --

LEHRER: Meaning, we don`t pay them enough money?

Sec. BELL: Well, we don`t. And part of the problem that we don`t is, we have a monolithic salary structure. It`s a table of figures. It`s like looking up a train ticket to Chicago, I`ve said. And I think we need to have some exceptions to that and some opportunities. Now on the college level, we have academic rank, we have distinguished professors, and we reward college professors up on levels that are commensurate, and sometimes, with distinguished professors, that exceeds the university president`s salary. Now that`s unheard of as far as recognizing master teachers and distinguished teachers in our schools. And I think our teacher personnel practices in this country have been -- have been slow in changing, and I think the states and the local school districts ought to take a look at that. I think we ought to provide more incentive and reward and more recognition for teaching so higher qualified people and more gifted and talented young people will pursue teaching as a profession. The incentives, the rewards, the upward mobility opportunities are just not there like they ought to be.

LEHRER: I see. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Secretary, can we talk for a few moments about some of the specifics you`ve been involved with since you came to the Department of Education? For example, the whole question of block grants. The Congress has refused to go along with consolidating many of the major programs you wanted consolidated into block grants, like aid to the handicapped and the disadvantaged, and the bilingual program, and so on. Has that caused you to rethink the whole block grant approach for education?

Sec. BELL: No. We`re still committed to block grants. We have had some small success in that regard. There are 30 small federal programs, now, that have been put together in one block. They`ll go out to the states in one chunk of money with considerable more latitude than they`ve had. So we didn`t get as much as we wanted, but we got -- we got a pretty good-sized piece of that, and we`re going to continue to be urging moving more to block grants because we think it makes it possible for state and local authorities to use federal money in a more effective way than the narrow categorical approach does.

HUNTER-GAULT: Do you plan to go back and ask the Congress to rethink its exclusion of things like aid to the handicapped and the disadvantaged -- to include those into block grants?

Sec. BELL: We`re looking at some other possibilities, and we`re assessing where Congress and others were objecting to our proposals, and we`ll be coming forward with some additional proposals. They won`t be identical to the ones that we`ve had. For example, we know there`s objection to putting the aid to the disadvantaged and the handicapped in one block, but we see some other possibilities for program consolidation and block grants, and we`re going to be pursuing that. We`re not giving up on it. We`re pleased and we`re grateful to Congress for the progress that they did make. And we`re going to be moving more in that direction.

HUNTER-GAULT: Where do you see sort of redressing that balance, or achieving that balance, if you can`t put the ones we`ve talked about in? You said you saw some other possibilities.

Sec. BELL: Well, there are some other programs. We have about 158 programs in the Department of Education. There are some other programs that can fit in with some of these areas that you spoke about, and we`re hoping to come forward with some alternative proposals that we think will be more palatable and more acceptable to Congress. Perhaps our initial proposals were a bit too far-reaching and revolutionary. But we`re certainly not retreating from the block grant concept. This administration campaigned on that, and we think it will strengthen state ability to meet the needs of students.

HUNTER-GAULT: In what way, specifically, will that concept do that?

Sec. BELL: Well, you see, right now the responsibility belongs out there in the states. And we have 50 separate state education systems -- state constitutions, state taxation, state categorical aid programs. And so when you give narrow categorical aid from the federal level, it has to be something that is open and flexible enough so what you do in Vermont will also apply in California and Florida and Kansas. And so that`s the idea of the block grants is to give more flexibility to put a number of these programs together in one block, and give more discretion to state and local authorities to tailor and to harmonize this money with the state and local appropriations that they have. We need to remember that we`re dealing with 50 different state education systems. And so, highly prescriptive, narrow, categorical federal aid programs distort priorities out there. I`ve been in that arena, and I know what the problems are there from my own first-hand experience. So we hope that we`re going to be able to come forward with some other proposals that we think Congress will buy.

HUNTER-GAULT: Some of your critics, including some other local school officials, have said that giving greater flexibility and authority to the states at this time -- particularly at a time when there are such drastic budget reductions -- make it all but impossible for the states to take advantage of that flexibility and new authority.

Sec. BELL: Well, we think the contrary is true. We think we can eliminate the administrative expenses. And if we have to reduce budgets -- and we`re going to have to do that if we`re going to get a hand on inflation and solve the horrendous economic problems that we have. We think because of that it makes even more sense to move to a block grant so there`s more flexibility in utilizing the reduced resources that are available.

HUNTER-GAULT: Without the federal government sort of looking over the shoulder of the state and local governments, how can you assure that the monies provided under the block grant won`t be spent on frills, or diverted from the truly needy, who in many cases don`t have a local constituency to advocate for them?

Sec. BELL: Well, you see, you assure that if you have a federal law that says that you can spend the money. For example, our original proposal -- you can spend the money either on the handicapped or the disadvantaged, and you have discretion as to where you deploy those resources. Now, if you`re a state that has quite a strong program in state aid for the handicapped, then you can allocate more of the resources over to the disadvantaged. But we`re not just putting the money on a stump and walking off; the block grant proposal that we had still required that you spend the money on these -- on these target populations. And we have a lot of confidence in state legislatures and chief state school officers and state and local school boards that they`re as committed to these students as we are. And so. if we make those requirements, we think they`ll do the right thing with it.

HUNTER-GAULT: There have been rumors lately that there are going to be additional cuts in virtually every education program. Where will those cuts be made, and how will that affect the kinds of programs that you are running now?

Sec. BELL: We`re still assessing our position on federal education budgets. I`d just point out that the determination for 1981-82 -- this fiscal year that we`re just about to start -- has not been made yet. We have the authorization levels, but the actual appropriations haven`t been made. And we`re still looking for areas where we can reduce expenditures, bring our budget under control, thereby improving inflation, getting the economy back on the track -- which we think will strengthen the local tax base, and in the long run will be beneficial to education and everyone else.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Jim?

LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, on the block grant question, a follow-up on that. Wasn`t it the failure of the states and the localities to deal with these special problems of the disadvantaged and the handicapped and the people with bilingual problems as well that caused the federal government to get involved in the first place? You said a moment ago you were confident they would take care of them.

Sec. BELL: Yes. And that -- that`s really so. We`ve had -- back in 1965 was when the federal government started giving priority for education to low- income children. And at that time there weren`t state aid programs targeting on the disadvantaged. Since then there are over 30 states that now have their own programs. So we think that priority and that concept and that commitment is there. Now I`d concede to you that there were states that were neglecting handicapped children and were excluding them from school. But we think there`s a stronger commitment there now than before. And then, as I indicated in response to the previous question, we will require that the money be spent on the target population. We won`t be as prescriptive as we`ve been, and we`ll give latitude to allocate resources among three or four different program alternatives. But we`re just not going to turn it loose and say you can do anything you want to with it. So we think the states have been coming along. We think they`ve been strengthening their ability to manage and meet priorities and we think it`s time when we can express a little more confidence in them than we`ve had.

LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, let me ask you this. At a time when the education system, as you have said -- and everybody says -- is in deep trouble, at a time when everybody agrees, and always has agreed, that it is one of the most important things that this nation has, is its ability to educate ourselves, why is it then at this time that the federal government would decide to pull back in its role in education?

Sec. BELL: Well, first of all, it`s a state responsibility. It`s a federal concern. And that concern is expressed in the money that we`re allocating. But we`ve simply got to cut back on our expenditures on the federal level. Now, we`ll run a big deficit this year. I don`t know what size it`ll be. Some say it`s going to be $60 billion dollars. Well, you have to carry that indebtedness next year, and you`ve got to pay this high interest rate on it. And the interest on that indebtedness is almost enough to cover the budget for the entire Department of Education. And so we need to think about that, and we need to think about what inflation is doing to the local tax base as we do this. In the state where I served, we had three consecutive years of budget cuts by order of the governor because of revenue shortages. Revenues were falling off. Sales taxes were falling off. for example, because we weren`t building automobiles. We weren`t competitive with the Japanese in that area. Housing is falling off, and tax revenue from that -- employment and so on -- has been falling. So we think, in the long haul, that as we cut back -- and I`d prefer that they cut some other budget rather than education, but to be realistic about it. we`ve got to bear our pro-rata share of the cuts. And let me emphasize that we`re not cutting education any more deeply than some of the other departments in the federal government.

LEHRER: I wasn`t referring just to the budget cuts, but to the overall commitment that you and the president have, which is to withdraw the federal government not only in budget areas, but in regulatory matters and whatever, out of the education area as much as possible. That is a commitment you have, correct?

Sec. BELL: That`s right. And we think that`s going to be beneficial to education. We think we`ve been intervening too much. We think we`ve been hassling local and state officials. We think we`ve been on the campuses too much auditing, and almost harassing, in that regard. We think it`s time for us to draw back a little bit. And to let state and local authorities carry the responsibility.

LEHRER: What do you say to those, Mr. Secretary, who say, "Okay, you`re withdrawing the federal involvement in education with one hand, but then with the other hand the administration is supporting tuition tax credits for private schools, which, in effect, is encouraging the development of private schools" -- which is a federal involvement in education.

Sec. BELL: Sure. Well, we use our tax policy all the time to attain certain ends in this country. We`ve been incentives to spend money, for example, on energy saving in homes and in automobiles and so on. You can get certain tax credits for that. And as a person that`s biased about education, admittedly so, I`d say to you, why not give a tax break to someone who, in addition to paying their taxes for schools, are paying heavy tuition payments in addition to that. We need to have strong schools -- both public and private -- and so, we don`t think there`s anything inconsistent with that. We think we need good, viable private schools, and we think the competition and the freedom of choice is going to be healthy for American education. So I think that tuition tax credits -- small ones, the type that we`re talking about -- are not going to be all that bad.

LEHRER: We did a program on the question of -- specifically on tuition tax credits several weeks ago, and we had a person sitting right where you`re sitting there now saying, "Hey, wait a minute. What the end result of this is going to be is a two-tier education system in this country, where you`re going to have public schools for the poor, and private schools for everybody else."

Sec. BELL: Well, I think that`s not an expression of enough confidence in the public schools. We have some good public schools. We have some that are having difficulties. But we have some private schools that aren`t so good, either. And I just think that the public schools are going to do just fine. I think they`re going to be competitive. Speaking personally, my children go to public schools because I prefer them. And I can just tell you that I think the public schools are going to be robust and strong, and I don`t think this tuition tax credit program is going to do anything but strengthen them in the long haul.

LEHRER: Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Secretary, are you still committed to working yourself out of a job, in effect, by eliminating the department you head?

Sec. BELL: I surely am. My proposals are now -- been submitted to the president, and that was the understanding that I had when I took this position. And we`re quite a long ways along on that project, by the way.

HUNTER-GAULT: How do you expect to maintain a cohesive and rational national educational policy if you don`t have a department of education?

Sec. BELL: Well, there are other structures that we can have. We could have an independent agency structure; we could have education joining some other entity: we could have a foundation-type structure. So, there are many ways we could do that. We could establish a presidential advisor on education like we have one on science and in other areas. There are many possibilities like that that we think we can put together and not function on a departmental level.

HUNTER-GAULT: Is there one that you prefer -- you. yourself, prefer?

Sec. BELL: I have made a number of recommendations in my proposals to the president, and I have a choice. I don`t want to pre-empt the president on which one of those alternatives that he would want to -- want to select.

HUNTER-GAULT: I see. Is it your feeling, then, that a non-cabinet-level department can effectively implement federal legislation and court decisions and so on?

Sec. BELL: I think so. I think it depends upon what access you will have to whom when the decisions are being made. And I think that can be done. Take some of the agencies we have now. Take the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. They`re doing well. Look at the National Science Foundation, or closer, look at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They`ve been faring quite well, and they`ve had good access to the decisionmaking machinery. So we think there are other alternatives that are viable.

HUNTER-GAULT: Without the Department of Education, and with whatever entity happens to take its place, what -- in a general way, and also in a nutshell -- do you see as the appropriate role for the federal government in public education in the future`.`

Sec. BELL: Well. I think we ought to be in the -- in the capacity-building mode. I think we`d ought to help the states and local education entities and the colleges and universities to enhance their capacities to meet the educational needs of the students and the learners in this country. And so I think what strategies we have -- what aids and grants and assistance that we grant -- ought to be to enhance that capacity. That`s embodied in our large student financial aid program to college students -- our loans and grants. It`s embodied in the kinds of block grants that we were talking about earlier where we think we can provide resources that will enhance the capacities of the states. And as long as that responsibility is there -- and the Tenth Amendment delegated the responsibility for education -- then I think whatever we do on the federal level ought to respect that delegation, and that we`d ought to be doing all that we can to strengthen the capacity of the states and locals to do their job, and to carry out their responsibility, and not intervene and usurp their responsibilities.

LEHRER: I must intervene now, Mr. Secretary. We`re out of time. Thank you very much for being with us tonight.

Sec. BELL: Well, thank you.

LEHRER: Good night, Charlayne.

HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: All of you students, have a good school year, and well see you tomorrow night. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.