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Welcome and Introduction
Remarks by Marshall Smith
Remarks by The Honorable Chaka Fattah (D-PA)
Panel on GEARUP
Panel on LAAP and Distance Learning
Luncheon
Panel on Title II Teacher Quality
Wrap Up Session
M. Armacost: I'm Mike Armacost and it's my pleasure as president of The Brookings Institution to welcome you all today.
We are delighted to be able to host a continuing series of programs on higher education and public policy in that field. And looking through the program for this morning, I was delighted to see that three of the participants — Mike Timpane, Art Hauptman and Lois Rice — were among the architects of the Brown Center on Education Policy that was established in the early '90s. And Mike Smith, who will be the keynote speaker this morning, did a very seminal paper for us that helped chart the program of research which we've pursued in the field of K through 12 education reform.
In a way that remains the heart of our activities. And yet, we're pleased that grants from the German Marshall Fund, the College Board, Miriam Carliner Fund has permitted us to continue remaining active on issues that relate to higher education.
We have tended to focus, as you would expect from an institution like Brookings, on the federal role in higher education. We've dwelt very heavily on the ways in which the college aid and other instruments can help assure a high participation rate by low income students, and we've looked at — particularly at vehicles like the income tax credit, tuition tax credit, that can supplement other instruments to accomplish that purpose.
We continue to publish in this field — a book by Art Hauptman, Larry Glido [ph], The College Aid Quandary, and Lois published a brief on the tuition tax credits last year.
This session today will focus heavily on implementation. That, likewise, is in keeping with our institution, which has, throughout its history, emphasized not only legislative initiatives but particularly how the performance of government is affected by the execution. So in looking at three important initiatives in the Higher Education Act — to me, this is thoroughly consistent with our charter and very important to the quality of higher education. And I wish you well in your session today and will drop by throughout the day to participate.
Let me turn it back over to Lois Rice.
L. Rice: Thank you, Mike.
As Mike has just noted — thank you — as Mike has just noted, today's forum represents a continuation in a series of discussions sponsored by the Brown Center relating to the federal role in higher education. But today, we're moving beyond concepts and ideas, as Mike also indicated, to actual legislative provisions that must be implemented.
And too often, implementation is the forgotten element of the public policy process, lost after the shouting and the emotion of legislative enactment has subsided.
We hope to rectify that tendency today by examining three initiatives that were included in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act last year. Each seeks to address critical policy concerns — namely, improving the chances of at-risk youth to go to college through the GEARUP program; addressing a series of difficult issues relating to the growing role of distance learning in higher education, and particularly how it can relate to non-traditional students; and improving teacher quality. All of these efforts are so critical to improving the quality of education, particularly the education of the low-income, minority and disadvantaged students.
Each initiative also requires a new set of partnerships — between states; among business, higher education institutions, local communities, and elementary and secondary schools.
I've worked both in the higher education policy world and in the corporate world. And I must say I've become rather impressed, though business moves slowly, with the efforts that business has made in the last decade to join with schools and local communities, and with state agencies, to improve the quality of elementary and secondary education. In fact, the business community, in my view, has been much more concerned with its pipeline and the quality of people it might recruit for its workforce than our higher education institutions have been in the pipeline of the students they're going to recruit to their institutions.
So these partnerships between schools and colleges are — and other entities — are at the heart of each of the initiatives we're going to focus on today.
A principal goal of the forum is to identify early on — what are the possible obstacles to success of these initiatives and to find ways to overcome them.
These issues include questions of funding; program design and regulation. For example, how much funding is needed to test the viability of these initiatives? What are the tensions with existing programs that already have constituencies and advocates? Is the legislation well designed? Or will the inevitable compromises that accompany the legislative process and the implementation process serve to inhibit the progress of these initiatives? What issues have arisen in how the Department of Education is carrying out the legislation? Are certain aspects of the legislation being emphasized at the cost of ignoring other key elements of the programs?
In addition to these general questions, we've asked each of the panelists to consider two more specific questions. First, is it possible that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which is up for reauthorization in this Congress, is it possible that it could be modified to improve the chances of success of these initiatives in higher education? Can we, as we're fostering partnerships between higher education and local schools, think — possibly for the first time — of a partnership between ESEA and higher education?
I feel there is a clear opportunity as we move towards the reauthorization of ESEA for integrating the federal role in different levels of education, a goal that has often been discussed, but rarely acted upon.
Second, are there ways in which we might simplify and rationalize the student aid process to increase the chances of success of each of these initiatives? This also is a recurring, but unachieved, goal — the notion of having a financial aid system which students and their parents can readily understand and university officials can efficiently administer.
As to the format of the panels today, in each case, we've asked two administration officials to begin the discussion. One will describe the thinking behind the initiative, and the other will describe the current status of the program — what type of participants have been applying for it? How many applications have been received and how they are going about selecting and making the awards?
Then the panelists have been asked to respond to these administration presentations, identifying areas that might require further elaboration and suggesting ways in which improvements can be made. We've asked each panelist to keep their remarks to five to 10 minutes to allow for a high level of audience participation.
To speed things along, we're going to pass out shortly bios on each of the panelists and other speakers so our introductions will be brief.
Let me conclude on a personal note.
I have been devoted to broadening education opportunities — particularly for low-income and minority students — all of my professional life, whether it be in the higher education arena, or in the corporate arena. We've made much progress, including the evolution of Pell grants, the explosion in student loans, the campus-based aid programs, and the trio programs of student support. But for all the money we've spent, and all the effort we've expended, we still have glaring gaps between rich and poor and between the traditional college student and non-traditional learning.
Today, in 1999, the gaps in the college participation rate of students from the lowest income groups compared to those from the highest are as wide as they were in 1970, and that was even before Pell grants.
These new initiatives, in my view, have the potential of finally breaking down the barriers to higher education by complementary — complementing and supplementing the existing student financial aid programs and other support programs. That's why I'm so glad to welcome you here today.
But before concluding, I want to give some special thanks and appreciation to the people who have made this forum possible: David Carliner [ph] — I'm not sure he's here — who has funded the Miriam Carliner Fund here at Brookings in honor of his wife who was, for a long time, an official at the Department of Education, and he has devoted, in her memory, funds to higher education policy analysis here at Brookings.
I also want to thank the College Board, the German Marshall Fund, and the other sponsors that Mike also mentioned earlier.
I also want to particularly thank my collaborator, who also worked with me on the tuition tax credit and meshing those programs with student aid publication, Art Hauptman, who has been my collaborator in this effort and in so many others in the past.
Also, a number of my colleagues here at Brookings — Kathleen Elliot Yinug — Kathleen, raise your hand — who has put this whole thing together; Ron Nessen and Robert Dabrowski, many of the people here at Brookings, as well as Mike Armacost, who despite efforts, I think, to move away from higher education policy, has helped me to stick in there and move ahead.
I also want to thank a number of the people in the Department of Education whose enthusiasm for having this forum really allowed it to happen.
Before introducing our next speaker, I want to just mention one wonderful change in our agenda. In the first panel, which is GEARUP, we are going, as your original program announcement indicated, we are going to have with us Steve Zwerling, from the Ford Foundation. We welcome you, Steve. I know you've had a difficult week, and I'm delighted that you showed up this morning. Thank you for coming.
It's now my pleasure to introduce our first speaker.
I guess, when you get older, your relationships with a number of people become almost incomprehensible that it's — you know, I've known David Mandel over here; I worked with him for 30 years; and Mike Smith reminded me this morning, who I'm going to introduce — Lois, just say that we've worked together for 25 years. Well, it's true. We have worked together in one incarnation or another for 25 years, and also, Mike is a special friend.
Marshall Smith, as he's known officially, is the acting deputy secretary and undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Education. He and Secretary Riley — I think, he — Mike, first of all, has the distinction of being the longest acting deputy secretary in the history of the department. And he and Secretary Riley also have the distinction, having been — Secretary Riley the longest secretary and Mike the longest active undersecretary of the Department of Education. That has been, frankly, despite all the criticism, one of the most stable departments in the government, particularly during this whole regime.
I also want to just mention that Mike has initiated and carried out for 25 years, either in the public sector, when he was dean at the School of Education at Stanford, or working in other places, in public service, as well as in public service, he has shown a consistency and a commitment to performance, to change, to daring new directions. And he's even had the audacity on several occasions to come to us at Brookings and say — Look, we need a little help. Can we just meet informally, maybe even at the Cosmos Club for breakfast.
Anyway, Mike is going to set the tone for this conference, and I want to welcome him, both as a friend, a colleague and a leader.
Thank you, Mike.
[APPLAUSE AND END OF WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION.]
Also Available:
Welcome and Introduction
Remarks by Marshall Smith
Remarks by The Honorable Chaka Fattah (D-PA)
Panel on GEARUP
Panel on LAAP and Distance Learning
Luncheon
Panel on Title II Teacher Quality
Wrap Up Session