character and basic philosophy. I want to do something about education.

I think every President and every Secretary of HEW have had that philosophy. Invariably in looking across this table every man picked by a President on the recommendation of the Secretary of HEW has been of outstanding ability, background, and character. And every man, every one of you whom I know personally, has been deeply committed to doing something for education. You recognize the value of education in American society. Yet from 1965 to 1977, a period of 12 years, there have been 13 different men serving in the Office of Education. It appears to be a revolving door that turns rapidly, which means that there must be something in that office or the HEW organization that leads to great disappointment, great disillusionment or great frustration.

Now, I am just curious. From your various personal experiences, what is there about the Office of Education, the Commissionership of Education, that causes men of such commitment and such character to stay such a short time. To me that is the key issue. If we find this out, we might understand what in the Department of Education should be different. In my study there is not another nation in the entire world that puts together the constituencies of health, education and welfare in one ministry. Practically every country in the world rates education to such a high degree that there is a central figure responsible for the educational policies, direction, and implementation throughout the nation. So, if I may hear your answers before I get back to the Finance Committee. I am very anxious to have an answer to that question from all of you gentlemen. We can start with Dr. Bell.

Dr. BELL. Yes, Senator Ribicoff, I am, I guess, the most recent refugee from the commissionership out of this panel, so maybe it is appropriate that I speak first.

I would say that based upon my own experiences that first of all and maybe only speaking half seriously, the Commissioner is an executive level 5 in the Government structure, and in HEW that is one of the lowest forms of human life, if I can express it kiddingly, but also to make a point.

You have the responsibility, and I talked with Senator Nunn, before the hearing started. I was before him as a witness on the guaranteed student loan program. I left this hearing, Senator Nunn, determined that I was going to implement some of the decisions that there was a consensus at those long hearings that we would do. And I simply felt I had the responsibility for doing that, but I did not have the authority. I did not have the clout, in that huge organization.

I do not fault any Secretary in that regard. He has to have the kind of structure he has to function, but you cannot directly make the changes, promulgate the different actions that had to be taken in our rules to shape up that guaranteed loan program, and I use that as an example. You come to the job and you are soon disillusioned with it. I would say, Senator Ribicoff, that I served in the Office of Education as Deputy Commissioner, and then came back as Commissioner, and during that time I served under four Secretaries, and in my · term as Commissioner I served under two Secretaries—so turnnot just in the Commissionership, but I would say that you would get at the heart of the biggest problem with your bill, that the

Ove

Chief Education Officer would have standing and would be able to implement the policies and the positions that he wanted to take. Right now, by the time you get through all of the Assistant Secretaries and get the decisions made, and if you win on the Secretary level, then you do not have direct access to OMB, and you also do not have the opportunity to appeal to the Oval Office, OMB decision. The Secretary of HEW can only appeal to the Oval Office so many times, and then he starts losing his credibility and he uses all of that up on higher priorities such as: income maintenance problems, welfare reform, national health insurance, all of these biggies in his realm and so education is down the line quite a bit.

I would also say, Senator, that 22 percent of the people that work in HEW work for Education and 971⁄2 percent work for Health and Welfare. Now that notwithstanding 3 out of every 10 people in the United States are involved in education and we spend over $140 billion in education. Your proposed bill would not create a small department. It would be one of the largest-not the largest, but it would be a middle size department in the Federal structure. But all of this leads, I think, to some of the frustration and disillusionment that comes to anyone that sits in the Commissioner's chair, and that not withstanding I would say serving as U.S. Commissioner of Education from my point of view was a splendid misery and I am glad that I had the opportunity. Senator NUNN. May I add one other question that each one of you could answer as you go along. How many times do you recall meeting directly with the President concerning education matters?

Dr. BELL. Yes, I can respond. I never had the opportunity to meet directly with President Nixon except when I was appointed.

I had an opportunity to meet directly with President Ford on four different occasions, two of them were more ceremonial in nature. On one occasion I persuaded Secretary Matthews to escalate to the Oval Office a budget decision that OMB had made that I thought was unjust and unenlightened, and in that instance, when we finally did escalate one to the Oval Office, we won with President Ford. He overturned his OMB Director. But that was my experience in 2 years, notwithstanding it is difficult sometimes to get an audience with the Secretary-not that he does not care about education-he is just enormously, extremely busy, and it is hard to get to him to get your views expressed.

Dr. BROWNELL. Mr. Chairman, I guess I am the other end of the line. I was the first Commissioner of Education under HEW back in 1953 to 1956 when the Office of Education was brought in, in the Department.

In experience, I was there for about 3 years. I left because Detroit offered me twice as much money as I was getting at that time in the commissionership. Secondly, during that period of time as Commissioner I became so much concerned with the problems of the large cities and their significance that when I had the opportunity to get in and take some firsthand action, I felt the challenge and I wanted to do it.

As far as status is concerned. I think I would recognize that tremendous change has taken place. When I went, as I stated in my comments, the Secretary said to me when she asked me to come down here, "I want you to be Mr. Education in HEW." All during the time that I was there, if there were questions in policy or practices in regard to

JJJ35 077 - 18

education, they were always referred to the Office of Education and the Commissioner. If it was a matter of the White House or if it was a matter of OMB or if it was a matter of anyplace, the Commissioner was called in. From the standpoint of status there was no question about that. As Senator Ribicoff raised the question, or I guess you did, as to the number of times that I had an opportunity to see directly the President-I had a very considerable number of times when I was called upon to personally consider things with the President.

I think in the growth and development of HEW and the changes that have taken place, there have been changes there. And I would say one other thing about this matter of term. When I left, Secretary Folsom, then it was, asked for any suggestions I had about the office. One of them was this matter of term and continuity as far as the Commissioner was concerned.

The uncertainty of term for people in the academic field means that if you come in from a university position, you usually can get a leave of absence for a couple of years. The majority of the people who are in education are not people who have independent fortunes, and their future in education is, therefore, very uncertain. Where do they go from the commissionership? I think that a matter of a term appointment is one of the things that might very well be considered for retaining some of the people who have agreed to come down for a term, making arrangements accordingly, I think that might make some difference. Certainly the matter of status is another one, the matter of protocol within this Government and their relationships with others.

Mr. Howe. Mr. Chairman, I am Harold Howe. In answer to your first question, I served in the commissionership for exactly 3 years1966, 1967, and 1968. I left because President Nixon during the campaign made promises that he was going to fire me, and when he got elected, I decided to beat him to it and submitted my resignation effective December 31, 1968.

I do not agree with Sam Brownell, that the commissionership, or the chief U.S. position in education, should be a fixed-term position. I think it is sufficiently a policy position so that it should appropriately come and go with administrations, but I do think that the idea of raising the level of status of the chief U.S. officer in education is an important thing to do. It seems to me that it might have the effect you imply of bringing further continuity in that officership, whether it is at the Cabinet level or within HEW, but I think it would have additional important effect in bringing continuity to major appointments just under the chief officer. There has been considerable rotation and change in the assistant commissionerships, associate and deputy commissionerships, and one of the tough jobs of any commissioner and certainly one of mine was to persuade the best people to take those very important jobs at relatively low levels of Government appointment. So that raising the top level will make it easier to fill many. many important jobs.

In response to your second question or Senator Nunn's question— I really cannot remember how many times I saw the President of the United States. I served with President Johnson, and he was deeply and directly interested in and involved in education. He probably knew more about the details of the education laws than I did-really

an extraordinary performance for a President. He rode pretty close herd on his Commissioner of Education and had within the White House a special assistant for purposes of education, Douglas Cater, so that the avenue from the commissionership to the Presidency was an easy and open one at the time that I served. The Commissioner has not always had easy access to the White House, and I think education benefits when he/she does.

Mr. KEPPEL. Mr. Chairman, I am Frank Keppel, and I served just before Harold Howe.

Let me first take up the question of seeing the President. I saw the President two or three times under President Kennedy, and more than that with President Johnson for the reasons that Mr. Howe just gave. It was, as you recall, as a very active legislative season between 1962 and 1966-which was my period of service.

I do not want to repeat what has been said before. There is one other point that might be relevant, Senator Ribicoff, and that is as this new legislation developed, relations between the Federal Government, the executive branch, and the States became more complicated.

I will argue later in my testimony that this is an important reason for having a Secretary at the Cabinet level in order to improve the Federal/State relations.

Dr. MARLAND. Senator, I will be brief. My name is Sidney Marland. I was Commissioner of Education and Assistant Secretary over a 32year period in the Nixon administration.

To answer Senator Nunn's question, I suppose I saw the President perhaps six or eight times, notably during the first administration of that particular period and very little in the second. I think that answers in part the other question-why the turnover.

I think that when the Administration at the top level either loses interest in education or finds other priorities that occupy it more deeply, the Commissioner of Education has very little advocacy in the system. This is not in any way to derogate the Secretary. I worked under Secretary Richardson, and I bow to no one in my admiration for him as a Secretary of HEW. He was spread so thinly for all of his vast competencies that he had very little time for day-to-day advocacy in education at the highest political level, and I think the frustrations that are implicit in that contribute to what you have questioned, Senator Ribicoff, namely, the turnover. One works as hard as he can in this post, and all of the people at this table, all of whom I know worked typically 16 or 18 hours a day nearly every day. And at some point the fulfillment that derives from that work gets thin unless there is a corresponding accomplishment of objectives. It is implicit in the work and the will of such individuals as may be commissioners of education to find satisfaction in facilitating visible improvements in education. If curbed by political or other ambiguities they find their satisfactions by moving on perhaps, after serving a respectable span of time.

Dr. MCMURRIN. I am Sterling McMurrin. I served as Commissioner of Education during the administration of President Kennedy and Secretary Ribicoff.

I must say, honestly, Secretary Ribicoff, if you may recall, that I resigned the commissionership because you left the Office of the Secretary to go to the Senate. I would not have resigned had you remained as Secretary. Thereafter, your successor, Secretary Celebrezze, almost

convinced me that I should stay on as Commissioner, but by then my mind was set and I had agreed to return to my university.

I did not resign out of any sense of frustration. I must admit that there were frustrations. The level of one's frustration, I presume, is measured in terms of his expectations. And I faced the position as Commissioner with, I think, a strong and realistic sense that there were very real limitations on what could be achieved.

With respect to access to the administration-I must say that I always had immediate access to Secretary Ribicoff. At no time did I ever seek a session with him that I was unable to have fulfilled. I believe that I was in conversations with President Kennedy on matters of education on three different occasions.

I strongly support this bill because I believe that education deserves higher recognition in the eyes of the public and in the Govern ment than it now enjoys. But I must say that as Commissioner of Education, at no time did I feel that within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Office of the Commissioner lacked status. I think it did lack status in the eyes of the public generally, somewhat in the opinion of the press, and in those days it was not very well known among educators. But under Secretary Ribicoff, the Office of Education was given very high status and recognition and, I felt, a high priority in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Chairman RIBICOFF. Thank you very much.

Before I go back to Finance, I wonder if we could take just a oneminute recess so I could go down and say hello to each one of the gentlemen individually.

Senator NUNN. Mr. Chairman, I will give that strong consideration and let you know in just a minute. [Laughter.]

Go right ahead.

[At which time there was a short recess.]

TESTIMONY OF DR. TERREL H. BELL, COMMISSIONER OF HIGHER EDUCATION, STATE OF UTAH, DR. SIDNEY P. MARLAND, PRESIDENT, COLLEGE ENTRANCE EXAMINATION BOARD; HAROLD HOWE II, VICE PRESIDENT FOR EDUCATION, THE FORD FOUNDATION; FRANCIS KEPPEL, DIRECTOR FOR THE PROGRAM ON EDUCATION, ASPEN INSTITUTE FOR HUMANISTIC STUDIES; DR. STERLING M. McMURRIN, DEAN, GRADUATE SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH; AND DR. SAMUEL M. BROWNELL, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, YALE UNIVERSITY-A PANEL

Senator NUNN. I just want to say-Senator Ribicoff has left-I do not think that education has a better friend in Congress than Abe Ribicoff. With Senator Ribicoff as chairman of this Committee on Governmental Affairs, and his deep interest and experience in the field of education and in the administration of HEW, I believe this particular piece of legislation has the best sponsorship it could possibly have in Senator Ribicoff. I think for that reason we are all indebted to him and his leadership in this regard.

Why don't we start back with Dr. Bell, and if we have covered parts of your testimony, I would suggest that perhaps you skip those parts so we can go ahead as expeditiously as possible.