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Race, Gender, and Equity Policy: The Case of the National Institute of Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Paul Mattingly  and
Marilyn Tobias
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Extract

During the New Deal a new federal bureaucracy emerged as an important and problematic component in the history of policy making. The national emergency of the Depression began a sector-by-sector response to problems beyond the means of states or locales. This new role reversed a longstanding tradition of local initiative and state authority in democratic decision making, a tradition particularly cherished in the history of American public schools. Setting federal standards and procedures, particularly in areas where local leaders deemed it impolitic to act, produced consequences that some may have deemed necessary but which were not always predictable or desirable. By the 1960s politicians along the ideological spectrum recognized the political advantage of professional assessment and independent research into federal policy making. Particularly in education, so familiar yet so controversial, reliable and accurate knowledge would not only serve the needs of elected lawmakers; it would provide the legitimation for both the federal role and a new conception of enlightened citizenship.

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History of Education Quarterly , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , Winter 1999 , pp. 397 - 426
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Copyright © 1999 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1 Glennan, Thomas testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee (March 9, 1973) Congressional Information Service [hereafter CIS] CIS: 1973 H181–24, pp. 137–243.Google Scholar

2 See, for example, Critchlow, Donald, The Brookings Institution, 1916–1952: Expertise and the Public Interest in a Democratic Society (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1985). also Lindblom, Charles E. and Cohen, David K. Useable Knowledge: Social Science and Social Problem Solving (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979). Thoughtful presentations of the “institutional” discourse must include Powell, W. W. and Dimaggio, Paul The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991) and March, James G. and Olsen, Johan P. Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics (New York: Free Press, 1989).Google Scholar

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6 NIE officially arose out of an authorization in the Educational Amendments of 1972, signed by Nixon, President Richard CIS: 1973 S181–34.14, pp. 4193.Google Scholar

7 Kaestle, Carl F. and Smith, Marshall S. “The Federal Role in Elementary and Secondary Education, 1940–1980,“ Harvard Educational Review, 52:4 (November 1982): 384–408; see also Hugh Davis Graham's important book, An Uncertain Triumph: Federal Education Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Years (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984); Dershimer, Richard A. The Federal Government and Educational R&D (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1976).Google Scholar

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11 Zodhiates, , “Bureaucrats and Politics,“ pp. 28–36. President Ronald Reagan substantially cut NIE's budget to a fraction ($52M in 1982) of its original outlay. In addition, his appointee, secondary school headmaster, Edward Curran, first defended the federal role in research during his nomination hearings, then a few months afterward recommended the elimination of NIE as a cost-saving measure. Reagan's own Secretary of Education Terrel Bell, a former NCER member, fired Curran for this action but could not forestall an “extensive complaint” submitted to the Merit Systems Protection Board by NIE staffers against NIE leadership. The complaint specified the substitution of “political appointees” instead of scientific and technical experts within civil service competitions. CIS: 1983 S541–18, pp. 393–406.Google Scholar

12 Zodhiates, “Bureaucrats and Politics,“ 28–36. For differing views on staff quality at NIE and OERI, see Kaestle, , Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade, pp 40–41, 47–49.Google Scholar

13 Sproull, , Organizing an Anarchy, pp. 17–19.Google Scholar

14 Thomas Glennan regularly asked congressional committees not to expect “beat the clock” results and to support a carefully orchestrated research program. See Glennan's testimony before the House Appropriations subcommittee (March 9, 1973) CIS H181–24.2, pp. 137–243. His successor, Hodgkinson, Harold tried to create professional breathing room by insisting (very effectively) that research needed greater governmental support. In the 1970s educational research programs, he argued, received a fraction of one percent of the $100 billion Americans annually spent on education. See Hodgkinson's testimony (Friday, May 2, 1975) before the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, CIS S541–69.1. Neither director showcased equity as a priority or equity programs as an NIE legitimation during any of their congressional appearances.Google Scholar

15 Sproull, , Organizing an Anarchy, p. 61.Google Scholar

16 For the differing views of former NIE directors regarding NCER's role as a buffer, see Kaestle, , Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade, pp. 53–55. Some directors preferred to concede to NCER the primary policy shaping role, while others treated it as advisory only.Google Scholar

17 The Minutes of the National Council on Educational Research, hereafter “NCER Minutes” (July 10, 1973). These documents are located in the NCER Staff Chiefs Office, National Institute of Education, Washington. See also Sproull, Organizing an Anarchy, pp.69, 168–78.Google Scholar

18 NCER Minutes ((December 3, 1973).Google Scholar

19 NCER Minutes (March 13, 1974) and (July 12, 1974); also Memo of Egermeier, John (April 24, 1974); Interview with John Egermeier (September 21, 1979).Google Scholar

20 Interview with Egermeier, John (September 5, 1979); also Susan Stairs Memo of June 15, 1973: “Postdoctoral Program.”Google Scholar

21 Stairs, Susan, “Minorities and Educational Research: A Challenge for NIE,“ (April 5, 1973). NIE inherited 140 people from the Office of Education, mostly white males. Due to an “old boy network” within the agency (OE) the attraction of minorities and women became difficult in these early years. In retrospect, the presence of women and minorities was thought to have more importance for special programs like the Minorities and Women Program than for general “program development.” Interview with Emerson Elliott (September 21, 1979).Google Scholar

22 See Glennan, Thomas before the House Committee (March 9, 1973), CIS: Microfiche H181–24.2, pp. 137–242; and Hodgkinson, Harold before the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare (Friday, May 2, 1975) CIS: Microfiche S541–69.1). In this same testimony Hodgkinson acknowledged delays in setting up NCER, thus a weakening of agency priorities, and the gravitation of NIE toward “pragmatic” rather than “basic” research. Hodgkinson first testifies to NIE work on minority and women issues to Congress during budget hearings for FY 1978 (March 25, 1977) but puts them last in a list of new departures warranting budget increases. CIS: Microfiche (1977) H181–38.13, pp. 780–854.Google Scholar

23 Stairs, Susan, “Minority Training Strategies for NIE Consideration,“ (1973).Google Scholar

24 Interview with John Egermeier (September 5, 1979).Google Scholar

25 Letter of Susan Stairs to Glennan, Thomas (February, 16, 1973) and reply of Glennan, Thomas to Susan Stairs, (February 23, 1973). Glennan had already expressed his reservations about socially activist policies based on “weak research. When he particularly mentioned “Head Start” and “community-action programs” in his first congressional testimony, he received enthusiastic praise from Reps Obey of Wisconsin and Edith Green of Oregon. cf CIS 1973: H181–24.2, pp186 ff.Google Scholar

26 Interview with Collins, Carter (September 6, 1979).Google Scholar

27 Sproull, , Organizing an Anarchy, p. 145; Interview with Raizen, Senta A. (September 7, 1979).Google Scholar

28 For perspectives on the continual reorganizations of NIE, see Kaestle, , Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade, pp 30–32.Google Scholar

29 Memo of Egermeier, John, “Long Range Program to Increase Participation of Minority Personnel in Education R&D“ (May 22, 1974); Memo of John Egermeier to Senta Raizen, A. (June 10, 1974); Memo of Egermeier, John to Fallander, Andrew [Assistant Director for Research Grants Management]: “Short-Range Strategies for Increasing Participation of Minorities in NIE Activities.” (June 5, 1974); Egermeier, John “R&D Support Program: 1976–1980 Program plan.” (May 28, 1974).Google Scholar

30 Memo of Barnes, Edward to Executive Committee NIE: “Increasing Participation of Minorities and Women in NIE Research: Focus on Proposal Review Procedures and Criteria for Selecting Proposals.” (1974)Google Scholar

31 Interview with Raizen, Senta A. (September 7, 1979). Elliott, (b in Ann Arbor Michigan in 1933) had attended Albion, College (BA 1955) before graduate work at the University of Michigan (MPA 1957). His career was almost entirely Washington–based in issues of finance, policy and statistical analysis. Since 1982 he served as head of the Center for Educational Statistics. However, he would serve once more as Acting Director of NIE in 1985. Who's Who in American Education (New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who, 1995 [4th ed]), p. 269.Google Scholar

32 NCER Minutes (October 17, 1974); Interview with Emerson Elliott (September 21, 1979).Google Scholar

33 NCER Minutes (March 7, 1975) and (April 4, 1975). NIE was clearly pressured by the severe criticism of the Directors of the Labs and Centers, particularly with respect to the effect of their work implied in planning for FY 1976. Interview with Elliott, Emerson (September 21, 1979).Google Scholar

34 “R&D Funding Policies of the National Institute of Education: Review and Recommendations: The Final Report of the Consultants to the Director and the National Council on Educational Research” (August, 1975), p. 67. Specific strategies of feminist organization in this period included law suits, lobbying and testimony which substantiated their claims. For example, Sandler, Dr. Bernice Chairman of the Action Committee for Federal Contract Compliance of the Women's Equity Action League, provided in her congressional testimony some statistics that pointed to a “worsening” situation for academic women in 1970 as compared with some other historical periods. She highlighted the dearth of research opportunities for women with doctorates, many of whom landed up in junior and commuity colleges where research opportunities were minimal. Sandler's Statement before the U. S. Congress, Special Subcommittee on Education of the Committee on Education and Labor, Hearings, 91st Congress, 2d Session, June 17, 19, 26, 29,30, 1970, pp 298–301, 314. Excerpts in “Academic Women attack institutional discrimination: Sandler, Bernice (1970),” in Lerner, Gerda (ed) The Female Experience: An American Documentary (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977, 1992), pp. 251–56.Google Scholar

35 “R&D Funding Policies of the National Institute of Education: Review and Recommendations: The Final Report of the Consultants to the Director and the National Council on Educational Research” (August, 1975), p. 77 Google Scholar

36 NCER Minutes, (September 18, 1975). Wilson Riles had served since 1971 as California's State Superintendent of Public Instruction.Google Scholar

37 Interview with Moorman, Hunter (September 6, 1979). See also his report of March 25, 1976: “Minority Participation in Educational R&D.” See the memo of Saul Yanofsky [Chief of Program Operation SPCS to Harold Hodgkinson, Emerson Elliott and Marshall Smith (November 12, 1975) as well as the memo of Smith, Marshall to Hodgkinson, Harold (November 17, 1975).Google Scholar

38 Sproull, , Organizing an Anarchy, p. 153. also Interview with Raizen, Senta A. (September 7, 1979); Interview with Moorman, Hunter (September 6, 1979).Google Scholar

39 Memo of Raizen, Senta A. to Names Addressed (c. June, 1976).Google Scholar

40 Memo of Collins, Carter [Director's Special Assistant for Equity] (June 7, 1976); NCER Minutes (January 15, 1976) contain the remarks of Emerson Elliott concerning the priority which both the Council and Director Hodgkinson had placed upon the equity issue.Google Scholar

41 Memo of Klein, Susan to Raizen, Senta A. and Task Force Membership (July 29, 1976); Interview with Raizen, Senta A. (September 7, 1979); Interview with Hunter Moorman (September 6, 1979)Google Scholar

42 NCER Minutes (March 26, 1976).Google Scholar

43 NCER Minutes (May 28, 1976): Attachment A – Letter of Corbally, John E. to NCER, “Some Thoughts on NCER-NIE.” (May 25, 1976)Google Scholar

44 Interview with Elliott, Emerson (September 21, 1979); Interview with Hunter Moorman (September 6, 1979); Interview with Egermeier, John (September 5, 1979).Google Scholar

45 Sproull, , Organizing an Anarchy, pp. 18–19: In 1964 President Johnson's Task Force on Education, chaired by Gardner, John recommended the creation of Regional Educational Laboratories. The Laboratories were intended to tie research and development activities more closely to educational practice by creating new curricular and instructional methods based on the latest research findings. They were to reduce fragmentation of effort and to eliminate piecemeal curriculum reform, intermittent production and new hardware and disorganized attempts to improve methodology. Their work was to be complementary to, and in some cases overlapping with, the efforts of R&D centers. Governing boards of the laboratories were to be composed of representatives of state departments of education, colleges and universities, private and public schools, and industrial and cultural organizations. Also “Laboratories and Centers for R&D:” Comment: A Research/Action Report on Wo/Men, 11:3 (July 1979), p. 6.Google Scholar

46 “Training in Knowledge Production and Utilization Functions [KPU] for Minorities” (1976): see Educational Amendments of 1976 in which the Laboratories and Centers [L/C] are mandated to “provide… training opportunities for women and minority groups.” The L/Cs generally thought to be resistant to the Minorities and Women Program, particularly were their use of these groups to be considered an “indicator” of program progress.” Interview with Miller, LaMar (September 24, 1979).Google Scholar

47 Interview with Raizen, Senta A. (September 7, 1979); Interview with Turk, Eunice (September 5, 1979); Interview with Elliott, Emerson (September 21, 1979).Google Scholar

48 Interview with Raizen, Senta A. (September 7, 1979); Interview with Moorman, Hunter (September 6, 1979).Google Scholar

49 The only other place where such discussions began to surface at this time was in the NCER meetings. Harold Howe, a member of the Council (NCER Minutes, November 5, 1976, p. 11) argued that educational research wrongly emulated the physical science methodologies and scientific status. Instead, he urged the cultivation of “non-quantitative research approaches” which may well have fomented debate over the undefined goals of this and other NIE programs. One might recall, too, that the earliest meetings of the equity issue called for definitions of key terms as a prerequisite to policy formation. In this respect one must see the NCER holding a highly distinct, though parallel, course to the work of NIE's professional staff. Though not a clear emphasis, non-quantitative measures were considered in the program planning during the NIE/AERA September conference in Washington. NIE/AERA Higher Education Component Meeting: Program to Increase the Participation of Minorities and Women in Education Knowledge Production and Utilization… December 17, 1976, p. 17.Google Scholar

50 NIE/AERA Higher Education Component Meeting… (December 17, 1976).Google Scholar

51 See Kaestle, , Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade, pp 30–32, regarding problems in funding levels at NIE and education R&D.Google Scholar

52 The “Guidelines” for the program ultimately insisted that it was not permissible to use race, color or sex as the sole criterion for determining eligibility. Instead, federal funds could be used in support of affirmative action to overcome the effects of conditions which result in limiting participation by persons of a particular race, color, national origin or sex.Google Scholar

53 “Long Range Program to Increase Participation of Minority Personnel in Educational R&D.” (Draft) May 22, 1974: “Civil Rights Legislation;” Memo of John Egermeier to Senta A. Raizen: “Long Term Minority Training.”Google Scholar

54 NIE/AERA Higher Education Component Meeting… (December 17, 1976).Google Scholar

55 NCER Minutes (September 17, 1976).Google Scholar

56 NIE/AREA Higher Education Component Meeting, p. 1. Miller, saw the “networking” effect of the University of Michigan's Institute for Survey Research as a compelling influence on his career and his work in this NIE program. Interview with LaMar Miller, (September 24, 1979). The Federal Census for these years has listed a figure of 11% for the black percentage of the American population: see Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part I (Washington DC, 1975), p. 8. The NIE/AERA conference operated on a figure of 17% of the black population in the United States.Google Scholar

57 NIE/AERA Higher Education Component Meeting, p64.Google Scholar

58 Jones, Faustine C. “Blacks in the Educational Establishment,“ History of Education Quarterly, 17:4 (Winter 1977): 471–79.Google Scholar

59 Many anthologies conveniently collected the thinking over the years in question. See, for example, Willie, Charles V. and Edmonds, Ronald R. (eds.), Black Colleges in America: Challenge, Development, Survival (New York: Teachers College Press, 1978).Google Scholar

60 Bayer, Alan E., The Black College Freshman (Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 1972). Miller saw himself trying to strike a “balance” among existing groups to be served. Studies like Bayer's were not in evidence in guideline preparation or in the judgement of the first set of proposals. Interview with LaMar Miller (September 24, 1979).Google Scholar

61 Ibid.Google Scholar

62 Franklin, Vincent P. and Anderson, James D. (eds.), New Perspectives on Black Educational History (Boston, Mass: G. K. Hall 1979), especially the essays on Hampton Institute, Fisk University and Howard University School of Law; also Weinberg, Meyer A Chance to Learn: A History of Race and Education in the United States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 263–336.Google Scholar

63 Knowles, Louis L. and Prewitt, Kenneth (eds.), Institutional Racism in America (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969).Google Scholar

64 Cf. James, D. Anderson's important study, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1988).Google Scholar

65 It is handy to have Dubois's, W. E. B. own thoughts on the separate versus mixed schools for blacks. Though he was speaking more generally and about public schools rather than higher education, his words bear on this case: “… theoretically, the Negro needs neither segregated schools nor mixed schools. What he needs is Education. What he must remember is that there is no magic either in mixed schools or in segregated schools…. Other things being equal, the mixed school is the broader, more natural basis for the education of all youth. It gives wider contacts; it inspires greater self-confidence; and suppresses the inferiority complex. But other things are seldom equal, and in that case, Sympathy, Knowledge, and the Truth outweigh all that the mixed school can offer.” Dubois, W. E. B., “Does the Negro Need Separate Schools,“ (1935) cited in Franklin, Vincent P. “W.E. B. Dubois and the Education of Black Folk,” History of Education Quarterly, 16:1 (Spring 1976): 111–18.Google Scholar

66 Phillips, Don, “Draft“ dated (December 20, 1976): “Recommendations for the Non-L/C Portion of the Women/Minority Program”, p. 5.Google Scholar

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68 NIE/AERA Higher Education Component Meeting, p. 43.Google Scholar

69 For an important statement about the power of such peer group support, see Fisher, Berenice “The Wise Old Men and the New Women: Christopher Lasch Besieged,“ History of Education Quarterly, 19:1 (Spring 1979): 125–41.Google Scholar

70 Knowles, and Prewitt, (eds) Institutional Racism in America; Katz, Michael B. Class, Bureaucracy and Schools (New York: Praeger, 1971), pp. 110–113.Google Scholar

71 Interview with Valdevieso, Rafael (September 7, 1979). NIE/AERA Higher Education Component Meeting, p. 93.Google Scholar

72 Interview with Miller, LaMar (September 24, 1979).Google Scholar

73 While some comprehensive studies, like Barbara, M. Solomon's In the Company of Education Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), were not yet available, a growing body of scholarship relating to the history of higher education was making its mark in dissertation studies, articles, and books. See, for example, Roberta Frankfort's Collegiate Women: Domesticity and Career in Turn-of-the-Century America (New York: New York University Press, 1977), which was available earlier in dissertation form. An historical inquiry at least would have provided additional perspective as the M&W program grappled with the equity issue.Google Scholar

74 Phillips, Don, “Recommendations for the Non-L/C Portion of Women/Minority Program,“ p. 8. Much of the data for the 1976 study, NIE/AERA Higher Education Component Meeting, did show that the Education/Knowledge Production Utilization roles favored a preparation in psychology or sociology.Google Scholar

75 Ibid.Google Scholar

76 NCER Minutes, (November 5, 1976), p. 13. The very focus of the M&W program in the DRG unit contributed to the protests of consultants concerned about the “political vulnerability” of NIE, which causes abandonment of “long-term risk ventures which are fundamental in nature in favor of the type of categorical short-term projects characteristic of the Office of Education.” The consultants urged instead a balance of short-term with “longitudinal studies.” By way of reply, one NCER member suggested that NCER help protect NIE from “undue pressures which divert it from its principle mission.” With respect to “limited funding,” it should be noted that beyond FY 1978's $3 million, there were projections, unattained as it turned out, to increase the M&W program budget annually until it reached a ceiling of $5 million. Interview with Rafael Valdevieso and Interview with Senta A. Raizen (September 7, 1979).Google Scholar

77 Hardy, Gladys Keith/Raizen, Senta A., “Identification of Major Incentives“ (August 22, 1977) and Senta A. Raizen to Gladys K. Hardy: “Designation of DRG Women and Minority program as a MITS Major Initiative” (September 2, 1977). In spite of these preferences for “mainstream” and “post-doctoral” projects, actual funding distribution (1978) included support for a few pre-doctoral programs geared to Hispanics and American Indians. “Awards in Grants competition, Phase I,” Comment: A Research/Action Report on Wo/Men, v. 11, no. 3 (July, 1979): p. 4.Google Scholar

78 “Awards in Grants Competition…,” ibid.Google Scholar

79 Revision of 19.6 Resolution (July 8, 1977); Discussion with Peter Gerber, who served as NCER staff director. This resolution was one of several revised at this time, officially for the most part as a routine editorial matter. However, the change did connote a different meaning for concerned individuals.Google Scholar

80 Proposals were received from 15 L/Cs on April 5, 1977 and awards were made to seven L/Cs in June 1977 totalling $500, 000. In addition, by the end of 1977, seven unsolicited proposals were funded, totalling about $200, 000.Google Scholar

81 The NCER had maintained the pressure for the “indicators” since the Council first raised the issue. In his report to Harold Hodgkinson on the implementation effort in behalf of 19.6 Carter Collins noted the absence of the indicators in the work of the M&W program and from the first report to the Director. Memo of Collins, Carter to Hodgkinson, Harold (March 18, 1977). The call for “indicators” was repeated by the DRG Director to Hardy, Gladys K. (September 2, 1977).Google Scholar

82 Until 1977 at NIE the potential competition between women and blacks had not broken into the open. Interview with Miller, LaMar (September 24, 1979). See NCER Minutes (July 7, 8, 1977). There was some earlier discussion at an earlier NCER Meeting (March 26, 1976). There are numerous studies of the feminist movement in this period. Jane Sherron De Hart offers a perceptive, historical overview of the movment in “The New Feminism and the Dynamics of Social change,” in Kerber, Linda K. and DeHart, Jane Sherron (eds.), Women's America: Refocusing the Past (New York: Oxford University Press, [4th ed] 1995), pp. 539–60. See also Boles, Janet K. “Form Follows Function: The Evolution of Feminist Strategies,” in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1991), pp. 38–49. For radical feminism see Echols, Alice Daring to be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967–1975 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989).Google Scholar

83 See, for example, the Memorandum of Scott, Gloria (August 15, 1974) arguing for the need of a variety of intervention levels from elementary to post-doctoral stages of the educational spectrum. Also among other documents, note the summary of planning efforts in Edward Barnes’ memo of November 5, 1974.Google Scholar

84 Interview with Collins, Carter (September 6, 1979).Google Scholar

85 In the spring of 1978 Hispanic spokespersons openly acknowledged the failure of Hispanics to mobilize against NIE. Memo of Alejandro, Frank to Hispanic NIE Employees: “Notes on Hispanic Education and Other Items of Interest” (April 19, 1978). In addition, an important complication, the Asian-American minority generally expressed little interest in either equity issues or programs at NIE due largely to the very successful, upwardly mobile achievement of males into the physical science disciplines and other technically-oriented professions, generally of a “higher status” than education. See Yee, Albert “Asian Americans in Educational Research,” Educational Researcher (February 1976): 5–8 reprinted as part of the NIE/AERA Higher Education Component Report… (December 17, 1976), pp. 51–54.Google Scholar

86 See the letter of Raizen, Senta A. to Graham, Patricia A. (November 17, 1977): “Action Memo for Grants Competition, Women and Minorities Program DRG;” Also Interview with Raizen, Senta A. (September 7, 1979); Interview with Collins, Carter (September 6, 1979).Google Scholar

87 Graham, Patricia testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee, (March 21, 1978), CIS: 1978 H 181–39.16, p. 857, made the clearest endorsement of equity values of any NIE director. She explained to the committee (which grilled her often with unmasked asperity): “With this reorganization we hope to be able to be more effective in having equity issues pervade all aspects of the Institute.”Google Scholar

88 NCER Minutes (January 12, 1978). See also NIE/AERA Higher Education Component Meeting… (December 17, 1976). In retrospect, Graham's contributions were treated as a reinvention of the agency. See “NIE Comes of Age Under Graham,” Congressional Record 96th Congress, (June 13, 1979), p. 14768. Also the laudatory remarks of Rep. John Brademas, “NIE: Stronger Under the Leadership of Patricia Graham,” Congressional Record 96th Congress (July 25, 1979), pp. 20673–674. Graham's, Dr. background and research in educational history, her experience as a secondary school teacher and as an administator and professor in elite women's colleges and research universities, plus her political skills, gave her a broad credibility with multiple groups. Her experience provided an array of experiences that informed her response to equity at NIE. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Joseph Califano, for instance, was not particularly familiar with educational research but asked her to “clean up the mess.” The “mess” in question was the poor image of educational research in general. Her subsequent efforts to raise equity consciousness overall can be seen in her recommendation to have the Labs and Centers and R&D programs address equity with “research that will help us reduce the predictive value of race, sex, and social class for education achivement.” Cf. Kaestle, Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade, pp 27–28, 45.Google Scholar

89 For the reflections of Graham and NCER figures regarding the overall question of basic versus applied research during Patricia Graham's tenure, see Kaestle, , Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade, pp 19–20.Google Scholar

90 Memo of Patricia Graham, A. to Califano, Joseph [prepared by January 10, 1978].Google Scholar

91 Interview with Raizen, Senta A. (September 7, 1979): See “Experimental Program for Opportunities in Advanced Study and Research in Education: A Grants Program Emphasizing Increased Participation of Minorities and Women in Research on Problems of Education: Proposed Regulations” (February 28, 1978). Final Regulations appeared July 31, 1978.Google Scholar

92 It should be noted that Graham's policy shift necessarily had to move through a carefully designed refereeing process, which awarded some funds to blacks and Hispanics. Under her initiative, the referee process itself included a range of minorities and women. Cf Graham before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on FY 1979 (March 21, 1978) CIS: 1978 Microfiche H181–39.16, pp. 845–929. The M&W program remained conscious of the limited support given to black institutions and proud that much of the program's money went to these institutions. Baker, Gwendolyn the program head under Graham, felt “ashamed” that so little funding had been devoted to the minorities and women issue. Interview with Gwendolyn Baker (September 21, 1979). By contrast, another NIE staffer, Richardson, Virginia assessing Graham's total agency efforts, felt that Graham's “push for equity was very well done.” Quoted in Kaestle, Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade, p. 31.Google Scholar

93 “Discussion”, in Smith, Cynthia J. (ed), Advancing Equality of Opportunity: A Matter of Justice (Washington DC: Institute for Study of Educational Policy, 1978), p. 118–27. The conflicted nature of black women's response to the feminist discourse can be seen in the spread of their organizational commitments. Some feminists joined mainstream, predominately white organizations; others founded groups of their own; and still others became as anti-feminist as some white women. Some black women, however, were critical of the women's movement in varying degrees because they felt the intersection of race and class with gender was downplayed or ignored by white, middle class women. For a particulary scathing commentary that reflected the view of at least some black women of this period, see bell hooks, Ain't I a Woman: black women and feminism (Boston: South End Press, 1981). For insights into the complexity of the class issue in a different arena, see Davis, Martha F. “Welfare Rights and Women's Rights in the 1960s,” Journal of Policy History 8:1 (1996):144–65, which highlights the problems of women's rights activists and welfare rights activists joining forces to grapple with the issue of welfare and poverty (1966–1975).Google Scholar

94 NCER Minutes (March 17, 1978).Google Scholar

95 NCER Minutes (July 12, 13, 1979), p. 9. One should also note that some of the emphasis on indicators and quick turnaround may have been due at least in part to competition for Congressional dollars and the difficulty in building strong political constituency for the Institute. Funding and constituency problems for NIE as a whole and then for OERI receive treatment in Kaestle's Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade, pp. 9, 25, 27–37, 40. Timpane, P. Michael became Acting Director in June, 1979 after Graham's, Dr. resignation that month. He subsequently became Director of NIE and resigned in February, 1981.Google Scholar

96 See Finn, Chester “What Ails Education Research,“ Educational Researcher (January/February, 1988): 5. Only later, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement at the US Department of Education made a considerable effort to establish new standards and procedures for sponsored research. See Vinovskis, Maris Analysis of the Quality of Research and Development at the OEM Research and Development Centers and at the OERI Regional Educational laboratories (June 1993). Perspectives on the labs and centers during NIE's existence and then under OERI are also noted by Kaestle's interviewees in Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade, pp. 43–46.Google Scholar

97 For varying positions on this issue, see Senator Patrick Moynihan's (D-NY) in Congressional Record (April 26, 1979), pp 8787–89 and Rep (D-Ky) Perkins, Carl Congressional Record (October 12, 1979), pp 28201–202.Google Scholar

98 Zodhiates, , “Bureaucrats and Politics,“ p. 169 Google Scholar

99 “Mission of National Institute of Education Undermined,” Congressional Record 97th Congress (October 1, 1982), pp. 27532–534.Google Scholar