Education Appointees

* I was deeply troubled by Judy Pasternak’s Oct. 3 article on the U.S. Department of Education, because it paints a distorted, unfair picture of our staff and management. Our career employees and presidential appointees work hard every day to ensure that the department administers high-quality programs that benefit all students.

First, your article gets the numbers wrong. The Clinton Education Department has never had more than 134 Schedule C presidential appointees--15% fewer than the peak in the Bush administration. Our peak employment of appointees requiring Senate confirmation and noncareer senior executives--the other two types of presidential appointees--is 10% below Bush administration levels.

The article asserts that the Education Department faces management challenges. Your rationale? Because education’s number of appointees is similar to the number in the Bush administration and because the Bush administration had management challenges, then therefore so too must the Clinton administration. This is an obvious non sequitur.

Over the last seven years, the department has cut student loan default rates in half to an all-time low of 8.8%. We established the Direct Student Loan program, which introduced long-overdue competition to the student loan industry and has saved taxpayers $4 billion over the past five years. We completed year 2000 computer renovations ahead of schedule and received an A on our most recent Y2K report card from Congress. And we spend less than 2% of our discretionary budget on administration.

Your article makes unsupportable statements about many hard-working department officials. For example, the article makes the astonishing argument that Wilson Goode--an eight-year mayor of Philadelphia--is somehow unqualified to be deputy assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs, the office that coordinates our work with the nation’s governors, mayors, community leaders and educators.

The article argues that the short-term service of Judith Winston, the department’s general counsel, as executive director of the President’s Initiative on Race was unrelated to education. Clearly, the work of expanding educational opportunities for minorities is central to the department’s mission.

And the article belittles the importance of Carol Rasco’s work directing the America Reads initiative. Rasco has helped hundreds of organizations--including the Los Angeles Times--engage in helping children learn to read. And she has orchestrated a national effort that has resulted in nearly 1,200 colleges mobilizing their federal work-study students to become America Reads tutors.

MARSHALL S. SMITH

Deputy Secretary

Department of Education

Washington

* Your article describes the Department of Education as a school for political flunkies--more political flunkies than you can shake a stick at.

Isn’t Bill Clinton the guy who rates education as a top priority?

Uh-huh.

JANET TAYLOR

Pismo Beach