WASHINGTON -- Education Secretary-designate William Bennett told a Senate confirmation hearing Monday he is undecided if the Education Department should be abolished -- as favored by President Reagan.
Under questioning by members of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, Bennett said he doesn't even know yet if he likes the agency created in 1979 by Jimmy Carter.
'You are going to run it. Do you like it or not?' asked Sen. Thomas Eagleton, D-Mo.
'I don't know,' Bennett said. 'I haven't been there yet.'
Bennett said, however, that he realizes the agency is an 'administrative department, mandated by law. If I am confirmed to run it, I will run it as effectively as possible.'
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the panel's chairman, said despite such questioning by several committee members during the one-day hearing, he expects Bennett to be confirmed as America's top educator.
'Dr. Bennett is eminently qualified to be the government's foremost spokesman for education,' Hatch said. 'He has been a champion of the educational excellence movement that has swept this nation.'
Hatch said he hopes the committee will send the nomination to the full Senate by Friday, with Bennett being sworn into office within a few weeks.
Reagan on Jan. 10 nominated Bennett, 41, director of the National Endowment for the Humanities since 1981, to succeed Terrel Bell as education secretary. Bell retired on Dec. 31 to return to private life.
Reagan vowed during his 1980 presidential campaign to abolish the Education Department, but found such stiff resistance in Congress that he didn't even try.
The president said during an interview last month that he has never abandoned plans to eventually propose an elimination of the department, with some functions being turned over to other agencies.
Raising the fears of many proponents of the department, Reagan recently told Bennett that his first job as secretary would be to conduct an efficiency study of the agency.
Bennett testified that the study, expected to take about six months, is aimed at improving the department -- not eliminating it.
'I have no particularly assignment or intention to abolish or dismantle the department,' Bennett said in response to a question by Sen. Robert Stafford, R-Vt.
Following similar questions about the fate of the department by Sen. Lowell P. Weicker, R-Conn., Hatch said: 'I really don't know what all the uproar is about.'
He said, 'It doesn't take any brains to realize that there is no possibility of the department being abolished at this time. We all know Mr. Reagan would like to abolish the department and the committee has told him he can't do it.'
Trying to end the fuss, Hatch asked Bennett, 'As long as Congress does not desire to abolish the Education Department, will you be for the department ... and will you make the department the most well functioning in government?'
'Yes, I will,' said Bennett.
In his opening statement, Bennett echoed the anti-big government sentiments of Reagan by saying the government has an appropriate but limited role in education.
He said the government needs to uphold and enforce discrimination laws and provide states and localities with guidance on education, but must not control policy.
He said the Education Department should help perpetuate a continuing crusade to upgrade schools -- initiated in large part by Bell - by 'enunciating and prompting the educational aspirations of the American people.'
Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., said he was concerned because Bennett headed 'one of three of 110 government agencies that refused to comply with (the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) minority hiring goals.'
Bennett caused a stir by refusing to set numerical goals for hiring women and minorities in his agency, as required by the EEOC.
In a related development, the National Coalition of Advocates for Students announced results of a two-year study Monday that said state and local financing of American's schools 'adds up to a conspiracy' to spend more on rich students than poor ones and to keep them locked in their respective social classes.
