sional publics. Hence, council activities will tend to reinforce current policies in that on the one hand they will lead to the expansion of programs that benefit incumbent elites and on the other hand they will assist in the dismantling of programs that might compete with or inhibit the top leadership of their clientele, Andrew Kopkind, in writing about another advisory body, reflects the expectation of a legitimatization function: Like all presidential commissions, the Kerner panel was designed not to study questions but (to) state them, not conduct investigations but accept them, not formulate policy but confirm it.3 These functional expectations, while not always easily separated from each other and perhaps not clearly differentiated in the minds of either policymaker or policy adviser, are accompanied by a set of normative expectations about the councils' representatives. First, it is held that since agencies such as the Office of Education need contact with the "real" world the advisory system should encourage participation by and communication with a broad range of relevant individuals and groups from around the Nation. The Green subcommittee considered it essential that the composition of the advisory committees "reflect properly the proportionate interests of all affected parties and jurisdictions." Another, and closely related, expectation is that while the councils should be broadly based, they also need to be openly representative of special interests in the policy arena. In education, advisory councils presumably render expert information and advice along with a representative presentation of divergent public interests. A recent Office of Education publication stressed this point: Public advisory committees are established to bridge a gap: A Government agency needs advice on programs and policies and calls upon qualified people from the private sector to give this advice. In this way, the agency becomes aware of the needs of the public it serves." In contrast to these expectations is the view that the complex tasks of modern government require that advisors by highly skilled technical and professional people if they are to be of any value at all. Thus it is not only inevitable but probably necessary that advisory councils be comprised primarily of self-interested elites rather than representatives of the mass public. The situation described in this strongly negative comment by one of our respondents reflects the basis for this expectation: "The interests and empires of the professional members are vigorously presented and pursued (at our council meetings)—the state of the general public is not very much regarded. The Advisory Commission on which I served was dominated by the various empire builders among the branches of Education. The nonprofessionals, or public members were really window dressing!" These various functional and representative expectations suggest the following questions as central to our inquiry: 1. Is there any evidence that the councils function as catalysts that spark innovation? 2. Do data indicate that the councils are effective critics or, alternatively, supporters and protectors of USOE? 3. How much evidence is there to indicate that the councils function mainly to legitimize the interests of the existing order? 4. Were the Great Society educational advisory elites representative of the public, of education professionals, and of the consumers of education, that is, students and their parents? 5. What interests, if any, were not represented in the advisory elites? 6. How did the socioeconomic characteristics of the advisory elites compare with the full-time bureaucratic elite staffing USOE? WASHINGTON OFFICIALS AND THEIR OUTSIDE ADVISERS The very identities of the members of the education advisory councils made it highly unlikely that our data would provide much support for the expectation that the councils would be broadly representative. We presume that they constituted an elite and the data confirmed this expectation emphatically. What was somewhat surprising was the extent to which the advisers mirrored the characteristics of the top officials in the Office of Education. (See table 1). TABLE 1.-PROFILE OF OFFICE OF EDUCATION OFFICIALS AND THEIR ADVISERS 1 All USOE officials' salaries fell into this bracket because of Federal executive pay scales. Scales in effect in 1968 are the basis of this entry in the table. Rates now in effect are somewhat higher. The similarities between the USOE officials and their education advisers are striking. Approximately the same proportion in each group hold doctorates, have academic preparation as professional educators, perceive of themselves as educational administrators, and identify with the Democratic party. Marginal differences associated with these characteristics can be explained. The slightly smaller proportion of advisers without formal graduate training reflects the presence of some laymen among them. The same explanation may account for the greater proportion of classroom teachers among the officials. It is surprising that a modestly greater proportion of officials than advisors had a noneducation focus, but the sizable proportion of "not ascertained" responses to the academic preparation question cautions against emphasizing this point. The predominance of Democratic party-identifiers among both groups is probably quite normal for persons appointed in a Democratic administration. We suspect that possibly some of the 30 percent of the advisers who classified themselves as independents were in fact Democrats. It may be that they masked their party leanings because of the change in administration that was in process at the time of the survey. The fact that 78 percent of them classified them selves as liberals while only 17 percent were acknowledged conservatives supports this possibility, at least to the extent that the liberalism-conservatism dimension is congruent with the partisan dimension. The advisers also manifested a fairly high level of involvement in public affairs. Thirty-six percent had been active in their political party organizations, 24 percent had held civil service jobs and 16 percent had served as school board members. Differences between the officials and their advisers were most notable with respect to age and income. The advisers were distinctly older than the officials; 63 percent of them were over 50 while only 26 percent of the officials were. The differences in income derive from the limitations imposed on the officials by Federal pay scales. What is interesting about the advisers is the level of their affluence. Over one-third of them earned over $30,000 a year and fully two-thirds at least $20,000. Their incomes and ages indicate that for the most part the advisers were people who "have it made." Neither group is poverty-stricken. None of the officials and only three of the advisers earned less than $10,000. There were also slight differences between the two groups with respect to race and sex. Ninety-seven percent of the officials were white males, while among the advisers 90 percent were white and 84 percent were males. These data not only reveal that the education advisers are somewhat older, more affluent reflections of their professional colleagues in the Office of Education, but also they reveal the advisers to be a highly selective elite that is not representative of the community at large or, in particular of the "consumers" of education. Collectively, the advisers are a highly educated, financially successful group of education professionals-51 percent administrators and 23 percent teachers-most of whom are middle-aged white males. The education advisers do not represent the young or the poor to any significant degree. And, in terms of their respective proportions of the population, women are measurably underrepresented and black people slightly so. In addition to not being broadly representative, the education advisory councils appear to be part of what Roszak has described as the "self-selection and internal circulation of technical elites within our . . . multiversity-think tank-foundation-Presidential advisory complex." For example, 65 percent of our respondents held more than one Federal advisory or consultant assignment during the Great Society years with 42 percent of them having had three or more. The extent of the education advisors' involvement with the Federal policy system was substantial. Over-one quarter of them reported that they made as many as 10 or more trips to Washington each year for purposes other than advisory council meetings and 35 percent made from three to nine such visits. This is far more than the average administrator or professor would be likely to make. It appears more like the travel pattern of a highly involved expert and/or lobbying elite. ADVISERS' PERSPECTIVES AND PREFERENCES Having examined composition and membership characteristics of national education advisory councils, we turn next to an examination of education advisors' political perspectives and policy preferences. How much and what form of diversity or consensus of views exists among these advisory elites? It is unreasonable to expect that any presidential or cabinet level administration would purposefully recruit outspoken critics and political opponents as advisers to their top level officials. Thus, although the initial stage of generating names of prospective advisors is lacking in organization it is not surprising that the White House staff in each of the recent administrations has screened and instituted "political checks" on them. This seemingly undemocratic feature of our executive advisory process alarms some and such tactics make good copy for an occasional newspaper or magazine column. But to most Washington realists, political screening is a fact of life and is accepted as part of the rules of the game. Nathan Glazer comments on this tendency when he notes that Presidential task force recruitment of late: "does not move over into the directions of selecting men with the widest imagination and the greatest freedom, men who are totally indifferent to the constraints of the political structure and of the varieties of public opinion." 7 Predictably, albeit dissappointingly, White House and Cabinet level recruiters diligently strive to make sure prospective-advisers are relatively "safe" on the major issues upon which they are to advise. Talk of "black lists," being politically "off limits," or persona non grata exists in all Presidential administration. This partly, explains the phenomenon of “in-and-outers" whereby recent administra 43-861-70- -13 tions rely on or recruit from among those who have previously served in Washington. And, this is why governmental advisory groups are often populated by ex-Washingtonians, whose views are known and who have already had experience in government but are now back in private life at the university, research institution, or business enterprise. Because of these practices it is not surprising that the advisers selected as counselors for the Johnson administration education programs typify a "balanced" and reality-based orientation. More than 25 percent of these education advisers had served as Government officials in the Federal civil service, and approximately two-thirds at one time or another had been invited to serve in the Washington civil bureaucracy. These data in addition to the other background characteristics previously reviewed point to the elitist and nonrepresentative nature of advisory councils. Briefly put, the advisers were hardly representative of education consumers and quite clearly were representative of various educational establishments and what can rightly-if loosely-be called the educationproducing class. With rare exceptions, the advisers were selected from among the well-known, well-established, and well-heeled. To learn more about the policy perspectives of national education advisers we asked them a lengthly series of questions. The respondents strongly endorse the Federal role in education. They highly praise the performance of the Office of Education and the Johnson domestic program and domestic Presidential leadership. They overwhelmingly want a Department of Education to be added to the 12 existing Cabinet departments. In general, these education advisers offer a rather ringing affirmation of the Government and policy processes of which they were a part and to which they tendered advice. (See table 2). TABLE 2. GREAT SOCIETY ASSESSMENTS AND RELATED POLICY ORIENTATIONS OF NATIONAL 1 It should be kept in mind that these data were collected well after the November election of 1968 and for the most part after Lyndon B. Johnson had retired to his Texas ranch. All interviews were completed from January to April 1969. There are few inconsistencies among the data. Most of the advisers (76 percent) applaud the fact that there "has been a lot of progress in getting rid of racial discrimination in recent years." In similar fashion, these national advisers do not believe that the National Government is too involved in domestic public services. On the contrary, they endorse an increase in such efforts. Furthermore, the advisory council members show considerable support for creating a highly visible and prestigious Council of Education Advisers at the White House, much like the current Council of Economic Advisers. Seventy-eight percent endorsed such an agency while only 16 percent disagreed. Their positive evaluations of Lyndon B. Johnson, his administration, and his domestic program are reflected in the data and in their retrospective commendation. Dozens of the advisers went out of their way to write in on the questionnaire pages that Lyndon Johnson's contributions to education and domestic leadership had been "fabulous," "historic," "outstanding," "excellent!" and so forth. It was as though these advisers for the most part had rejected the notions of "credibility gaps." "communication gaps" or the widespread complaints and rationale underlying the "dump Johnson movement" or Eric Goldman's "Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson." There is some tempering of their enthusiasm in their assessment of former President Johnson's overall Presidential leadership. No doubt many of the advisers did consider the “troubles" in Vietnam as a problem in the record of Johnson's Presidential leadership, but even so, only 7 percent were moved to state general disapproval. These data are all the more interesting because they were gathered during the first months of Johnson's retirement from the Presidency and during the first transitional honeymoon of the Nixon administration. President Johnson had chose to retire rather than risk political defeat in a war-weary country and then remain to preside over the defeat of his own Vice President in a noticeably anti-incumbent-"time for a change"-election campaign. Johnson's popularity regressed almost in linear fashion since his dramatic election vistory in 1964. His last months in office were surely a low point in an often brilliant political career. But despite his tarnished public standing, these data indicate that his advisory network in the field of education policy remained a grateful and loyal admiration society. It is not clear why this is the case. Was it because the administration only selected advisers who would be loyal and supportive through tough as well as joyous times? Or did the Johnson administration pay so much attention to the real needs of the country's educational system that the educational advisers became genuine supporters and loyalists because the record and performance had earned such an exchange? Probably both explanations are valid to some extent and in certain respects there are converging rather than contradicting interpretations. These "Great Society" advisers, however, can be viewed as at least partially the product of the type of administration in power. In other words, it is not likely that the policy orientations of a moderately liberal Democratic administration's advisory network will be identical to the policy preferences and priorities of the counterparts selected to serve a moderately conservative Republican administration. (Although we suspect that the circulation of members and viewpoints works in such a way as to not vary too greatly.) Among the Johnson education advisers, about 80 percent of the council members denied that the Federal Government "is providing too many services that should be left to private enterprise." This is noteworthy in light of the Nixon campaign pledges which stressed turning more functions over to private sectors and trying to stimulate social reform on either a volunteer or state basis. Not so with the Great Society advisers. No better illustration of their views on these matters can be cited than their attitude toward national expenditures for education. Eighty-one percent observed that there should be much more Federal money. (See table 3.) TABLE 3.-ATTITUDES OF NATIONAL EDUCATION ADVISERS TOWARD FEDERAL EXPENDITURES FOR EDUCATION A further proposition tested whether or not "educators" among the national education policy advisers were even more supportive of the Johnson administration and the U.S. Office of Education than their noneducation colleagues. The determination of who qualified as an "educator" raised some problems. In our complete sample of all 26 advisory councils (whether they responded or not) approximately three-fourths of the advisers could be linked to the education profession or to educational institutions. Another 5 percent came from educational corporations or education producing business firms, such as textbook companies and research and development companies. Overwhelmingly, however, the councils were composed of university officials, school superintendents, state commissioners of education, educational researchers and assorted officials from national educational associations and educational specialists from major foundations and civic groups. Businessmen were a distinct minority. In our analysis "educators" were distinguished from others by whether or not "education" was the major area of study in the completion of the respondents last degree. This differentiated between those trained as educators and those coming from other specialities or professional fields. An additional breakdown was made according to present occupation. In both instances, the data indicate support for the propo |