sition that the trained educators and those who are now in the business of edu-
cational administration are likely to be more enthusiastic supporters of the
national educational effort and the Great Society. (See tables 4 and 5).
TABLE 4.-EDUCATION ADVISORS' ASSESSMENTS OF LBJ LEADERSHIP AND OFFICE OF EDUCATION PERFORMANCE
BY EMPHASIS OF ACADEMIC PREPARATION

Note: This distinction is an approximation. Respondents were asked to indicate their last degree subject area. since
most respondents had received master's or Ph. D. degrees, this breakdown was relatively easy. But for the handful who
had taken general undergraduate curriculum or for few who had no higher education, it was difficult to code their responses
with accuracy. Those with just undergraduate training were grouped into the noneducation category. If anything, a few
more education majors may thereby have slipped into the noneducation category.

TABLE 5.-EDUCATION POLICY ADVISERS' SUPPORT FOR LBJ-GREAT SOCIETY INDEX BY OCCUPATION 1

1 Our LBJ-Great Society index used here was derived simply by aggregating respondents' answers to 2 questions about
former President Johnson's leadership and 1 question which called for an evaluation of the Great Society programs.

The relationships here, however, are modest and do not permit easy explana-
tion. But it does seem that educators are grateful to the Johnson administration
for vastly increasing the Federal commitment to education. Furthermore, the
educators are quite likely to take a deferential stance to the Federal hand that
increasingly funnels money to their institutions and projects. Conversely, those
not trained as educators, or not presently employed as an administrative official
for an educational organization, have less reason to be grateful or even to have
been exposed to the changing Federal commitment.

It is one of the ironies of the Johnson Presidency that it was at once one of
the most productive in achieving legislative measures in behalf of education and
one of the most criticized administrations or university campuses. But few of the
critics were ever invited to serve on national advisory councils. Blacklists, politi-
cal screening, and normal self-selection processes saw to that. As shown in
table 5, the educational administrators were particularly supportive of President

Johnson and the Great Society programs. College professors and teachers serving in an advisory capacity were also quite favorable, although a few more from their number had negative views by 1969. Interestingly, the noneducators were measurably less likely to indicate total support for the Great Society administration and also more likely to see that USOE could do more than it was doing to promote the cause of education.

ADVISERS' PERCEPTIONS AND ASSESSMENTS

If advisory councils tend to be dominated by relevant professional and attentive elites, which functional expectations about them are most likely to be confirmed? Were they merely window dressing or a facade behind which USOE officials made policy? Or, did the advisers contribute meaningfully to the task of administration through their active participation in the policymaking process? The advisers' perceptions and assessments of their involvement in the work of the councils suggest some tentative answers to these questions.

The advisers' perceptions of their roles on the councils indicate that they took their assignments seriously. (See table 6.) Over half of them explicitly regarded themselves as education policymakers and 90 percent claimed to have some special knowledge or competence. Only 7 percent admitted to being no more than concerned laymen. The presence of such a high level of expertise, even though self-proclaimed, seems to support certain expectations. On the one hand, it is further confirmation of the technical-elite status of the councils. Yet, on the other hand, it indicates that the council members may have the competence to furnish valuable advice to the officials.

It is also possible that the respondents may have somewhat inflated views of their advisory roles, a natural manifestation of ego gratification. The high level of self-satisfaction that they revealed in assessing their performance and influence on the councils supports this hypothesis. (See table 7.) Almost half of the council members gave themselves above average performance ratings while only 14 percent felt that they were subpar. Even more striking, perhaps, is the fact that 57 percent felt that they were more influential than their fellow councilmen. It appears that for most members, advisory council activity is a satisfying, ego-building experience. Certainly the visibility resulting from the publicity attendant upon advisory councils adds to their members' status and presumably also to their sense of self-importance.

The same sense of satisfaction also characterized the respondents' attitudes toward advisory councils as institutions in the political process. They placed a high value on the advisory council process, especially for themselves (see table 8). They were somewhat less certain of its value for the councils on which they served and for the USOE, but even those assessments were strongly favorable. The advisers had an equally positive evaluation of the overall performance of the councils. More than four-fifths-82 percent-of the respondents felt that their councils were fulfilling their purposes, at least fairly well, while only 15 percent considered their council's mission a failure.

TABLE 8.-ADVISERS' ASSESSMENTS OF VALUE OF THE ADVISORY COUNCIL PROCESS

The advisers' perceptions of the impact of the councils on the implementation of policy, for example, in affecting the development of guidelines and regulations and the award of project grants, were somewhat more widely distributed but still positive in direction, see table 9. Only one-fifth-19 percent-felt that the efforts of their councils were of little consequence. The other respondents believed that their councils had had at least some impact on the USOE's administrative policies.

TABLE 9. PERCEPTIONS OF COUNCILS' IMPACT ON POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

These strongly positive attitudes toward all aspects of the advisory council process may be at least in part a reflection of elite self-congratulation and selfaggrandizement. But it can also be argued that they provide evidence that the process is working quite well. The private citizens involved in it are busy, successful professionals, most of whom would be unlikely to engage in time consuming advisory work merely to inflate their egoes.

An alternative interpretation of the respondents' strong positive attitudes, toward advisory councils and their own involvement in advisory activity is that Office of Education officials may have cultivated such feelings in order to build support among their clientele and in the community at large. By encouraging a sense of political efficacy among the advisers either through real or apparent responsiveness to the advice offered, the officials strengthen their programs, improve the standing of their own unit within USOE and the agency's own standing in the education communty, and they enhance their own reputations and careers. It is quite possible for the officials to use the advisory council process to improve themselves professionally. They come into fairly frequent contact with education notables that they would not be likely to encounter otherwise. These contacts increase their own visibility and status; for upwardly mobile younger officials, this exposure can be an invaluable asset. For those mostly older officials whose ambitions do not extend beyond successful careers in the Office of Education, the advisory council process provides satisfying interaction with the educational elite that their bureaucratic environment would not normally offer. The relationship between officials and advisers is thus mutually beneficial.

The advisers' assessments of their relations with USOE give some support to his interpretation. Well over half of the respondents (58 percent) considered the Office of Education to be quite receptive to the advice they offered, 30

percent regarded official receptivity as moderate while only 5 percent felt that the officials were not all receptive to advice. Such a positive appraisal. however, could not be entirely the product of bureaucratic manipulation. It is quite likely that the advisers were making some, if not a substantial, input to the policy process. The advisers also reported a low level of disagreement over the substantive policy issues among themselves and between the councils and the staff furnished them by the USOE.

Our interviews with USOE officials, while they did not yield quantifiable information, provided an agency perspective on the advisory council process. The officials indicated that the councils do tend to be professionally oriented elites. One division director stated that he tried to have his council "interlocking with other advisory groups." He added that most of its members "I know personally as they are professional colleagues." Another official felt that the councils "usually are very specialized." From most of our interviews with top USOE officials, we ascertained that they had frequent contact with advisory bodies and that this involvement had been generally fruitful. One education bureaucrat noted that some groups were better than others and the one he had best success with was a "blue ribbon group with university presidents like [and here he listed several elite university administrators from around the country] . . . they were blue chip and effective!"

But the advisory council process was not without its critics. One longtime USOE official complained that Congress had begun to insist that membership on these groups should come from a diversity of groups, not just education specialists. With both bitterness and nostalgia he went on to say:

"Congress thinks there should be a broad representation of interests and that they should be somewhat independent from the education field. And so we've been getting [advisory council] people other than those who know much about education. In fact many really don't understand the field at all. . . . Some of the people are not all like the ones we would have appointed. One lady, for example [a minority representative] doesn't even open up her head when she comes, she just sits there and never says anything. Why you could go right out on the street and drag in people who are more competent than many of these new people! I think we lose a lot when this happens. You have to have people who know what's going on and even then it often doesn't work out."

According to most Office of Education officials, advisory councils vary with respect to their influence on USOE policy and the degree to which they have been helpful to the bureaus and divisions in the agency. The more political and independently prominent the council, the more "trouble" the education officials seem to have with it. This suggests that, perversely, the more prestigious and elitist a council is, the more it is likely to be an effective critic and to bring external influence to bear on agency policies. One example of advisory council control, at least in the mind of the official, is provided in this comment:

[the council chairman] or I felt the

"Had either __. was a bad program that would have been the end of it. He alone could have killed it. If I had opposed it and he had not, there would have been negotiation. He has been very critical through the advisory council."

A second official was decidedly hostile in his assessment of a national council which had been established to review and evaluate a Federal program he was charged with administering:

"The value of the independent advisory council [staffed outside of USOE] with nationally known people on it is that the program gets the direct ear of the President and Congress; it could have great potential but it doesn't because it has so many problems, like lack of staff, lack of their own budget, poor selection of people, a mediocre chairman and a lack of vision and focus. Frankly, they are a pain in the. They get restless and want to gripe about the program instead of helping to solve our problems. There are too many politicians on it... too many of them represent a constituency."

His difficulties appear to have stemmed from a council that was broadly representative.

Although these two comments indicate that the councils made life somewhat difficult for the Office of Education, we found that generally the officials regarded the councils as an asset or at least potentially useful to them and their programs. This was particularly the case in setting policy directions and reviewing programs, but not in running them. Often, we gained the impression that the officials found it somewhat reassuring and even comforting to secure approval and in

effect, legitimacy, from their discussions with these outside counselors. The political value of the councils as a supportive communications mechanism is widely appreciated. In fact, one of the most negative appraisals of a council came from one top civil servant who lamented his council's unwillingness to convert its considerable prestige into "clout" for his unit: "they have prestige which they could use to give our program visibility and status." A similar comment came from another USOE executive when he listed the two chief expectations for his outside advisory councils:

"They should work at two levels. First: they should serve us as a sounding board, giving us the benefit of their thought regarding various nuances of their thinking and broad policy suggestions. Secondly, they should help win support for us up the ladder-at the Bureau of the Budget, the Office of Science and Technology and with the HEW Secretary and the White House. Unfortunately they don't do this second job very well. They don't work that side of the street, they haven't learned to-but I think that has to be an important part of what they are supposed to do."

The USOE officials, then, appear to regard advisory councils as actual or potential allies in a common cause: the expansion and improvement of Federal education programs. The bureaucrats have in mind advisory councils that legitimize and support what the agency does. But the advisers' self-perceptions and their assessments of the work influence of the council furnish at least some evidence that the councils do not fully play the role that the officials conceive for them. They also may generate some new ideas and serve as an added check on the bureaucracy.

The bulk of the evidence presented in this section, however, indicates that the advisers react positively to the advisory council process and their participation in it for what seem to be more personal than public spirited reasons. They appear to have developed a symbiotic relationship with the Office of Education officials. They provide USOE, officials, and programs, with support, legitimacy, visibility, and status. In return, they receive enhanced civic and professional status, some degree of participatory involvement in Federal policymaking processes, and substantial apparent ego-gratification.

CONCLUDING DISCUSSION

This analysis of the advisory council process in the Office of Education highlights the clite, nonrepresentative character of the council members, their benign support for the USOE, President Johnson, and the Great Society, and their symbiotic relationship with the agency. Does the fact that the council members are carriers and exponents of the dominant values of the educational and political "establishments" mean that advisory work at the national level is a "wasted profession?" Are their efforts merely a prestigious, formalized set of ritual incantations for more money to continue doing the same things in the same manner without changes or critical assessment? To a certain extent, yes, but a less simplistic and more subtle interpretation and explanation is in order.

Given the semi-incestuous character of the advisory council process and the dependence of the council members on the USOE for information, staffing, and funding, it would be most unlikely for the data to have revealed that they were demanding and careful critics. Similarly, if we accept the proposition that it is the task of the departmental official to see that things get done, within the existing institutional framework then we should not be surprised if the data suggest that the Washington administrators would, if they had greater freedom of action, tend to recruit even more sympathetic education professionals as council members. They do not only need advisory bodies as legitimizing and supportive mechanisms, but they also tend to shy away from the "unwashed" and for understandable reasons. The busy executive lacks the time to brief uninformed laymen who may serve on advisory panels and to develop understanding if not expertise in them. An advisory council that is broadly "representative" requires a substantial and continual educational effort on the part of agency officials. It is easy to feel at least some sympathy for the harassed departmental or bureau official who has plenty to do without having to deal with a largely uninformed group of advisers.

In short, we see a need to restrain the popular and widely held expectation of broadly representative councils. The adviser is not a walking Rand Corporation. Nor can an advisory council effectively satisfy current expectations of par