General
The Department supports States, local communities, and higher education institutions to improve education nationwide. The Department's roles include leadership and financial support for education to agencies, institutions, and individuals in situations where there is a national interest; monitoring and enforcement of civil rights in the area of education; and support for research, evaluation, and dissemination of findings to improve the quality of education. ED works in partnership with parents, neighborhoods, schools, colleges, educators, business leaders, and communities and States across the country.
During the past 18 months, in response to President Clinton's ``Regulatory Reinvention Initiative,'' announced March 4, 1995, the Department conducted a comprehensive review of its programs, legislation, and implementing regulations to enhance partnerships, increase flexibility, and improve accountability. In a June 1, 1995, report to the President, the Secretary promised to eliminate 842 pages of the Department's regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and to reinvent 1,142 pages, for a total of 1,984 pages representing 93 percent of the Department's regulations. The Department has fulfilled this commitment through a dedicated Departmentwide effort recognizing that students and educational partners are best served by regulations that focus on critical steps and results, allow as much flexibility as possible consistent with statutory and program goals, and impose the least possible burden.
Woven throughout the Department's reinvention is a commitment to provide quality customer service in the spirit of continuous improvement to assure that we are truly ``putting people first.'' The Department listens to our customers to identify their needs and incorporates their suggestions into program goals and strategies.
In order to provide information and support enhanced exchange, the Department instituted 1-800-USA-LEARN to connect our customers to a ``one-stop-shopping'' center for information about departmental programs and initiatives, 1-800-4FED-AID for information on student aid, and an on-line library of information on education legislation, research, statistics, and promising programs. More than 10,000 people take advantage of these resources every week.
The Department has forged effective partnerships with customers and others to develop policies, regulations, guidance, technical assistance, and compliance approaches. The Department has an impressive record of successful communication and shared policy development with affected persons and groups, including parents, representatives of State and local government, institutions of higher education, school administrators, teachers, students, special education and rehabilitation service providers, professional associations, advocacy organizations, business, and labor.
In particular, the Department continues to seek greater and more useful customer participation in its rulemaking activities through the use of negotiated rulemaking and new technology. When rulemaking is determined to be absolutely necessary, customer participation is essential and sought at all stages--in advance of formal rulemaking, during rulemaking, and after rulemaking is completed in anticipation of further improvements through statutory or regulatory changes. The Department has expanded its outreach efforts through the use of satellite broadcasts, electronic bulletin boards, and teleconferencing. For example, the Department now invites comments on all proposed rules through the Internet.
The Department is also seeking significant program improvements, leading to major regulatory reforms, through its statutory reauthorization proposals for the education of individuals with disabilities, which would consolidate 14 discrete categorical programs into 5 broad program authorities that will support State and local implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and improve results for children with disabilities. The Department's reauthorization proposal would reduce unnecessary paperwork and burden so that resources can be focused on improving teaching and learning. Congressional action on the Department's proposal is pending.
The Department is streamlining information collections, reducing burden on information providers involved in ED programs, and making information maintained by the Department easily available to the public. Coordinating similar information collections across programs may be one approach to reduce overlapping and inconsistent paperwork requirements. To the extent permitted by statute, regulations will be revised to eliminate barriers that inhibit coordination across programs (such as by creating common definitions), to reduce the frequency of reports, and to eliminate unnecessary data requirements.
The Department's Principles for Regulating, developed in October 1994 during planning to implement the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994, determine when and how it will regulate. Through aggressive application of the following principles, the Department has eliminated outdated or unnecessary regulations and identified situations in which major programs could be implemented without any regulations or with only limited regulations.
Principles for Regulating
The Department will regulate only if regulating improves the quality and equality of services to the Department's customers, learners of all ages. The Department will regulate only when absolutely necessary, and then in the most flexible, most equitable, and least burdensome way possible.
Whether to Regulate:
How to regulate:
Regulatory and Deregulatory Priorities for the Next Year
Student Financial Aid Improvements
For student financial aid programs, significant improvements have been made during the last 3 years to reduce paperwork, create less complex applications, and provide faster access to funds. Through a comprehensive review and extensive consultation with the higher education community, the Department is pursuing several opportunities for reducing regulatory burden on schools and colleges.
The Department is continuing to design new approaches to managing the title IV student aid programs to minimize regulatory burden on students, families, and participating institutions. Working closely with institutions and associations, the Department is searching for additional changes that will reduce burden while maintaining program integrity.
The Improving America's Schools Act of 1994 amended the General Education Provisions Act to decrease from 5 years to 3 years the length of time that a recipient of Federal funds is required to maintain records. The Department expects to reduce administrative burden by incorporating these changes, establishing record retention standards for institutions, and consolidating and clarifying existing rules for record retention.
The Department will coordinate these initiatives with improvements in its administrative operations, with the broad goal of simplifying participation in title IV programs, streamlining communications and reporting, and emphasizing compliance through technical assistance and cooperation. These efforts are also expected to yield proposals for statutory changes, particularly as part of the upcoming reauthorization of student aid programs.
Education Department General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR) Selection Criteria
The Department initiated a review and evaluation of the EDGAR select criteria for discretionary grant programs that do not have regulations. (See section 75.210 of 34 CFR part 75 (Direct Grant Programs).) A notice of proposed rulemaking was issued on July 16, 1996 (61 FR 37184). A cross-section of Department program, legal, and administrative personnel developed a ``menu'' of selection criteria that will be appropriate for many of the Department's discretionary grant programs now implemented through individual program regulations.
By using an extensive menu of EDGAR selection criteria appropriate for a wide variety of the Department's programs (e.g., research, planning, demonstration, training, fellowship, and field-initiated programs), as well as for more traditional grant programs, and allowing variable weights to be assigned for these criteria, the individual sets of regulations needed for these programs could be substantially reduced or eliminated. This would benefit the Department's customers by reducing regulatory burden and increasing program flexibility. As many as 52 existing regulations could be eliminated or reinvented as a result of this action.
Vocational and Adult Education (Reinvention and Elimination of Regulations)
Under the Department's proposed vocational education legislation (H.R. 1426, S. 696), separate set-asides and categorical authorities would be eliminated and replaced by one State-administered program, one broad discretionary grant program for national needs, and two small special-purpose authorities. The administrative and paperwork requirements under the State-administered program would be scaled back significantly in favor of accountability for results.
The Department's adult education legislation (H.R. 1605, S. 797) proposal includes the consolidation of 12 programs into 1 administered by States and substitutes performance measures for burdensome process requirements.
Since action on the Workplace and Career Development Act of 1996 (H.R. 1617) has been deferred by the Congress, the Department is moving forward with a review of the existing regulations governing adult and vocational education programs in order to meet the Secretary's commitment to eliminate or reinvent them as part of the Regulatory Reinvention Initiative.
Elimination of Regulations
In response to the President's ``Regulatory Reinvention Initiative'' directing heads of departments and agencies to eliminate outdated regulations and modify others to increase flexibility and reduce burden, the Department has so far eliminated 130 entire regulations from the CFR, totaling approximately 678 pages (60 FR 27223, May 23, 1995; 60 FR 34800, July 3, 1995; 60 FR 50774, September 29, 1995; 60 FR 18680, April 29, 1996; and 61 FR 32656, June 25, 1996). This constitutes more than 31 percent of the pages of Department regulations existing prior to the initiative. Certain additional postsecondary education regulations have also been reviewed and are targeted for elimination under the Department's plan for regulatory reinvention. The Department is continuing to review its existing regulations to identify further opportunities for regulatory reinvention.