Since this is a Presidential election year, it is also a year in which different interest groups seek commitments from candidates. Those whose major concern is education are no different from other interest groups in this respect. So far, the promise most often made by prospective candidates to education lobbyists is to support the creation of a separate Department of Education which would be headed by a Cabinet member who would be called Secretary of Education.

This move would strip the Department of Health, Education and Welfare of its involvement with education. Presumably, it would serve to emphasize the importance of education and could give educational interests a strong voice in the Cabinet. Many candidates have embraced the proposal largely because it is addressed to a "safe" issue: No education groups are opposed to it; some support it fervently.

Before such a Department is created, careful consideration must be given to the arguments against it. 

First, the creation of a Department of Education could well be the big thing that the next President does for education. It could be a substitute for additional federal financial aid. Given the current economics of education - layoffs, increase in class size, elimination of vital services, payless furloughs -- the next President's choice must be more money rather than more prestige.

Second, the creation of a Department of Education would weaken rather than strengthen the education forces. Because education has been in the same department as health and welfare, a strong political and lobbying coalition has been established by leading figures in these fields. They work well with each other. A Washington reorganization would result in a break-up of this coalition. With education groups isolated from the others, they will be forced to go it alone.

Third, the creation of any new agency or department would mean many years of fumbling and confusion until lines of communication and authority are established and until the boundaries between its functions and those of other departments are established. In this long period of adjustment the Department of Education would not be in a good position to compete with other agencies for available funds.

The Danger of Isolating Educators

If anyone wanted to paralyze the forces of education for a few years, there is hardly a better way to do it than to create a Department of Education. This is the view of Wilbur J. Cohen, former Secretary of HEW who is now Dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan.

Cohen argues that while there are good reasons for setting up a separate Department of Education, there are good reasons, too, for establishing separate Departments of Science, Consumer Affairs, etc. In spite of the "good reasons," he opposes such moves. Says Cohen: "In my opinion, the more Cabinet Departments and the more Cabinet members there are, the more the ability of the Cabinet member to be effective is depreciated along with his status, prestige and opportunity to influence the President.

"The more Departments, there are the more you create problems of inter-relationships. And the tendency then is for the Budget Bureau and the staff of the White House to take over resolution of these problems. I think this is undesirable. It undermines the independence of the Cabinet officer and reduces his effectiveness ... "

Cohen also argues that the creation of a Separate Department of Education would "further insulate, isolate, and divorce education from other important developments, in community affairs which come from associating with other disciplines and problems ... Educators will tend to work in a narrower orbit when what they need is to work in a larger one.

"Many of the current key problems of education," he goes to say, "require working more effectively with welfare, health and other community agencies. The problems of poverty, use of drugs, minority groups and similar problems facing educators cannot be resolved or solved by educators alone. Rather than isolating educators as a profession, they need to be brought into closer contact with other professions."

Certainly HEW is far from perfect. But there is no evidence to show that what is wrong with HEW would be made right by the creation of a separate Department of Education. Before action is taken, the next President -- and those who will be offering him advice -- should heed conscientiously the contention that a separate department may not solve the problems of education; that it may, in fact, make those problems worse.