United States General Accounting Office

GAO Health, Education, and Human Services

Division

May 1997 Education and

Employment Issues

Issue Area Plan for Fiscal

Year 1997-99

GAO/IAP-97-10

Foreword

As the investigative arm of the Congress and the nation’s auditor, the

General Accounting Office is charged with following the federal dollar

wherever it goes. Reflecting stringent standards for objectivity and

independence, GAO’s audits, evaluations, and investigations promote a

more efficient and cost-effective government; expose waste, fraud, abuse,

and mismanagement in federal programs; help the Congress target budget

reductions; assess financial and information management; and alert the

Congress to developing trends that may have significant fiscal or

budgetary consequences. In fulfilling its responsibilities, GAO performs

original research and uses hundreds of databases or creates its own

databases when information is unavailable elsewhere.

To ensure that GAO’s resources are directed toward the most important

issues facing the Congress, each of GAO’s 32 issue areas develops a

strategic plan that describes the significance of the issues it addresses, its

objectives, and the focus of its work. Each issue area relies heavily on

input from congressional committees, agency officials, and subject-matter

experts in developing its strategic plan.

The work of the Education and Employment issue area focuses on the

education provided in early childhood and elementary and secondary

education programs, youths’ and adults’ access to higher education and

employment training, employers’ efforts to locate qualified job candidates,

and the quality of the nation’s workplaces. The principal issues are

• using federal resources to support and encourage state and local efforts to

provide education programs that will enable all youths to obtain skilled

jobs and become informed citizens;

• ensuring that eligible students have access to quality higher education

while encouraging cost-containment for education programs and

protection of federal education funds from fraud and abuse;

• helping individuals acquire the skills needed to become productively

employed and helping employers locate qualified job candidates; and

• improving protection for workers while reducing the burden for employers

in complying with workplace regulations.

In the pages that follow, we describe our key planned work on these

important issues.

Page 1 GAO/IAP-97-10
Foreword

Because events may significantly affect even the best of plans, our

planning process allows for updating and has the flexibility to respond

quickly to emerging issues. If you have any questions or suggestions about

this plan, please call me at (202) 512-7014.

Carlotta C. Joyner

Director, Education and

 Employment Issues

Page 2 GAO/IAP-97-10
Contents

Foreword 1

Table I: Key Issues 4

Table II: Planned

Major Work

8

Table III: GAO

Contacts

9

Page 3 GAO/IAP-97-10
Table I: Key Issues

Issue Significance

Preparatory education:

Is the federal government using its education resources

effectively to support and encourage state and local

efforts to provide education programs that will enable all

youths to obtain skilled jobs in the economy of the 21st

century and to become informed citizens?

In school year 1996-97, the nation will spend over $300 billion on

elementary and secondary education. Although the federal contribution is

only about 7 percent of this amount, the federal spending leverages much

of the state and local spending. Total spending is up, but per-pupil

spending has leveled off since 1989. At the same time, the proportion of

poor school-aged children has steadily increased. The administration has

made education its highest priority issue. The Congress also is now

supporting an increased federal role in quality education initiatives. This

interest responds to significant public concern about the quality of

American education. 

Higher education:

How can the federal government’s goal of ensuring that

eligible students have access to quality higher education

be met while encouraging cost-containment and

preventing fraud and abuse with respect to federal

resources?

The Department of Education is concurrently operating the direct and

guaranteed student loan programs. It faces the challenge of efficiently

and effectively managing both programs along with other student aid

programs. We have identified the student aid programs as a high-risk area

because the programs’ structure and weaknesses in departmental

management place millions of dollars in student aid funds at risk for abuse

and mismanagement. Also, the demand for federal financial aid resources

has grown as increased tuition at both public and private schools has

placed a greater financial burden on students and their families. Between

1980 and 1995, the cost to attend a 4-year public college or university

rose by 234 percent, nearly three times the 82-percent increase in the

median household income.

Page 4 GAO/IAP-97-10
Table I: Key Issues

Objectives Focus of work

1.Assess how well federal, state, and local management practices

contribute to the effective use of federal education funds.

2.Identify ways various federal education funding formulas and state

school finance systems could better target resources to special-needs

students.

3.Identify ways to encourage effective use of classroom technology that

supports the achievement of high academic standards for all students.

4.Identify and describe issues associated with various methods for

achieving equity in financing and providing elementary and secondary

education services consistent with federal goals.

5.Identify ways to consolidate overlapping programs, functions, and

units to eliminate duplication and unnecessary costs.

•Management practices and internal controls of federal

education programs

•Education achievement and accountability

•Targeting in federal and state school funding formulas

•Technology needs of educational institutions

•Alternative school management and parental choice

options, such as charter schools 

•Promising public/private partnerships in the delivery of

education services

•Consolidation of federal education programs serving

children and youths

1.Identify ways the government can more effectively deliver student

financial aid.

2.Evaluate the adequacy of the government’s processes for determining

schools’ eligibility to participate in federal student financial aid programs.

3.Assess how financial and management information systems can better

support student aid programs and minimize potential abuse and

mismanagement.

4.Assist the Congress in identifying ways to minimize the cost of college

to students while ensuring needy students access to appropriate

postsecondary education.

5.Provide information and analytical support to the 105th Congress

during its deliberations in reauthorizing the Higher Education Act.

•Operation of student aid programs

•Student aid data systems 

• Efforts to collect student loans and prevent defaults 

• Better targeting of financial aid

• Escalating costs of higher education

• Reauthorization of Higher Education Act

(continued)

Page 5 GAO/IAP-97-10
Table I: Key Issues

Issue Significance

Workforce skills and jobs:

How can the United States better assist workers in

acquiring the skills needed to become productively

employed and help employers locate qualified job

candidates?

A strong, internationally competitive economy depends, in part, on

effectively preparing workers to compete in the workforce and efficiently

helping employers locate qualified job candidates. The federal

government has invested considerable effort and resources towards this

end, spending about $20 billion in fiscal year 1995 supporting

employment and training programs spread across 15 different agencies.

However, rather than a coherent workforce development system, a

patchwork of federal programs continues to exist with similar goals,

conflicting requirements, overlapping target populations, and

questionable outcomes. Legislation has been considered, but not

enacted, to simplify and streamline this complex array of programs. In

addition, recently passed welfare reform legislation, with its emphasis on

work, is likely to affect the nation’s job training system.

Worker protection:

What changes in work place regulatory strategies would

improve the level of worker protection while minimizing

employers’ compliance burden?

Technological and organizational change, the globalization of the

economy, and reduced federal resources are calling into question the

strategies many federal agencies use to regulate the work place.

Strategies are needed that effectively combine basic worker protections

with autonomous employee participation and enhanced employer

flexibility. In addition, changes in household and workforce demographics

are signaling the growing necessity of a regulatory framework that strikes

a healthy balance between work, family, and community activities without

compromising national economic competitiveness. Ensuring the rights of

workers, while minimizing the regulatory burden on employers, is a

subject of considerable congressional interest.

Page 6 GAO/IAP-97-10
Table I: Key Issues

Objectives Focus of work

1.Identify ways to move toward a comprehensive workforce

development system. 

2.Identify ways to improve the effectiveness of employment training

programs for economically disadvantaged youths and adults,

veterans, dislocated workers, and the disabled population.

3.Assess the quality and access to local labor market information by

program operators, employers, and the unemployed.

•State efforts to consolidate programs

•Response of job training programs to welfare reform 

•Job training services to target populations

•State and private sector involvement in job training

•Use of local labor market information

1.Describe and evaluate current and alternative work place regulatory

activities and broader strategies.

2.Identify the implications for regulation of emerging trends in private

sector work place practices and organization.

3.Assess the consequences for work place regulation of recent

developments in workforce and family demographics.

•Implementation of alternative regulatory strategies

•Changes in applicability of existing regulatory protections

to current work place conditions

•Issues related to balancing productive work practices

with family needs

Page 7 GAO/IAP-97-10
Table II: Planned Major Work

Issue Planned major job starts

Preparatory education • Assess how well Head Start, child care, and prekindergarten programs collaborate to

meet the needs of children under welfare reform.

• Review the implementation and effectiveness of Title I programs.

• Evaluate the burden of federal education regulations and the success of regulatory

flexibility in easing that burden.

• Describe the impact of illegal immigrants on school systems.

• Assess how much of the federal education dollar gets to the student. 

• Describe current state and local commitments to fund school construction.

• Assess how federal funds flow to charter schools.

• Assess selected management issues at the Department of Education.

Higher education • Determine whether students are receiving financial aid in excess of their cost of

education.

• Assess the appropriateness of administrative costs for the direct loan program.

• Examine opportunities for more cost-efficient operation of guaranty agencies in 

Federal Family Education Loan Program. 

• Assess the Department of Education’s efforts to integrate the separate student aid

data systems.

• Evaluate the effectiveness, accuracy, and security of the Department of Education’s

National Student Loan Data System.

• Assess schools’ use of the National Student Loan Data System to determine 

students’ eligibility and to improve the accessibility of financial aid data.

• Describe Department of Education’s efforts to reduce loan defaults at Historically 

Black Colleges and Universities and other colleges.

• Assess the equity of how campus-based funds are awarded to colleges.

• Identify ways the needs analysis formula might be adjusted to better target aid.

• Assess how student debt burden changes borrowers’ behavior after leaving college.

Workforce skills and jobs •Evaluate the response of state employment training systems to welfare reform.

•Assess state efforts to develop one-stop career centers to help streamline employment

training assistance.

•Assess the quality and use of local labor market information by employers, the

unemployed, and state employment training service providers.

•Evaluate Job Corps’ management information and performance management systems.

Worker protection •Assess the flexibility of Labor’s H-2A Agricultural Guestworker Program to respond to

employer demands for additional foreign workers while maintaining protections for

domestic farmworkers.

•Assess the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s implementation of

partnership initiatives as an alternative regulatory strategy.

•Evaluate the effectiveness of Labor’s efforts to ensure the accuracy and reliability of its

Davis-Bacon wage determinations.

•Analyze trends in workforce coverage of key federal work place statutes, including the

Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act.

•Examine private and public employers’ experiences in the substitution of

compensatory time for overtime pay.

Page 8 GAO/IAP-97-10
Table III: GAO Contacts

Director Carlotta C. Joyner (202) 512-7014

Associate Director Cornelia M. Blanchette (202) 512-8403

Assistant Directors Catherine Baltzell

Joseph Eglin, Jr.

Harriet C. Ganson

Lawrence Horinko

Charles A. Jeszeck

Eleanor L. Johnson

Sigurd R. Nilsen

Wayne Upshaw

Page 9 GAO/IAP-97-10
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