Education Programs

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on work it completed from 1990 through 1997 addressing early childhood, elementary, and secondary education issues.

GAO noted that: (1) GAO work has identified the need for improvement in the Department of Education's oversight and management of education programs; (2) a major weakness is lack of evaluations of program effectiveness and information about what works; (3) effective management is especially important and challenging given the complex array of multiple programs spread across not only the Department of Education but also other agencies; (4) GAO reports also addressed issues involving the design and implementation of management tools, such as controls on states' substitution of federal grant money for their own funding, allocation and accountability with respect to implementing block grants, and mechanisms for identifying ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of tax expenditures as a tool to achieve federal programmatic objectives; and (5) GAO has completed several studies that have addressed demographic changes and their implications for preschools and elementary and secondary schools in the areas of early childhood education, education reform efforts, school facilities, and efforts to improve access and equity.