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NELSON, Robert Neil, 1944A FIELD STUDY OF THE MEANS BY fHICH THE
MICHIGAN D E P AW m n ' OF EDUCATION REDUCES
UNCERTAINTY IN ITS ENVIRONMENT.
Michigan State Uhiversity, Ph.D., 197S
Education, administration

Xerox University Microfilms ,

Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106

A FIELD STUDY OF THE MEANS BY WHICH THE
MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
REDUCES UNCERTAINTY IN ITS
ENVIRONMENT
By
Robert Neil Nelson

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Administration
and Higher Education
1975

ABSTRACT
A FIELD STUDY OF THE MEANS BY WHICH THE
MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
REDUCES UNCERTAINTY IN ITS
ENVIRONMENT
By
Robert Neil Nelson
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the research was to describe and e x ­
plain the means by which the Michigan Department of Educa­
tion (MDE) reduces uncertainty about the continued supply
of resources from its environment.
Procedures
Field study methodology was employed.

The author

spent approximately nine months on site at the central
office of the MDE in Lansing, Michigan.

Specific methods

used included observation of meetings, interviews at v a r ­
ious levels of formality, and examination of documents p r o ­
duced by the agency.

All personnel from the top four

levels of the organization were interviewed.
The major environmental elements were the state
Legislature and Governor, the federal U.S. Office of Edu­
cation, the federal Congress and the interest groups in
Michigan.

Representatives from each of these were observed

R obert N e i l N e l s o n

or interviewed.

The 1963 Constitution of Michigan was c o n ­

ceived to be an additional non-organizational element in
the environment.
After an initial period of exploratory research,
seven major case studies were done.

These were selected to

represent the broad range of concerns of the agency.
Results
It was found that the MDE used four types of s t r a ­
tegies to reduce uncertainty about resources.

First were

preactive strategies in which the agency would gather data
and enhance its own capacity to respond in anticipation of
future need.

Second, the agency would

(rarely!) adopt a

passive strategy thus ignoring or absorbing impact of change
on its environment.

Third,

the agency would engage in r e ­

active strategies, changing its own structure or behavior
after the fact.

Fourth, MDE used proactive strategies such

as conflict, exchange, co-optation, coalition and annexation
to assure future resources.

Preactive and proactive s tr a­

tegies were most common.
Discussion
Organizations using proactive strategies were thought
to be typically powerful.

In the case of MDE the agency was

successful in reducing uncertainty over a diverse environ­
ment.

It did not, however do so in an integrated fashion

as a result.

MDE is not powerful relative to its

R obert N e i l N e l s o n

environment even though there is little uncertainty about
its supply of resources.
There is more to control than elimination of uncer­
tainty.

MDE lacks political power relative to other ele­

ments in its environment.

Serving these diverse elements

has led to diffuse control of resources in MDE, further
weakening the agency.

Concurrently MDE is rewarded, e s ­

pecially by the federal government, for quantitative re­
porting and regulation as a result of increased governmental
aid to education.

Consequently, MDE is becoming increasingly

concerned with quantification and with rationality as a
method of operation.

The MDE Accountability Model exempli­

fies this.
This trend toward rational management is in turn
limited by the political subsystem.

That is, if the rational

behavior of MDE interferes with the wishes of politically
powerful elements in the environment of MDE,

the latter will

be prohibited from further encroachment via the political
subsystem.

DEDICATION

This work is dedicated to the ideal that learning
can be a joyous and growing experience, and to those few
who helped me to maintain belief in that ideal.
those Connie is the first.

Among

A CK N OW L E D G M E N T S

There are many persons who contribute to a large
piece of research, more than can individually mentioned
here.
The senior staff of the Michigan Department of E d u ­
cation always had time to help, and did so with great p e r­
ception .
The Middle Cities consortium provided a challenging
assistantship which also helped increase my sources of
data.
Dr. Philip Cusick conceived the study and helped
throughout.

The other three committee members, Charles

Blackman, Bill Faunce, and Sam Moore, were busy and insight­
ful critics and supporters.
Connie, David and Karen maintained their support
in the face of my neglect.
Thanks to all.

T A B L E OF C O N T E N T S

Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................

iii

LIST OF T A B L E S ........................................... viii
LIST OF F I G U R E S ........................................... ix
Chapter
I.

INTRODUCTION....................................

1

Purpose ........................................
1
The Nature of the S t u d y ......................
1
The Conceptual Framework:
Overview .........
3
6
General Systems T h e o r y ........................
Characteristics of a S y s t e m .................. 10
S u m m a r y ......................................... 13
Open Systems T h e o r y ..............................13
S u m m a r y ......................................... 17
Organizations as Open S y s t e m s .................. 18
The Range of Responses to Uncertainty . . . .
24
Passive Strategies............................. 28
Reactive Strategies .........................
29
Proactive Strategies
......................
33
A s s u m p t i o n s ...................................... 40
Overview of the D i s s e r t a t i o n .................. 41
II.

THE MODEL FOR REDUCING UNCERTAINTY.............. 43
Defining the System to be S t u d i e d .............. 43
The Nature of Energy S o u r c e s .................. 45
Summary
.................
48
Selection of the Michigan Department of
E d u c a t i o n ...................................... 48
The Environment of the Michigan Department
of Education
................................ 50

Chapter

III.

Page

The C o n s t i t u t i o n ...........................
State G o v e r n m e n t ...........................
State Interest G r o u p s ....................
Federal Involvement........................
The Michigan Department of Education . . . .
On the Concept of Uncertainty................
....................................
Summary.

SO
53
54
56
62
73
75

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

76

................

Studies of Non-Educational Organizations . .
Studies of Educational A g e ncies .............
Conclusion
IV.

77
85
10 8

THE METHODOLOGY USED IN THE S T U D Y ............110
Concerning the Adequacy of Field M e t h o d ­
ology ........................................... Ill
Conclusions...................................... 133
The Methodology Used to Study the Michigan
Department of Education
..................
135
Describing the Methods ......................
143
Observing Meetings .........................
143
I n t e r v i e w s ................................. 14 5
Reading Documentary Material .............
147
Applying the M e t h o d s ........................... 148
Evaluating the Methodology ..................
165
Type of S t u d y ................................ 166
R o l e ........................................... 166
M e t h o d s .......................................168
I n t e r v i e w s .................................... 168
S o u r c e s ...................................... 168
S a m p l i n g ...................................... 169
The Bruyn-Homans Indices ..................
169
I n t i m a c y ...................................... 172
Research Teams .............................
172
................................ 173
Entry.
Personal Acceptance
......................
173
Validity:
Public Presentation of Data . . 173
Validity:
Future E f f ort s.....................174
On Serendipity and Validity.................. 174
Summary of the C h a p t e r ......................... 176

v

Chapter

V.

Pa ge

PRESENTATION OF THE RESULTS OF THE CASE
STUDIES . . ..................................... 177
Overview of the C h a p t e r ........................ 178
Re-Introducing theAgency ..................... 179
The Accountability Model as Context .......... 183
The Issues and theO r g a n i z a t i o n ................ 186
Governing Education inMichigan .............. 189
198
Higher Education...... .........................
Introduction
. . . . .
......... . . . . . 198
T e x t ............................................ 199
Interpretation...... ......................... 209
S u m m a r y ....................................... 212
Special Education..............................
213
I n t r o d u c t i o n ............................... 213
T e x t ............................................ 215
I n t e r p r e t a t i o n .......................... . , 234
S u m m a r y ....................
239
Chapter 3: A Pyrrhic V i c t o r y ................
240
Introduction
............................... 240
T e x t ............................................ 242
Interpretation...... .........................
256
S u m m a r y ........................................258
Professional Development Center(s)............. 259
Introduction
............................... 259
T e x t ............................................ 260
Interpretation...... ......................... 267
S u m m a r y ........................................269
Post S c r i p t ................................... 269
Federal Programs and the Michigan Depart­
ment of E d u c a t i o n ............................ 270
Title I of E S E A ................................. 275
Introduction................................... 275
T e x t ............................................ 276
Interpretation...... ......................... 288
S u m m a r y ............ ......................... 291
Title I I I ........................................292
Introduction
............................... 292
T e x t ............................................ 293
Interpretation...... ......................... 304
S u m m a r y ........................................309
Title V: The Contingency F u n d ................. 309
Introduction
............................... 309
Text. .
.............
311
Interpretation...... ......................... 319
S u m m a r y ........................................324
Other C a s e s ..................................... 324
Introduction
............................... 324
The End R u n ................................... 325
vi

Chapter

P a ge

Co-opting by H i r i n g ........................ 329
Councils and Commissions and Boards
and C o - o p t a t i o n ............................. 333
Shared Memberships
........................
337
Inter-Agency Meetings ...................... 339
Extra-Agency Interactions .................. 343
Intrepretation............................... 348
VI.

SUMMARY AND C O N C L U S I O N S ...................... 351
S u m m a r y ........................................ 351
The Case in R e v i e w ........................ 35 2
The S t r a t e g i e s ............................ 355
The E n v i r o n m e n t ............................ 361
The R e s o u r c e s ............................... 364
Implications of the Research.................. 366
Environmental Diversity .................... 369
Control of Resources
...................... 372
Policy Making and Measurement ............. 377
The Rational World of M D E .................. 379
Preactive Filtering ........................
381
A Model of MDE B e h a v i o r .................... 382
Researchable Propositions .................. 385

BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................ ..

vii

.

L IS T OF T A B L E S

Table
1.

Page
Organizational Strategies for Coping with
U n c e r t a i n t y ...............................

27

2.

The Environment of the Michigan Department
of E d u c a t i o n .................................... 51

3.

Federal Education Programs to be Administered
by MDE in Fiscal 1976 .........................

58

A Summary of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act 1965. .
......................

60

4.
5.

Organizational Chart of the Michigan Depart­
ment of E d u c a t i o n ................................67

6.

A Description of the Six Steps of the MDE
Rational Planning "Accountability" Model.

. . 185

7.

The Dominant Strategy Exercised by MDE in
Each of the Case S t u d i e s ...................... 362

8.

Elements of the Environment of MDE Which
were Accessed by MDE During the Study . . . .

* * ■

Vlll

364

L IS T OF F I G U R E S

Figure

Page

I-

Reducing uncertainty about energy supply

. . . .

2.

Using input to g r o w ................................. 14

3.

Throughputs; converting input into output.

4.

Basic model of an open system operating in an
exchange with its environment............. ..

...

5

14
. 15

5.

The range of concerns of the thirteen MDE
service areas..................................... 69

6.

Times at which different methods played a major
role in r e s e a r c h ................................149

7.

Sources for final, formal interviews

8.

Methods used with various data s o u r c e s ......... 162

9.

Interview checklist, used as a map for the
final series of formal i n t e r v i e w s ............164

10.

The location of the seven case studies accord­
ing to the organizational chart of MDE . . . .187

11.

Public Act 198

12.

Institutionalized Program for the Handicapped.

13.

How MDE is encouraged to behave in a rational
m a n n e r ........................................... 387

............160

.................................... 235
.236

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION
Purpose
The author’s purpose in the study was to describe
and explain how the Michigan Department of Education attempts
to reduce uncertainty in its environment.

In order to do

this, the major elements in the environment of the agency
have been identified.
also identified.

The resources used by the agency are

Finally,

a list of strategies available

to the agency for use in reducing uncertainty about the
supply of these resources is presented.

The way in which

the agency uses these strategies to acquire a certainty
of supply of resources from the major elements in its e n ­
vironment is illustrated in a series of seven case studies.
In this chapter,

the theoretical basis is presented

and the model developed.

Careful attention is given to the

development of the strategies which an organization may use
to reduce uncertainty in its environment.
The Nature of the Study
A field study of the Michigan Department of Education
(MDE) was undertaken.

While a thorough discussion of method­

ology is available in the third chapter of this report, a
brief overview will be helpful at this early stage.
1

2

Initially, a relatively open question was addressed:
"How does the Michigan Department of Education behave?"
search was begun on site in October of 1974.

Re­

During the

autumn of 1974, about 30 interviews were conducted with p e r ­
sonnel from the top four levels of MDE.

In addition to

these semi-structured interviews, MDE personnel were observed
at work, usually in meetings.

These included meetings where

only staff were present, public State Board of Education
meetings and meetings involving other agencies.

Some meetings

of organizations in the environment of the MDE were also
attended.

Written documents by and about the agency were

collected and examined.
After the first two or three weeks of observing and
interviewing,

it became clear that the general question con­

cerning the behavior of the organization could be refined.
The most common recurring theme in the observations was a
search for predictability.

A concern for eliminating u n ­

predicted threats, for planning and for control permeated
the agency.

Thus the general question was amended to read

"How does the Michigan Department of Education reduce u n ­
certainty in its environment?"

This abstraction was judged

to be descriptive of the range of phenomena observed.*

A

*As will be evident in later sections of this chapter,
the concept of reducing uncertainty was taken from the work
of James D. Thompson, for the most part.
In the present
study, the concept of environmental uncertainty parallels
Thompson's in Organizations in Action (New York:
McGrawHill, 1967).
Development of that part of the conceptual
model in this study which describes how organizations reduce

3

large body of theoretical material dealing with this q ues­
tion was available.

A conceptual framework emanating from

open systems theory was developed.
during the winter of 1975.

This was accomplished

Observations were continued

during that time.
Once the conceptual framework was developed and a
large collection of descriptive data from the autumn r e ­
search had been amassed, more specific questions were gen­
erated.

These were asked in formal interviews of selected

personnel from the top five levels of the agency, plus
members of the State Board of Education and representatives
of other agencies from the environment of MDE.

These in­

terviews dealt with seven case studies selected to broadly
represent the activities of the agency.

Responses

from

these interviews form the core of the data in this report;
other data are used to supplement and clarify as needed.
The Conceptual Framework:

Overview

Organizations are conceived of as dynamic open sys­
tems.

This means that organizations may do more than just

survive in a static balance:

they grow, produce, and adapt.

In order to do any of these things, energy is required by
the organization.

As will be explained in detail later in

uncertainty by acting on their environments also owes a
debt to Thompson's work.
It should be made clear though
that observations of such behaviors by the MDE were made
prior to the selections of the uncertainty concept and
that field data led to the conceptual model, not the re­
verse .

4

this chapter, energy sources for open systems are necessarily
uncertain.

This is because the sources of energy are out­

side of an open system, in its environment--and thus cannot
be perfectly controlled.

If organizations are open systems,

they must import energy from their environments.

Energy is

needed for basic survival and for production or adaptation.
Thus an organization,

if it is an open system, will have an

uncertain supply of energy and will have to seek to make
that supply more certain.

This effort will be ongoing.

The Michigan Department of Education
ceived of as an open system.

(MDE) is con­

This means that the MDE must

import energy from its environment.

In order to describe

that process, the sources of energy which exist in the e n ­
vironment of the MDE are identified.
that energy takes--money, policy,
are also described.

The specific forms

information, personnel--

Several strategies used by the MDE

to seek a certain supply of energy are enumerated.

It is

this list of strategies that forms the core of the concep­
tual framework used in this study.
For any attempt to reduce uncertainty concerning an
energy supply, the following elements of the transaction can
be identified:
the

system:

-always MDE or some subset.

the

energy source

-usually an organization from
the environment of MDE.

the

resource

-the form the energy takes,
money, policy, information...

5

the strategy

-the method used by MDE to re­
duce uncertainty about energy
supply.

Figure 1 is a graphic illustration of this process.
It illustrates the special case of an exchange-type strategy
used by the MDE to trade for resources.

strategy enacted
ENVIRONMENT:
all
energy sources are here

m
The SYSTEM:
this study, MDE
\

resource acquired

FIGURE 1.--Reducing uncertainty about energy supply.

Further description of the Michigan Department of
Education is included in the second chapter of this disser­
tation.

Identification of the organizations present in the

environment of the MDE is also available there.
In the balance of this first chapter, a complete
discussion of the conceptual framework for the study is pre­
sented.

First, the development and substance of General

Systems Theory is presented.
Open Systems is discussed.

Second, the special case of
Third, efforts to explain the

behavior of organizations by using the Open Systems model
are reviewed.

Fourth, and last, the list of strategies

available to organizations to cope with environmental u n ­
certainty is developed.

6

General Systems Theory
For over a quarter of a century a new theoretical
model known as General Systems Theory

(GST) has been im­

pacting on diverse fields of science.

Ludwig von Bertalanffy

is generally credited as the first to conceptualize the Gen­
eral Systems model in the 1920's1 although little explora­
tion occurred until after World War II.
In a later exploration, von Bertalanffy recalls that
he saw a need to account for phenomena occurring across a
wide range of scientific studies, phenomena such as "order,
maintenance.

. . regulation and apparent teleology."

was observed that growth curves,

2

It

for example, were similar

whether one observed chemical reactions, y e a s t .cultures,
rabbit populations,
House lawn.

information growth, or a mob on the White

The changing slope of the curves--gradual,
jL

accelerated, asymptotic growth, dramatic decline--can be
shown to be quite similar in these various instances.
There was need to account for these and similar ob­
servations, mostly of biological and social systems.

Av ail­

able knowledge and theory were not able to cope with the
task.

Classical physics dealt best with two-variable

1J.E. Haas and T.E. Drabeck, Complex Organizations
(New York:
MacMillan, 1973), p. 84.
2
Ludwig von Bertalanffy, "General Systems Theory-A Critical Review," General Systems , VII, (1962), p. 12.
James G. Miller, "Toward a General Theory for the
Behavioral Sciences," American Psychologist, X, Number 9,
(September, 1955), p. 525".

’

7

linear

problems.

to p r o b l e m s

of

Stochastic

"unorganized

a very

large

In v o n

B c r t a l a n f f y 's v i e w ,

complexity,
number
new

number of

tha t

is,

of v a r i a b l e s ,

conceptual

by v o n
variate

ability

of

systems

"problems

popping

up e v e r y w h e r e

General

Systems

a method

of

a large

applied

in w h i c h

are

operable.

of o r g a n i z e d

are

a second

but

not
and

Theory

infinite
demand

was

c o n c c p t u a 1izing

c o u l d not
models

be

were

It w a s

in r e a c t i o n

Bertalanffy began

has

come

to be
Kenneth

"general

known

advocated

such

multi­

of

empirical

■'‘v o n

this

as G e n e r a l

work

one

parullalcd

tha t

apparent
of

often

end

model

over­
sys-

that

which

Theory.

the m a n y

scientists

from

that

of

von

Bertalanffy.

v i e w o f an e c o n o m i s t ,

he

had

developed

t h e o r y , " 4 w h i c h has

Bertalanffy,

p.

and social

complex

dead

the

adapta­

Mechanistic

was

to

"General

contributed

Systems

Theory,"

p . 12 .
2 Ibid.,

obvious

context.

Systems
of

conceptual

biological

"vitalism"

development

B o u l d i n g wa s

whose

point

his

to

of

a problem

property

the

growth,

in t h a t

simple,

the

The

to

behavior

explained

von

the

physics.

too

terns.

fields

limitation

and wholistic

attributing

From

however,

variables

of

as

c om e b y

other

co mplexity,"1 instances

interaction

theoretical

learning

linear

successfully

problems.
There was

tion,

were

uncontrollable

tools."

Bertalanffy

models

12.

^ I b i d . , p . 13.
4ilaas , C o m p l e x

O r g a n i z a t i o n s , p.

84.

to the

1962,

a

8

present version of General Systems Theory.

He shared another

concern of von Bertalanffy and felt that "the crisis of
science today arises because of the increasing difficulty
of such profitable talk among scientists as a w h o l e . A
way to assist in the dissemination and recognition of rele­
vant data is to adapt G.S.T.

as a theoretical framework.

This would, he argues, allow members in any branch of science
to benefit from the results of work in other disciplines.
The above promises,

improved conceptual ability and

better communication, are large and thus introduce the inves­
tigation of the specific nature of this model, General Sys­
tems Theory.
What is a system?

Several definitions do converge.

In an early definition, von Bertalanffy defines systems as
"sets of elements standing in interaction."

2

Later he re-

fers to a system as a "complex of interacting components."

3

Boulding^ avoids any explicit definition, but it is evident
that his is a very similar conception.
fine it as follows:

Hall and Fagan de­

"A system is a set of objects together

with relationships between the objects and between their
"'"Kenneth Boulding, "General System Theory--The
Skeleton of Science," Management S c i ence, 2 (1956), p. 4.
2
Ludwig von Bertalanffy, "General System Theory,"
General Systems 1 , 1956, p. 3.
T

Ludwig von Bertalanffy, "General Systems Theory,"
1962, p. 13.
^Boulding, "General Systems Theory."

attributes.

According to Laszlo and others "a system is

a set of interacting functional relationships between various
components which transform a set of inputs into a set of
?
outputs.”
Even more specifically, Miller says:
"Systems
are bounded regions in space-time, involving energy inter­
change among their parts which are associated in functional
relationships and with their environments."
While there can, as

shown, be variations

and level of specificity, there is an underlying

in emphasis
consensus

that a system is composed of two or more elements and that
some relationship between the elements is implied.

Even

this requires clarification.
Any collection of items can, in the above definition,
constitute a system.

There is a relationship between me and

a designated pine tree in Siberia.

The distance between us

is measurable; our common dependence on a carbon-oxygen cycle
is indisputable.
interesting.

But neither observation is particularly

Consequently,

though systems are literally

"in the eye of the beholder," it is unlikely that one would
subject to investigation a system that did not contain some
*A.D. Hall and R.E. Fagen, "Definition of System,"
General Systems I , 1956, p. 81.
2C.A. Laszlo, et. al., "A General Systems Framework
for Social Systems," Behavioral Science, Volume 19, 2,
(March, 1974), p. 79.
^Miller, "General Theory," p. 514.

10

interesting interdependent relationship.^
relationships that make the notion of

It is "these

'system* useful."

The importance of this notion will become more clear in
the subsequent discussion of subsystems and supersystems.
Characteristics of a System
A system may be static or dynamic.
static if it does not change with time.

A system is

Few static systems

are naturally available.
All systems, except the universe itself, exist
within a larger environment.
to that environment.

These may be open or closed

The special case of open systems will

receive considerable attention later in this paper.
It is quite correct to define the environment of a
system as being composed of all elements and relations out­
side of the boundaries of the system.

However, that defin­

ition would include many elements and relationships of no
interest to members of the system or to observers of it.
There would seem to be no point in requiring ourselves to
attend to the whole universe when investigating some single
system within it.

Consequently,

in this study, the Hall

and Fagen definition of environment will be used:

"for a

^David Easton, "A Systems Analysis of Political
Life," W. Buckley, editor, Modern Systems Research for the
Behavioral Scientist (Chicago: A l d i n e , 1968) , p p . 42 8-436.
^Hall and Fagen, "Definition," p.
^Miller, "General Theory,*' p. 514.

82.

11

given system, the environment is the set of all objects a
change in whose attributes affect the system and also those
objects whose attributes are changed by the behavior of the
system.” 1
Systems are potentially hierarchical.
systems

("except the smallest”)

other smaller systems.

All definable

are made up of subsystems,

Any system can be conceived to be

a part of a larger supersystem.

For example,

if we view the

College of Agriculture at Michigan State University as a
system, we will note that it is composed of several subsys­
tems, the departments, and that it can also be conceived of
as one element of a larger supersystem,
The supersystem is simply part

the University.

(or all) of the environment

of the system under study.
Again, the specification is a matter of the intent
of the observer, or, as Hall and Fagan put it, "the dichotomy
of sets of related objects into system and environment d e ­
pends

essentially on the point of view

at hand.” 3

All systems must reckon with entropy.

In

physics

the analog of the entropy concept is the second law of thermo­
dynamics.
rundown.

This simply states that physical systems tend to
Energy

tends

to dissipate.

1Hall and Fagen, "Definition,”

To survive at any
p. 83,

^Miller, "General Theory," p. 514.
3Hall and Fagen, "Definition," p. 86.

12

level of complexity, a system must import energy from its
environment.

This can include information, heat or mater­

ial .1
A college as in the earlier example, needs a supply
of resources:
vive.

money, students,

faculty, in order to sur­

There are only two sources of energy:

itself and the environment of the system.

the system

By definition,

any given system except the universe itself can maintain
only a finite supply of energy within its boundaries.

Thus

all systems which survive must be open at some point.
"A system is closed if there is no import or e x ­
port of energy in any of its forms

...

an example being

a chemical reaction taking place in a sealed, insulated container."

In other words, a closed system cannot maintain

a state of negative entropy and so must eventually run down.
The chemical reaction will cease; the yeast will die; the
college will cease to offer courses.
The concept of a closed system has some theoretical
utility; one example is the "frictionless system" postulated
in physics.

Any system can be conceived of as closed, sim­

ply "by adjoining to the system that part of the environment
3 4
with which the exchange takes place." *
1Ibid., p . 86.
^ Ibid., p . 86.
3Ibid., p. 87.
4D. Katz and R. Kahn, The Social Psychology of O r ganizations (New York:
Wiley, 1966) , p"! 5 8, also deal with
this .

13

Summary
Some general observations concerning systems have
been made.

A system may be static or dynamic.

All systems

have an environment with which they may interact.

Systems

are composed of subsystems and may be viewed as sub or
supersystems.
to survive.

All systems must maintain negative entropy
This is only possible in the long run for open

systems, since closed systems do not import energy.
Open Systems Theory
Open systems are characterized by von Bertalanffy
as representing a special case of General Systems Theory.*
Consequently, attention at this point will be directed to
some of the attributes peculiar to open systems theory,
or at least more interesting in that context.
An open system imports energy from its environment.
This implies that an open system may be successful in re­
versing entropy and can thus survive over time while a
closed system will have a finite life span.
There are several possible results of a system's
maintaining negative entropy.
survive.

First, the system is able to

Second, it may use the imported energy to grow.

2

If this growth leads to higher complexity, the process is
called anabolism.

Third,

the energy may be processed and

*von Bertalanffy, 1962, p. 19.
2
Laszlo, et. al., "Framework/' p. 82.
■*von Bertalanffy,

1962 , p. 18.

14

output created and exported into the environment.^

In

this instance, the energic input is said to have been catabolized.

2

At this point, our system looks like this:

Anabolism

A
Input

SYSTEM

>

V

4

FIGURE 2.--Using input to grow

Catabolism

SYSTEM

Input

f

Output

FIGURE 3.--Throughputs; converting input into out­
put .

Open systems typically make use of feedback.
means that, having impacted on its environment

This

(that is,

by creating an output), a system will receive some reaction
as a result of its action.

This may take the form of energy,

as in auto sales,

When the market

ideally.

(environment)

is appropriate, customers in the environment will buy
cars

(output) and the money will return to the auto makers

to provide energy to make more cars.

In other instances,

*Katz and Kahn, Social Psychology, p. 19.
^von Bertalanffy,

1962, p. 18.

IS

the feedback will be only information

(that is, no cars

were sold) which will tell the auto maker not to produce
further output until something improves.

This implies

that a system can "learn,” can modify its behavior.

Thus,

feedback can be in the form of energy or of information.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
Addition of a feedback loop would create a system
like the following.

Output

Input
SYSTEM
(Process)

t

1

Energy

»

ENVIRONMENT

Information

FIGURE 4.--Basic Model of an Open System Operating
i<n an Exchange with its Environment.

It is important to note the exchange relationship.
mately,

Ulti­

the only available source of energy for the open

system is its environment.

In the example shown, the system

has exported some output into the environment and has re­
ceived both energy

(in some form) and information in return.

This model is the one most typically used to illustrate
basic system concepts.
Another characteristic of open systems is called
equifinality.1
Katz

This refers to the ability of a system to
a nd Kahn,

So c i a l

Psychology,

p.

27.

16

reach a specific end point or state from various beginnings.
The tendency of plant communities

to achieve a similar c l i ­

max state from different beginnings has been cited as one
example of this phenomenon.^

In Michigan,

for example,

forests usually reach a climax state as a mature bccchmaplc forest, whether the process of succession began on
burned, ploughed,

logged over or cultivated land.

Open systems seek steady states.
isms facilitate this.

Feedback mechan­

The most common example of this is

the ability of warm-blooded animals to compensate automa­
tically for temperature change.
ally called homeostatic.

Such abilities arc gencr-

According to Hall and Fagcn , a

system "maintains stability for all those variables which
must,

for favorable operation,

remain

An open system can maintain a
action with the environment.4

within limits.
steady state of inter­

For example,

the hypothetical

college could intake an equal number of students, dollars
and faculty hours, producing a similar number of student
credit

iiours and degrees,

over a long period of time, assum­

ing no change in the environment.

For systems of any

com­

plexity, such a constant environment is rarely available.
^von bertalanffy,

1962, p. 23.

2 Ibid. , p. 17.
^llall and Fagen, "Definition," p. 87.
4

Katz

and

Kahn,

S o cial

Psychology,

p.

24.

17

Thus a steady state relationship is unlikely for a complex
social system.

Adaptation--a far more complex and dynamic

process--is more likely than a steady state relationship
in such cases.
Adaptive behavior is a higher order behavior of
open systems postulated by Buckley.^

In brief, not only

can open systems maintain vital processes within critical
limits; they also possess the ability to modify those
limits if change in the environment warrants such action:
True feedback control loops make possible not only self­
regulation, but self-direction or at least adaptation
to a changing environment, such that the system may
change or elaborate its structure as a condition of
survival or viability.2
Buckley suggests that both living and social sys­
tems are capable of such adaptive behavior.

Easton also

notes that a political system, for example, may seek a new
3
point of equilibrium if necessary.
The college described
earlier,

for example, could respond to a changed environment

by adding a new major in environmental education if such a
move was required by some change in society.
Summary
Open systems may be viewed as a special case of
General Systems Theory.

Open systems are characterized by

^Walter Buckley, e d . , "Society as a Complex Adaptive
System," Modern Systems Research.
2I b i d . , p. 490.
3
Easton, "Systems Analysis," p. 430.

18

intake of energy which may be used to create growth or o u t ­
put.

Open systems generally receive feedback as a result

of their action.

Such feedback can take the form of true

energy or of information.

Open systems seek steady states

and are capable of adaptation to maintain such states.
Organizations as Open Systems
To this point, a description of General Systems
Theory,

an interdisciplinary model, has been presented.

Special attention has been given to the development of open
system theory as a special case of G.S.T.

In this study,

a specific organization--the Michigan Department of E d uca ­
tion--is examined using open system concepts.

Several

assumptions about the utility of open system theory for this
task shall now be presented and examined.
First, it has been noted that open systems, by d e f ­
inition,

import energy from their environments.

Second, it

is clear that the environment is necessarily an uncertain
supply of energy.

Third, the central assumption to this

section is that organizations can be viewed as open systems.
Fourth,

it is necessary to assume that the critical elements

of an organization's environment can be identified.

Fifth,

if organizations are open systems, they will seek to reduce
uncertainty concerning the supply of energy from their e n ­
vironments.

Sixth and last is the assertion that the

strategies by which organizations seek to reduce uncertainty
concerning energy supply can be identified.
will now be examined in turn.

Each of these

19

First, open systems import energy from their environ­
ments.

This is in fact the central part of the definition

of open systems.

This energy is needed so that the system

may attain negative entropy.

Energy input may be used for

growth, added complexity, or output.

If an organization

were viewed as an open system, the above would imply that
an organization can do more than merely survive, it can also
produce,

grow, or store energy for future use.
Second, the environment is an uncertain source of

energy.

An assured supply of energy, even for a finite

time period, would imply a closed system.

By definition,

open systems are faced with uncertainty regarding their
*

continued supply of energy.
Third, organizations can be viewed as open systems.
This can be defended both deductively and empirically.

It

was the stated intention of the originators of General Sys­
tem Theory that examination of social systems be undertaken.
For example, von Bertalanffy stated that:
It therefore appears that an expansion of science is
required to deal with those aspects which are left out
in physics and happen to concern just the specific
characteristics of biological, behavioral and social
phenomena.
This amounts to new conceptual models to
be introduced.!
Boulding referred to organizations as one specific
2
level of application of G.S.T.
Hall and Fagen recognize
^von Bertalanffy,
^Ibid,, p. 8.

1962, p. 12.

20

a similar breadth of application.^

Rapoport and Horvath

devoted a review article to the development of systems
models in organization theory as early as 1959. 2

Buckley 3

contributed to this trend with a general theory of adaptive
behavior and Laszlo and others recently presented a G.S.T.
4
framework for the analysis of social systems.
The above demonstrates the intent of the theorists
who contributed to the development of both G.S.T. and open
system theory.

It does not, by itself, document success­

ful application of those models to the study of organiza­
tions.

Such documentation is, however,

richly available.

While there have been articles of (at least) equal impact,
a survey of book-length reports only will suffice to make
the point here.
Crozier used systems concepts in his analysis of
French governmental bureaucracies.^

Katz and Kahn applied

open system theory to a study of the social relations within
organizations.^

Easton devoted two major works to

*Hall and Fagen, "Definition," p. 91.
?
A. Rapoport and W.J. Horvath, "Thoughts on Organiza­
tion Theory," W. Buckley, editor, Modern Systems Research.
3
Buckley, "Society as a Complex Adaptive System."
4
Laszlo, e t . a l ., "Framework."
cago:

^Michel Crozier, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon (Chi­
University of Chicago Press, 1964).
Katz a n d Kahn,

Social

Psychology.

21

developing a theory of political behavior in open system
terms.

1 2

*

Buckley attempted to create a general theory of

sociological behavior based on open system theory^ and also
edited a book of related readings as a companion v o l u m e /
Thompson applied open system theory to organizational b e ­
havior and structure^ and co-authored a later work examining
human interaction and decision making, also within a systems
framework.^

More recently, Haas used open system theory

as a basis for the development of his model of complex or7
ganizations.
Many of the above works will be referred to through­
out the study.

It is worth noting that all of these are

serious theoretical examinations of organizations, using
an open systems model.

This, as opposed to the applied

work such as systems analysis and systems management tech­
niques which are usually applications of closed system theory.
^David Easton, A Framework for Political Analysis
(Englewood Cliffs:
Prent ice-Hall, 1965).
2
David Easton, Systems Analysis of Political Life
(New York:
Wiley, 1965jt
Walter Buckley, Sociology and Modern Systems Theory
(Englewood Cliffs:
Prentice-Hall, 1967).
^Walter Buckley, Modern Systems Research for the B e ­
havioral Scientist (Chicago: A l d i n e , 1968).
^James D. Thomspon, Organizations in A c t i o n .
^James D. Thomspon and Donald R. Van Houten, The Be­
havioral Sciences:
An Interpretation (Reading, Massachusetts:
Addison-Wesley, 1970).
7

Haas and Drabeck., Complex Organizations.

22

Fourth, there is a further assumption that the e n ­
vironment of an organization can be determined.

An environ­

ment in the real world can rarely be totally specified,
but the most critical resources and members can usually be
identified.^
environment,

Recall that in the definition of the term
it was suggested that even though an environ­

ment can be viewed as infinite,

it is more useful to attempt

to isolate that finite set of elements which have signifi­
cant impact on the system under study.
Fifth, organizations will,

if they are open systems,

seek energy from their environments and will seek to reduce
uncertainty about the continued flow of energy.

According

to Katz and Kahn, "it is characteristic of any organization
to try to place itself in an advantageous position with respect to environmental resources and competing groups."

2

Perrow states the case for the ability of organizations to
reduce uncertainty even more strongly:
Society is adaptive to organizations, to the large,
powerful organizations . . . to see these organizations
as 'adaptive to a turbulent, dynamic, everchanging en­
vironment' is to indulge in fantasy.
The environment
of most organizations is quite well controlled by them,
quite stable, and made up of other organizations with
similar interests.^
^all
2

and Fagen, "Definition," p. 84.

Katz and Kahn, Social Psychology, p. 67.

Charles Perrow, Complex Organizations (Glenview,
Illinois:
Scott, Forseman and Company, 1972), p. 199.

23

With regard to political systems, Easton contends that
. . . our analysis will rest on the idea of a system
imbedded in an environment and subject to possible in­
fluences from it that threaten to drive the essential
variables of the system beyond their critical range.
To persist, the system must be capable of responding
with measures that are successful in alleviating the
stress so created.
To respond, the authorities must
be in a position to obtain information about what is
happening so that they may react insofar as they d e ­
sire or are compelled to do so.l
This consensus that organizations are, in fact,
capable of reducing uncertainty about their continued supply
of energy/resources
writers.

from the environment is shared by other

Perrow’s is an aggressive view of organizations,

but Easton is concerned with ability to react.

Not all r e ­

sponses in the continuing struggle to reduce uncertainty
and assure energy are as dramatic as these,

though, as shall

be evident in the discussion of strategies immediately
following.
The sixth and last assumption is that a continuum
of the methods,

the strategies, by which organizations seek

to assure their continued survival can be created.
and McEwen conceive of ” . . .

Thompson

a continuum of organizational

power in environmental relations,

ranging from the

^Easton, ’’Systems Analysis” in Buckley, p. 436.
2
Anthony Downs, Inside Bureaucracy (Boston:
Little
Brown and Company, 1967)^ p*I 18; F71TI fernery and E.L. Trist,
"The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments," Human
Rel ations, Volume 18, (1965), pp. 21-32; and John Chi I d ,
"Organizational Structure," Sociology, Volume 6, Number 1
(January, 1972), pp. 1-21.

24

organization that completely dominates its environmental
relations to one that is completely dominated by its e n ­
vironment .
In this study, a framework of possible strategies
matching that diversity is proposed.
of those strategies

A complete discussion

follows this section.

There is, perhaps,

a seventh unspoken assumption:

that all of the preceding elements can be integrated into
a dynamic descriptive model of organizational behavior.

It

is that model which is used to describe and explain the b e ­
havior of the Michigan Department of Education in its e n ­
vironment,

The components of the model are illustrated

earlier in this report and include the M D E , the strategies
it uses,

the resources which arc sought and the environ­

ment which must ultimately provide those resources.

fol­

lowing a brief review of other components, the focus of
thisreport will now

be directed to those strategies which

may beused to reduce uncertainty.
The Range of Responses

to Uncertainty

Open systems exist in an environment and

are in

a

constant state of uncertainty about the continued avail­
ability of cncrgy--of resources--from their environments.
^Jaincs D. Thompson and William J. Mcliwcn, "Organiza­
tional Goals and Environment:
Goal-Setting as an Inter­
action Process," American Sociological Review, Volume 23,
Number 1, (February, 19 5 8) , P • 257

25

The auto company is never certain that the price of steel
will remain stable.

The social agency which depends on the

government for its budget is to some extent uncertain about
its future.

The mining operation is dependent on finding

new veins of ore and is rarely secure in the long term.
Thus organizations, as open systems, are involved in o n ­
going attempts to reduce uncertainty about resources.
What, operationally, are the energy sources or re­
sources available to an organization?

In a physical system,

the term 'energy' can be more easily understood.

Energy

includes nuclear or binding energy, electromagnetic energy,
magnetic attraction, and gravity.
the energy is either physical

In a biological system,

(sunlight, heat) or similar

energy in a stored form, such as plant or animal protein.
One rarely speaks of a rabbit as a form of energy, but it
is exactly that to a fox!

In social systems, especially

complex organizations, energy is rarely in a single form.
Further,

the concepts energy and resources are used inter­

changeably in this study.

Of course it is most common to

speak of organizational inputs as resources, using the
operationalized level of description.
such resources
elements.

As mentioned earlier,

include money, staff, information and other

These are analogous to the energic input or n e g a ­

tive entropy discussed in reference to General Systems Theory
and later to the special case of open s y s t e m s .

Resources

are simply those inputs which an organization can use, either
for survival, growth or output.

26

The environment of an organization can contain both
resources and other organizations.

The latter may be p o ­

tential suppliers of resources or competitors for those re ­
sources.

Other organizations could also be totally neutral

with respect to the search by a given organization for r e ­
sources and would thus cease to be of interest to u s . 1
The environment is, in turn, uncertain.

A changing environ­

ment implies an uncertain supply of the resources needed
for the survival of the organization.

It is within this

context that our discussion of organizational responses to
uncertainty must take place.
The ability of an organization to control its energy
sources has been conceived of as ranging from zero to almost
total control of environmental uncertainty.

What are the

specific strategies an open system may employ within this
range?

What organizational behaviors are analogous to these

different strategies?

Table I outlines a series of strate­

gies which an organization may use to control its environ­
ment.

These are the means by which an organization may re­

duce uncertainty about its supply of resources from its e n ­
vironment .
The list of strategies for reducing uncertainty
(Table I) is the product of a search of several sources
concerned with similar issues.

These will be acknowledged

"^Thompson, for example, would follow Dill in e x ­
cluding such neutralists from the "task environment."

27

TABLE 1

-Organizational Strategies for Coping with Uncer
tainty.

Strategy

Description

1.

Ignore:

The organization neither recog­
nizes nor reacts to environmen­
tal change.

2.

Absorb:

3.

Post Facto Response

4.

Measure:

5.

Predict:

6.

Avoid:

7.

Maintain Options:

The organizations recognizes
a change and passively absorbs
the impact.
The system reacts and adjusts
internally as a result of the
perceived change.
The incoming stress or environ­
mental change is consciously
monitored.
Attempts are made to predict
future change in the environ­
ment .
Given accurate information, an
organization may select a d e ­
sirable environment or future
in which to operate, avoiding
threat and s t ress.
The decision to act is avoided
as long as possible.

8.

Increase Options:

9.

Conflict:

10.

Bargain/Contract:

11.

Co-opt:

12

Coalesce:

13.

Annex

Attempts are made to assure the
organization can respond to a
wide range of possible futures.
The organization enters into con­
flict with others for control
of uncertain resources.
Resources are "bought" in e x ­
change for other resources.
Members of organizations control­
ling needed resources are invited
into the organization, assuring
their interest in its survival.
Two or more organizations agree
on a joint venture to assure
mutual availability of resources.
The source of uncertainty is
annexed, making that part of the
environment a part of the organ­
ization.

28

as specific reference is made.

The strategies discussed

are arranged in a roughly ascending order, but no pretence
is made that they form a true "scale" in the scientific
sense of that term.

Certainly they are not mutually e x ­

clusive, nor are they truly cumulative.

There is, however,

an attempt to order the strategies in rough order of r e ­
quired commitment and potential control.
The strategies are clustered into three major c a t e ­
gories.

The first are Passive Strategies, since no action

by the organization actually occurs.

The second group

are called Reactive Strategies in that they are geared to
help an organization know how to react after an environ­
mental change has occurred.

Even prediction is thus e s s e n ­

tially a reactive strategy when it requires a change in the
system as the anticipatory action.

This introduces the P r o ­

active Strategies whereby the organization attempts to r e ­
duce uncertainty by actual intervention out into its environ
ment rather than by mere internal reaction or adaptation.
Passive Strategies
To recapitulate:

these are strategies in which the

organization neither adapts nor intervenes.
Ignore.--It is conceivable that an organization
might neither react nor attend to changes in its environ­
ment.

In such a case, the uncertain supply of resources

would eventually cause the "death" of the organization.

29

An open system which cannot import energy will cease to
exist.

An organization which does not have a continuous

supply of resources must fail.

This fate, for this reason,

was narrowly avoided by the food canning company studied
by Emery and Trist.*

In that instance, the technology of

competitors and preferences of customers changed drastically
in a few short years, but the company either did not receive
the information, or did not choose to act.

In the end, a

painful reorientation of the company finally saved it from
collapse.
A b s o r b .- - In some cases, an organization that has
large resources can absorb the impact of a comparatively
small threat.

Universities in the 60*s were accused of

"studying to death" some issues raised by students and the
public.

It was clear in a study of Oldsmobile that only

hard, specific legislation would force a change in pollution
control;

the auto industry could simple absorb criticism
2
from the relatively impotent environmentalists.
Reactive Strategies
Strategies in this group are characterized by the
fact that the organization responds by modifying itself-^F.E. Emery and E.L. Trist, "The Causal Texture of
Organizational Environments," Human Relations 18:1, (1965),
pp. 21-32.
2

Center for Environmental Quality, Michigan State
University, "Pollution Abatement Manpower Requirements in
the Automotive Industry (PAMRAI)," East Lansing, 19 71, 397
pages, multilithed.

30

not its environment.

The organization may alter either

its behavior or its structure.
Post Facto Response.--When a change occurs--not
before--an organization using this tactic will modify a
structure or a behavior.

This model approximates "control

by error" as discussed by Vickers1 in the behavior of a
servomechanism such as the automatic ships pilot often used
as an example of a system using negative feedback.

In

order that such after the fact adaptation be sufficient,
the environmental change must not be immediately lethal.
It takes a finite amount of time to adapt; the Brontosaurus
and the League of Nations were both too slow.

This is a

primitive strategy, but is the most basic and possibly the
most common.
M e a s u r e .--An organization must have information
about the magnitude of a change in the environment if it is
to adapt itself or modify its environment.

Child suggests

that "the greater the degree of complexity,

the more a

profusion of relevant environmental information is likely
to be experienced by organizational decision makers.
Emery and Trist,

in their discussion of the "placid,

^Geoffrey Vickers, "Is Adaptability Enough?" in
Buckley, editor, Modern Systems Research.
2

John Child, "Organizational Structure, Environment
and Performance:
The Role of Strategic Choice," Sociology,
VI, (January, 1972), pp. 1-21.

31

randomized environment" conclude that such simply reactive
patterns are appropriate only for small independent enti­
ties , whether they be protozoa or organizations.*

Simple

reactive adaptation, with or without measurement, will not
assure that complex systems acquire resources needed to
maintain negative entropy.
Predict.--More complex systems must be able to pre­
dict the behavior of elements within their environments.
Declining school enrollments, for example, have provided
educators with information about future resources that can
be used to predict their future environments.

Emery and

Trist also see this as a necessary skill for survival at
a complex level.

2

Weinwurm presents a convincing argument

for the use of statistical techniques to help businesses
measure, predict and insure against environmental changes.^
Avoid.- - If an organization can measure its environ­
ment and predict it with reasonable accuracy, another stra­
tegy becomes possible.

On perceiving an undesirable future,

the organization can avoid it.

Child, for example, notes

that arguments for environmental determinism are weakened
*Emery and Trist, "Environments," pp. 24-25.
2Ibid., p. 25.

x

Ernest H. Weinwurm, "Tools for Dealing with Uncer­
tainty," F.J. Lynden, e t . al., editors, Policies, Decisions
and Organization (New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1969),
p p . 331-342.

32

by the fact that organizations may select the environment
(or future)

in which they will operate.

Thus businessmen may have a choice between new markets
to enter, educators may exclude certain subjects from
their institutions courses, trade union officers may
decide on the bounds of their recruitment policy.!
This tactic is similar to the ability to seek a new level
of equilibrium as discussed by Easton.

2

Maintain Options.--An organization facing an u n ­
certain environment should not make inflexible commitments
too soon.

A sudden change may render a given policy in­

effective and the organization may waste energy, or miss
a chance to obtain resources.

The Oldsmobile division did

not, for example, commit itself to developing pollution
control devices until it was clear that no other options
3
were open.
Thompson makes a similar point:
"Under norms
of rationality, organizations seek to minimize the power
of task-environment elements over them, by maintaining al4
ternatives."
Increase Options.--It is equally desirable that an
organization have as many options as possible to meet u n ­
predictable changes in the environment from which resources
^Child, "Strategic Choice," p. 4.
2

See Easton, "Systems Analysis" in Buckley, p. 430
3
See PAMRAI report, noted above.
4
Thompson, Organizations in A c t i o n , p. 32.

33

come.

Cyert and March use the term "organizational slack"

to define both real resources and goodwill or debts that
may be built up as a hedge against hard times.^

Weinwurm

advocates the use of probability and statistics to help
balance risk, a means of increasing the range of environ­
mental change which can be accommodated.

This is similar

to insurance, he says, in that it reduces a true uncertainty
to a predictable risk.

This would have the effect of in­

creasing the number of environmental changes able to be
met by the organization.

In simpler terms, this is similar

to an argument against overspecialization.
Proactive Strategies
The critical notion here is that the organization
seeks to exert some external control, control over its e n ­
vironment.

True intervention occurs.

All of these stra­

tegies assume relatively sophisticated information resources.
The existence of some organizational resources beyond the
minimum needed for short-term survival is also prerequisite
to engaging in proactive strategies.
X

Competition.--Haas
conflict literature.

provides a concise review of

The point is made that conflict in

^Richard M. Cyert and James G. March, "A Behavioral
Theory of the Fir m , (Englewood Cliffs:
Prentice-Hall, 1963)♦
2

Weinwurm, "Tools for Uncertainty."

3
Haas, Complex Organizations, pp. 53-60.

34

organizations is ubiquitous and not necessarily maladaptive.
Katz and Kahn emphasize a conflict model of interorganizational behavior:
Within the national state, organizations compete through
such mechanisms.
Outside national boundaries, there is
also resort to threat, intimidation and organized force.
As we have noted, acquisitive self-interest is not
limited to profit-making institutions.!
Thompson notes that conflict is an adequate method
2
of securing resources in the case of perfect competition.
Both he and Emery and Trist recognize that imperfect compe­
tition is a more common situation for complex organizations.^
Thompson notes that this leads to the following:

"When sup­

port capacity is concentrated in one or a few elements of
the task environment, organizations under norms of ration­
ality seek power relative to those on whom they are d e pen­
dent ." 4
It is clear from all of the above that conflict is
a common means of securing resources and energy.
Bargaining/Contracting.--Emery and Trist sum up the
limits of conflict:
the death."^

"One has to know when not to fight to

Thompson quotes Cyert and March as having a

^Katz and Kahn, Social Psychology, p. 68.
2

Thompson, Organizations in A c t i o n , p. 33.
3
Emery and Trist, "Environments."
4Thompson, Organizations in A c t i o n , p. 34.
Emery and Trist,

"Environment," p. 26.

35

similar view,

. . organizations avoid having to antici­

pate environmental action by arranging negotiated environ­
ments."^

This introduces the concept of cooperative stra­

tegies, of which bargaining is the first.
Easton contends that political systems interact
with their environments on a quid pro quo basis, in part;
2
a true exchange.
Haas reviewed the literature of the
field and found that most analyses of exchange deal with
persons and groups rather than organizations.5

In a study

of health-related organizations, Levine and White found
that cooperative bargains were used to assure an adequate
supply of clients, labor, and other r e s o u r c e s /
Thompson considers "contracting" to be the most
basic cooperative strategy.

In that term he includes any

formal or informal agreement between two or more parties to
provide resources in the future.5

That definition will be

adopted for the present treatment of bargaining and con­
tracting .
^Thompson, Organizations in Action, p. 34.
2

Easton, Framework.
3
Haas, Complex Organizations, pp. 60-72.

4Sol Levine and Paul White, "Exchange as a Concep­
tual Framework for the Study of Interorganizational Rela­
tionships," Administrative Science Quarterly (March, 1961),
pp. 583-601.
5Thompson, Organizations in Action, p. 35.

36

Co-optation.- -"Co-optation is the process of a b ­
sorbing new elements into the leadership or policy deter­
mining structure of an organization as a means of averting
threats to its stability or existence.1*^

Selznick developed

this concept to explain his observations of inter-organizational exchanges in TVA and the Grass R o o t s .

Thompson con­

siders co-optation to be a more constraining form of e x ­
change than contracting.

As an example, he suggests that

The acceptance on the corporation's board of directors
of representatives of financial institutions, for e x ­
ample, increases the likelihood of access to financial
resources for the duration of the co-optive arrangement.
But . . . it places an element of the environment in a
position to raise questions and perhaps exert influence
on other aspects of the organization.3
An example of this is given by Allen's study which
demonstrated that "the frequency of interlocking with finan­
cial corporations has increased rather than decreased through
4
time."
It is thus suggested that co-optation will be a
strategy commonly used by organizations to reduce environ­
mental uncertainty.
Philip Selznick, "Co-optation" in Brinkerhoff, et.
al., editors, Complex Organizations and Their Environments
(Dubuque, Iowal
W.C. B r o w n , 1 9 ? 2 ) , p . 141.
^Philip Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots (Berkeley:
University of California P r e s s ,' 1949) .
3
Thompson, Organizations in A c t i o n , p. 35.
^Michael Allen, "The Structure of Interlocking Elite
Co-optation:
Interlocking Corporate Directorates," American
Sociological Revi e w , Volume 39, (June, 1974), p. 393.

37

Coalesce.--Coalition is a highly constraining
strategy in that it requires an organization to make commit­
ments to joint decision m a k ing.*
often seen as worthwhile.

The payoff is, however,

It is Cyert and March that have

focused attention of theorists on this strategy.

2

Aiken

and Hage also note that "the joint program is often a rela­
tively enduring relationship,

thus indicating a high degree
7
of organizational interdependence."
Taylor has even d e ­
veloped a study of "minimal winning coalitions" in govern4
ments.
With regard to educational organizations, Clark
concluded that "leadership is moving into the interagency
compact, the limited alliance,
committee, the federation."^

the consortium, the grants
Levine and White found the

same strategies to be operative in health agencies.6

Emery

and Trist suggest that the existence of a coalition at least
with respect to agreed on values and rules of interaction
is almost pre-requisite to survival in the more complex
■^See Thompson, Organizations in A c t i o n , p. 36.
2

Cyert and March, Behavioral T h e o r y , Chapter 3.

^Michael Aiken and Gerald Hage, "Organizational In­
terdependence and Intraorganizational Structure," in Brinkerhoff, editor, Complex Organizations, p. 370.
4
Michael Taylor, "On the Theory of Government C o ­
alition Formation," British Journal of Political Science, II,
(July, 1972), pp. 361-373.
^Burton R. Clark, "Interorganizational Patterns in
Education," in Brinkerhoff, editor, Complex Organizations,
p . 365.
6Levine and White, "Exchange."

38

environments.*

Less theoretical but more dramatic is the

impact on North America in 1975 of the cartel of oil ex­
porting nations.

That coalition, at least to date, has

been a successful strategy for its members.
A n n e x .--The ultimate strategy for an open system
is to annex the source of uncertainty.

In Thompson's terms,

this would be similar to including the source of resources
in the technical core of the organization.

2

This would

have the effect of allowing the organization's decision
makers to make closed-system assumptions about that source
of resources, since it would no longer be part of the en­
vironment, but part of the system.
the same phenomenon:

Katz and Kahn describe

"Social systems will move, however,

toward incorporating within their boundaries the external
resources essential to survival.

Again the result is an

expansion of the original system."
Downs also deals with the tendency to growth, as
does Thompson, though only the latter deals in detail with
the concept.

Vertical integration is the name applied by

Thompson to the tendency of organizations to expand and in­
corporate potential sources of uncertainty.

"Under norms

of rationality, organizations seek to place their boundaries
*Emery and T r i s t ,"Environments."
2

Thompson, Organizations in A c tion, Chapter 2.
3
Katz and Kahn,

Social P s y c h o l o g y , p.

24.

39

around those activities which if left to the task environ­
ment would be crucial contingencies."1
Annexation is not restricted to sources of input.
The organization which can acquire a guaranteed market will
have reduced uncertainty about a crucial contingency.

The

monopoly held by the United States Postal Service on first
class mail exemplifies this.

A firm producing supertankers

would probably be pleased to merge with Exxon, since a m a r ­
ket for its output services would be virtually assured.
This type of annexation is also recognized by Thompson in
his vertical integration model and by Katz and Kahn in their
discussion of mechanisms for acquisition.
Thus proactive strategies are open to organizations
which already have the capacity to engage in reactive stra­
tegies.

Given the choice, some organizations at some times

choose to attempt to use proactive strategies;

to intervene

and control the environment as opposed to simply adapting
to it.

It is suggested that in complex environments, only

such proactive strategies will lead to survival in the long
run.

Further,

it is suggested that pure conflict is not

an effective strategy by itself in the long run; some c o o p ­
erative strategies need to be used.
1Thompson, Organizations in A c t i o n , p. 50.

40

Assumptions
Most of the assumptions that are operative here
result from the adoption of open system theory as a basic
stance and are alluded to in the development of the con­
ceptual framework.

They will, however, be made explicit

here.
First, any application of systems theory assumes
that the system is definable.

This simply means that the

major components or elements of the system can be identified
and that their number is not only finite, but small enough
to be conceptually meaningful.

The Michigan Department of

Education is regarded as meeting those assumptions.
Second,

it is assumed that the major elements in

the environment of the system--the MDE--can be identified
and described.

This implies a finite number of useable

energy sources.
Third, it is assumed that the.major relationships
between the agency and its environment can be identified
and described.
In summary,

these are the basic assumptions necessary

to any application of open system theory.

There is not an

assumption of perfect knowledge, or of any ability to control
any of the variables described-- those are closed-system
assumptions and are antagonistic to the view taken here.

41

Overview of the Dissertation
In this first chapter,

the conceptual framework has

been outlined, drawing heavily on open system theory.

A

model of organizational behavior has been suggested which
would describe the strategies organizations use to reduce
uncertainty about supply of resources from their environ­
ments.

A list of strategies available to organizations

has been presented.
In the second chapter, the three other elements
in the model are described.
Second,

First, the MDE is described.

the elements in the environment of the MDE are

identified and described.

Third,

the resources which are

sought by organizations--including MDE--are described.
In the third chapter a second, focused review
of literature is presented.

Some major works dealing with

reduction of uncertainty by organizations are reviewed.
Other descriptive studies dealing with education-related
organizations are also reviewed.

An attempt is made to

show how these can be explained by the model presented in
this study.
In the fourth chapter,
described.

the methodology is fully

A discussion of field methodology and its

appropriateness in this context is also presented.
In the fifth chapter,

the data resulting from the

seven case studies are presented in the context of the model.

42

In the sixth and last chapter, two sets of conclu­
sions are presented.

Initially, conclusions concerning the

behavior of the agency are presented.

Finally, conclu­

sions concerning the adequacy of the conceptual tools em­
ployed to describe the MDE and its attempts to reduce uncer
tainty in its environment are included.

Some discussion of

hypotheses and potential studies suggested by the present
research is also presented.

CHAPTER TWO

THE MODEL FOR REDUCING UNCERTAINTY

This study is a description of the means by which
the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) attempts to re­
duce uncertainty in its environment.

This study focuses on

the 1974-75 academic year, but will include some reference
to earlier events.

Operationally,

this study of uncertainty

involves a description of how the MDE assures a continued
supply of energy, of resources, from elements in its envi­
ronment.

The proposed strategies which an organization may

use to reduce uncertainty, to seek resources, have been des­
cribed.

This chapter will contain a complete description

of the remaining three components of the model:

the organ­

ization itself, the environment of the agency and the r e ­
sources that are used.
Defining the System to be Studied
This is a study of an organization.

It is concerned

with identifying the means by which a given organization-the Michigan Department of Education--seeks to reduce un­
certainty in its environment.

It is concerned with actions

that are emitted by the organization, those formal actions
which involve the agency as a system.
43

(The problem of

44

observing an organization by observing its members is
addressed in chapter four.)

Thus the level at which the

study occurs is the level at which the Michigan Department
of Education exists and acts as an organization.
There are three distinct parts of the MDE.

First,

the State Board of Education (SBE) has legal responsibility
under the 1964 Constitution for many matters related to
education in the state of Michgan.

Second,

appoints a Superintendent of Education.

the Board

Third, the staff--

over 2,500 of them--are responsible to the Superintendent
and through him to the State Board of Education.
While the interaction between these three compon­
ents --board, superintendent and staff--is unquestionably
interesting, it is not a necessary concern of this study.
Consequently, the three shall be treated as members of a
single, central state agency.

Thus, references to the

Michigan Department of Education do recognize the existence
of a staff, a Superintendent and an ultimately responsible
elected State Board of Education; although these components
will rarely receive separate attention.

This does not

negate the importance of the interaction, it simply excludes
that interaction from the domain of this study.

The fact

that neglect of this internal interaction is a major limi­
tation of this study is recognized.
Recall that any system is generally composed of
subsystems and in turn forms an element of a larger

45

supersystem.

The choice of a level of entry is essentially

dependent on the interest of the observer.*

It is the in­

tent of this observer that the MDE be identified as the
system under study and that interaction among its subsystems
be excluded from study where possible.

The focus of atten­

tion is on the means by which the MDE a.s a system reduces
uncertainty in its environment.
The Nature of Energy Sources
To this point,

it has been argued that organiza­

tions can be treated as open systems and thus must seek
energic input from their environments.

Recall the basic

model as presented earlier.
/

*

strategy enacted

SYSTEM
\

*
ENVIRONMENT

resource acquired
Since the development of the list of strategies

was judged to be the most basic and complex element, that
problem was dealt with in the first chapter of this disser­
tation.

There are other elements in the model:

itself, the environment and the resources.

the system

Resources

will be dealt with first.
Thompson quotes Dill as saying that organizations
need material,

labor, capital, equipment, work space and

*See particularly Hall and Fagen, "Definition."

46

customers.*

In a recent review of health agencies, White

suggests that the following "scarce resources" are needed:
skills, knowledge, money, materials, equipment,
patients and clients.

2

customers,

Levine and White, in an earlier

article, view organizations as needing "three elements:
(1) clients,

(2) labor services, and (3) resources other

than labor services."

Aiken and Hage recognize that o r ­

ganizations need "not only money, but staff, space and
time.
Easton focuses on the role of information inputs
in the workings of a political system, particularly in
the form of demands and s u p port.5
however,

It is Cyert and March,

w h o make explicit the fact that favorable policy

decisions are also an acceptable medium of exchange.

"The

disctinction between demands for monetary side payments and
demands for policy commitments seems to underlie m a nag e­
ment-oriented treatments of organizations."^
Francis Rourke describes another valuable resource:
"A first and fundamental source of power for administrative
^Thompson, Organizations in A c t i o n , p. 27.
2
White, "Resources as Determinates of Organizational
Behav i o r ."
^Levine and White, "Exchange."
4
Aiken and Hage, "Interdependence and Structure.”
5Easton, "Systems Analysis," in Buckley, 1968, p. 430.
^Cyert and March, Behavioral T h e o r y , p. 30.

47

agencies is their ability to attract outside support."*
This refers particularly to public bureaucracies and is
thus especially relevant to this examination of a State
agency.

Such support may exist relative to the public at

large or to specific interest groups.

In either case, this

good will or outside support can be mobilized,

traded and

even transferred as can other resources.
Evidently,
take many forms.

potential cnergic inputs or resources
What is input for one organization may

be the output of another.

An uncommitted resource may

become a commodity to be sought by others by either c o m ­
petitive or cooperative strategics.

The following list

of resources incorporates the suggestions of several authors.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

money
labor
raw materials
expertise, skills (to know "how to")
information (to know "about")
equipment
physical space
policy commitments
customers, clients
t ime
public support, good will, votes

None of these has to be used positively or coopera­
tively.

An organization possessing expertise,

can share or "sell" it.

for example,

But that organization can also w i t h ­

hold the expertise from a needy competitor and can even use
it against an uncooperative organization.

Thus, conflict

*Francis Rourke, Bureaucracy, Politics, and Public
Pol i c y , (Boston:
Little, Brown and Company, 1968) , p"I 30T

48

is at least a potential option.
however,

It will become clear,

that unlimited conflict is judged by other re ­

searchers as being maladaptive.
Summary
To treat organizations as open systems assumes that
they import energy from their environments.

Energy that is

useful to an organization may take several forms.

A list of

resources which are useable by organizations as energy sources
has been presented.

Any of these resources can also be p r o ­

duced by an organization as output; suggesting the possibil­
ity, at least, of using proactive strategies which have some
sort of quid pro quo basis.

A description of proactive

strategies has already been presented.
Having determined the range of resources that an
agency might seek in its attempts to attain negative entropy,
attention shall now be given to the agency which is the fo­
cus of this study and is therefore the recipient of resources
and the initiator of strategies to reduce uncertainty.
Selection of the Michigan Department
of Education
Why,
Basically,

initially, was the MDE considered important?

the apparent power and the unquestionable magni­

tude of the agency were impressive.

In 1975, more than 2.3

million elementary and secondary students in Michigan are
affected by the Department.

Approximately 119,000 p r o ­

fessionals serve these students.

Of the total school

49

expenditures of 2.7 billion dollars in 1974-75, 1.3 billion
was state aid, which was distributed through the MDE.
There are, additionally, over 450,000 students receiving
higher education in the state this year.

The level of

control exerted by the Department over this billion dollar
effort varies.

Certification of teachers

ditional function of MDE.
2,500

is another t r a ­

The Department’s staff of over

persons consumes or redistributes the internal b u d ­

get of approximately 57 million dollars;* only about 30
million of that is actually used by MDE to administer the
agency.

Thus it could be argued that the sheer magnitude

of the agency and its responsibilities constitutes s u f f i ­
cient reason for a study.

These responsibilities are

broad and apparently growing.
The MDE has experienced growth in recent y e a r s .
First, the present Michigan constitution, effective since
1964, combined several functions under the MDE, creating
a new education agency much larger than its predecessor.
Second, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of
1965, while not the first, is the largest program of f e d ­
eral assistance to states and school districts.

The MDE

has administered many millions of dollars as a result and
has gained resources in the process.

The third major cause

of recent growth in the MDE is the state government which
*From Michigan Education Facts 1974-75, a brochure
published by MDE.

50

has created many new programs in recent years, some of
which have enhanced the role of the Michigan Department of
Education.

Examples of these influences will be presented

in the analysis of the environment of the MDE which follows
immediately.
The Environment of the Michigan Department
of Education
In order to provide some context to the description
of the MDE itself, the environmental influences which have
contributed to its present state will now be examined.
It is hoped that this section will serve to illuminate the
agency while focusing primarily on the elements which form
its environment.
Four major environmental influences impact on the
MDE.

First is the state constitution of 1963.

the present state government.

Second is

The third influence is the

federal government, especially the US Office of Education.
Fourth is the collection of interest groups with which MDE
interacts.

These are shown in more detail in Table 2 .

The Constitution
On April 1, 1963, the voters of Michigan approved
a new constitution.
ary 1, 1964.^

The new document took effect on J a n u ­

Under the new constitution,

the number of

^Carolyn Stieber, The Politics of Change in M i c h ­
igan CE ^st Lansing:
Michigan State University Press, l9"70)
p . 26.

51

TABLE 2.--The Environment of the Michigan Department of
Education.
1.

Constitution of the State of Michigan

2.

Government, State Level

3.

A.

Executive Branch

B.

Legislative Branch

C.

Judicial Branch

D.

Other Agencies:
Bureau of the Budget,Civil Ser­
vice, Social Services . . .

State Interest Groups
A.

Michigan Education Association

B.

Michigan Federation of Teachers

C.

Michigan Association of School Administrators

D.

Public Groups:

E.

Commercial Groups:
Westinghouse, IBM, Educational
Testing Service . . .

School Boards, PTA, Urban

4.

General Public (e.g. as electorate)

5.

Government, Federal Level
A.

Executive Branch

B.

Legislative Branch and Committees

C.

Judicial Branch

D.

Agencies:

U SOE, USDA, NIE

. ..

Districts

52

major departments in the state is limited to 20.

This

provision required that several agencies dealing with e d u ­
cation be joined.

Thus the pre-1964 Office of Public In­

struction became the much larger Michigan Department of
Education.

This Department is accountable to the new State

Board of Education who in turn appoints the superintendent.
The State Board of Education (SBE) is responsible for lead­
ership and general supervision over all public education,
including adult education and instructional programs in
state institutions, except as to institutions of higher e d ­
ucation granting baccalaureate degrees.*

Other provisions

include:
1. The state board members are now elected for
eight year terms by partisan vote.
2. The governor may fill vacancies if members of
the SBE do not complete their term.
3.
Control over degree-granting colleges and u n i ­
versities is limited.
4. The state library system is assigned to the
State Board.
5. The State Board maintains control of the o per­
ations of the deaf and blind schools and the rehabilita­
tion institute; regulation of school bus transporation;
inspection of educational corporations; appointment of the
members of the State Board of Public Community and Junior
Colleges.
The Legislature also required of the State Board
of Education an annual financial statement and advice as to
the financial needs of all of public education in the years
a h e a d .2
*Quoted in MDE Fact S h e e t , February,
regular single page publication of MDE.
^Fact Sheet, p. 2.

1975, an i r ­

53

These are the broad powers and responsibilities of
the Michigan Department of Education.
State Government
The governments of the states are given the consti­
tutional responsibility for education.

Whatever power is

not specifically assigned to other agencies
State Board of Education)
ment.

(such as the

remains with that state govern­

The most dramatic power of the state government is

in the control of the budget.

In Michigan,

the Governor,

initially, and the Legislature ultimately, have control
over the financing of education and of the MDE.

The Legis­

lature may also require the Department to administer pro­
grams it (the Legislature) supports.

Some examples will

illustrate the range of possible effects.
1.

The Legislature recently required and funded

a state compensatory education program known as Chapter
Three.

Although the MDE administers and regulates this

program, the Legislature has refused to allow MDE to w i t h ­
hold funds from low-performance districts.
2.

The Legislature has passed legislation per­

mitting MDE to create a Professional Development Center for
in-service teacher education.

Limited funds for planning

were authorized, but were never made available.

The p o t e n ­

tial funds have caused competition among interest groups.
3.

The Legislature has passed an Act requiring all

districts to engage in Career Education.

A Career

54

Education Commission was created and reports to the SBE.
The MDE provides staff assistance and a chairman to the
Commission.

It is uncertain whether the funds necessary

to implement the concept will be allocated.
4.

The Mandatory Special Education Act of Michi

was passed and is reasonably well funded.

The MDE is r e ­

sponsible for disbursing funds and regulating programs,
This Act has had much impact on professionals and clients
in the state.
It is clear that the Legislature has broad power
to impact upon education in Michigan.

When the Legisla­

ture creates programs, the MDE usually administers and
regulates them.

Often, such programs remain unfunded and

little real change results.
State Interest Groups
In addition to the environmental influences already
described, the MDE interacts with a wide variety of inter­
est groups.

These can be subdivided into those represen­

ting educational practitioners and those representing cli­
ents or consumers.

The recent study by the Educational

Governance Project identifies four "major” interest groups.*
Three of these represented practitioners:
Education Association

the Michigan

(MEA), the Michigan Federation of

*Edward R. Hines, et. a l ., State Policy Making for
the Public Schools of Michigan (Columbus, O h i o : The Educationa1 Governance Project, 1974) , p. 146.

55

Teachers

(MFT)f and the Michigan Association of School

Administrators

(MASA).

Only one client group, the Michigan

Association of School Boards

(MASB) was listed as major

in that report.
Many other groups do have influence on educational
decision making.

The various universities, for example

and the large urban school districts also influence the
MDE, usually through the Legislature.

Some parent groups,

such as the Michigan Association for Retarded Children
(MARC) also have very effective lobbies.

It is evident

that more than four interest groups have influence on the
Department of Education.
These groups must have adequate resources in order
to exert influence.

Indeed, they do control votes, public

opinion, much labor, money and expertise.

Thus the p o s s i ­

bility of successful influence by these groups on MDE is
explainable within the context of the model used through­
out this study.
In Table 2, the electorate, the 'public as vo te r , ’
is shown as an element in the environment of the Michigan
Department of Education.

While not so regular or so u b i ­

quitous some of the other environmental influences,
electorate does have influence.

the

The case study of special

education legislation will examine one clear example in
which the potential influence of public opinion was mobil­
ized and focused by a single group in a single emotional

56

issue.

Otherwise, legislators and interest groups carry

the responsibility of interpreting and acting out the
wishes of their constituents.
Federal Involvement
On April 9, 1965, President Johnson signed into
law the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965
(ESEA).

He emphasized this unique achievement by stating:

"Since 1870, almost a hundred years ago, we have been try­
ing to do what we have just done--pass an elementary school
bill for all the children of America."^
His emphasis was justified.

Other bills had been

passed, but none was as comprehensive as ESEA.

Other

earlier acts included:
1.

The Land Ordinance of 1785, requiring townships
to set aside land for public schools.

2.

The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, giving land
to states for colleges of agriculture and tech­
nology.

3.

The Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, the first in a
series giving aid to vocational education.

4.

The "G.I. Bill" of 1944, providing subsistence
for veterans in school.

5.

The National Defense Education Act of 1958
(NDEA), post-Sputnik, primarily to improve
er education in science and languages.2

high­

^Quoted in Philip Meranto, The Politics of Federal
Aid to Education in 1965 (Syracuse: Syracuse University
-----Press, 1967), p. 1.
2
Adapted from James D. Koerner, Who Controls Arnerican Education? (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1968), p p . 4-5.

57

Similar federal programs followed, but ESEA was the
first truly comprehensive aid to elementary and secondary
schools.

Earlier attempts had been thwarted by segrega­

tionists or by proponents of federal aid to parochial
schools.

By 1965, it was clear that segregated schools

could not be defended and that limited-aid to Catholic
schools could.

Other interest groups such as the National

Education Association assisted or acquiesced, and ESEA
became a reality."^
The gross effect of federal aid in Michigan is the
yearly infusion of over two hundred million dollars of fed­
eral money into education in Michigan.

Roughly half of

this is supplied by the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act of 1965.

Table 3 summarizes federal allocations for

fiscal 1976.2
For most of these sources, the state education
agency acts as the disbursing agent and regulator.

The

state education agencies are apportioned a small fraction
of the total by the federal government for these adminis­
trative and regulatory functions.

For example, in ESEA

Title I (Compensatory Programs), the MDE receives four
million dollars compared to the 80 million that is distri­
buted to school districts

gress

(much of this four million is

^Eugene Eidenberg and Roy D. Morey, An Act of Con­
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1969), Chapters 1 and 2.
2

Adapted from Michigan Department of Education Fact
S h eet, February, 1975.

58

TABLE 3--Federal Education Programs to be Administered by
MDE in Fiscal 1976a

ESEA TITLE

I (Grants to local districts) . . $ 80,000,000

ESEA TITLE

I (Grants to State agencies).

ESEA TITLE

II.............................

5,100,000

ESEA TITLE

III

...........................

6,454,000

ESEA TITLE

V .

.............................

1,175,000

ESEA TITLE

V I ................................

.

. .

4,000,000

2,340,000

ESEA TITLE V - C ...................................

150,000

TOTAL E S E A ................................$ 99,000,000
School Nutritional Programs .............
.

Vocational Education and T r a i n i n g

39,000,000

21,000,000

Social Security Disability Determination
Vocational Rehabilitation

(four programs).

Concentrated Employment Training Act
All other federal programs
TOTAL non-ESEA

.........

. 26,000,000
2,800,000

. . .

8,308,500

.............

MDE Fact Sheet, February,

. 11,000,000

(CETA).

...........................

Total for all federal programs

aS o u rce:

.

19 75.

$108,108,500

$207,327,500

59

redistributed in the form of g r a nts).

The MDE also r e ­

ceives a considerable amount of Title III money

(Innova­

tive and Exemplary Projects) which is redistributed w i t h ­
in state guidelines.

Also within ESEA, the federal gov­

ernment provides direct money to state education agencies.
Most of this Title V money is given as- general aid to the
state agencies, to assist with evaluation,
semination and planning.

research, dis­

Table 4 provides a summary of

the Act as passed in 1965.
This tendency within ESEA to strengthen and support
the state agencies is not an unintended effect.

The 1964

Presidential Task Force on Education, the force behind
ESEA, made its position very clear:
The role of the state is strategic.
It supplies about
40 cents out of every dollar spent by the average local
district.
It has legal powers that affect every local
district, e.g., its control over the size and shape of
school districts.
It plays a key role in information
gathering for the state as a whole.
Because of its
fiscal contributions, its regulatory powers and its
statewide perspective it enjoys a certain leadership
potential--not always achieved but always there. . .
The Task Force is deeply convinced that state educa­
tion agencies must be given new strength and vital­
ity . . . 1
In summary, federal aid to education almost doubled
in 1965.

Like other state agencies, the Michigan Depart­

ment of Education received both direct and indirect reven­
ue from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Staff

The Task Force, as reported in Jerome T. Murphy,
State Education Agencies and Discretionary Funds (Lexington, Massachusetts: D . t V H e a t h , 1974), p. l.

60

TABLE 4.--A Summary of the Elementary and Secondary E d u c a ­
tion Act 1965a

TITLE I
Financial Assistance to Local Educational
Agencies for the Education of Children
of Low-Income Families
Policy:
To provide financial assistance to local
educational agencies serving areas with concentrations of
children from low-income families to expand and improve their
educational programs by various means (including pre-school
programs) which contribute particularly to meeting the
special educational needs of educationally deprived children.
TITLE II
School Library Resources, Textbooks, and
Other Instructional Material
Policy:
To establish a program for making grants
for the acquisition of school library resources, textbooks
and other printed and published instructional materials for
the use of children and teachers in public and private e l e ­
mentary and secondary schools.
TITLE III
Supplementary Educational Centers
and Services
Policy:
To establish a program for making grants to
supplementary educational centers and services, to stimulate
and assist in the provision of vitally needed educational
services not available in sufficient quantity or quality and
to stimulate and assist in the development and establishment
of exemplary elementary and secondary school educational p r o ­
grams to serve as models for regular school programs.
TITLE IV
Educational Research and Training
Policy and Funds:
The title amends the Cooperative
Research Act to authorize $100,000,000 over the next five
years for the construction of national and regional research
facilities.
In addition to the construction funds, there is
provision for expansion of the current research programs
administered by the Office of Education.
aAdopted from Meranto, The Politics of Federal Aid
to Education in 1965.

61

TABLE

4

-Continued.

TITLE V
Grants to Strengthen State Departments
of Education
Policy:
To establish a program for making grants
to stimulate and assist States in strengthening the lead­
ership resources of their State educational agencies and
to assist those agencies in the establishment and improve­
ment of programs to identify and meet the educational needs
of the state.

62

increased at that time also.

Murphy observed, that nation­

ally, "SEA staffs and budgets roughly doubled between
1965 and 1970."^

The manner in which these changes affec­

ted the MDE will be observed in this study.
The Michigan Department of Education
The history of state involvement in education in
Michigan can be traced to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787
which states that "Religion, morality and knowledge being
necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind,
schools and the means of education shall forever be encour2
aged."
This language has been retained in the Michigan
Constitution of 1963, a reminder of the broad powers of
the state in education.
There are some functions of a central state educa­
tion agency which seem to be common through time and across
states.

Teacher certification is one of these.

State

agencies generally disburse the state financial aid to
schools, and act for the Legislature in regulating expen­
diture of those funds.

State agencies have become increas­

ingly involved in regulating--on behalf of their Legisla­
tures -- school management activities such as transportation,
^Jerome T. Murphy, "Title V. of ESEA: The Impact
of Discretionary Funds on State Education Bureaucracies,"
Harvard Educational Review, Volume 43, (1973), p. 365.
2

, "A Statement on the Organization and
Operation of the Michigan Department of Education^ (Lansing,
Michigan: 19 72) , MTchLgan department of Education, p. 4.

63

physical plant, safety concerns,
times collective bargaining.
culum varies.

food services, and some­

Degree of control of curri­

New York, for example, invests its Board

of Regents with considerable control over curricular mat­
ters.

In Michigan, however, these matters are constitution­

ally conceived to be the concern of the local districts.
This is the domain in which the philosophy of local control
takes precedence.
The domain of MDE has, however, been extended far
beyond these general boundaries.
a turning point for MDE.

Historically, 1965 was

It was in 1965 that the "new"

constitution of 1965 actually took effect, creating the en ­
larged MDE.*

It was also in 1965 that the Elementary and

Secondary Education Act (ESEA) began to pour millions of
dollars both into and through the new agency.

Thus two e n ­

vironmental influences combined to impact on MDE concurrent­
ly.
Before the implementation of the 1963 constitution,
there was an elected three-person State Board of Education.
The Superintendent of Public Instruction was likewise elec­
ted by partisan vote.

In 1962 the responsibilities of the

central state agency were roughly those enumerated above-and were restricted to the K-12 realm.

A professional staff

^Generally, the 1963 constitution is said to have
taken effect as of January 1, 1964, but in the case of
MDE the change was postponed another year to allow more
time to prepare for the consolidation.

of 65 people* was available that year to implement the e d u ­
cational policies of the state.

The Michigan Acts of 1935

determined the range of powers of that pre-196S state edu­
cation agency as "to prescribe courses of study, issue li ­
censes and certificates, and grant diplomas and degrees in
connection with several educational institutions of the
state."

2

This definition matches the range of tasks which

were listed above as being typical of a state education
agency.

The MDE has outgrown that role.
The present State Board of Education

(SBE) is com­

posed of eight members, nominated by party convention and
elected at-large for eight year terms.

They function as

the "board of directors" of the MDE; they are the legally
responsible body in the realm of education.

The SBE m e m ­

bership is supplemented by the Governor who is an ex offi­
cio member, and acts as chairman of the Board at all m e e t ­
ings .
There have been two board appointed superintendents
since the new consitution took effect.

Dr. Ira Polley

served in that capacity from 1965 to 1969, and Dr. John
Porter--the present superintendent--followed Polley.

The

two have presided over the growth of the agency and its
1

H i n e s , et a l . , State Policy Making for Michigan.

2
Michigan, Acts (1935) as quoted in Hines, et al.,
State Policy Making for M i c h i g a n , p. 27.
^A third, Dr. Alexander Kloster, served as acting
superintendent until the appointment of Dr. Ira Polley
later in 1965.

65

shift toward regulation and quantification.

Polley was

quoted as telling a legislative audience that "The role
of the Department of Education is the same as that of any
other state agency--to regulate!"

On the other hand, it

was Porter who, in a similar session, changed the name of
the Department's basic staff level from consultant to edu­
cational specialist.

He made the change on the spot to

demonstrate to a critical audience that the Department was
not a service agency but a "leader," not reactive but p r o ­
active.

The point is not to contrast leadership style; it

is to illustrate the consistency of action between the two
leaders and the external events of the time.
this chapter,

As shown in

the MDE has been pushed by both federal and

state governments toward a regulative and quantitative
stance.

As will be shown throughout the data, this role

was a comfortable one at all levels of MDE.
One obvious outcome of the changing roles for MDE
was the growth of the agency.

From 6 5 persons listed as

"head office staff" in 1962, MDE had 242 in that category
in 1972.

The total Department staff in 1975 approximated

2500 persons.
funded.

A majority of these positions were federally

This 2500 figure is a result of two factors.

The

first is simply growth in previously existing categories
such as curriculum, vocational education, school management
and finance, among others.

The second factor is the addi­

tion of whole new chapters of responsibility.

For example,

66

since 1962, MDE has taken responsibility for higher edu­
cation planning and financial aid, community colleges,
the whole ESEA program, Chapter 3, mandatory Special E d u ­
cation, and a host of other totally new roles.
It was not only the size of MDE which was
ted by changes occurring during the paat decade.

affec­
The

range of new tasks post-1965 required the development of
a very diversified structure.

The 1975 version of that

structure is shown in the MDE organiational chart in
Table 5.
There are five levels of management shown on that
chart.

The State Board of Education is the ultimately re­

sponsible body.

The Superintendent is appointed by that

Board and reports to them.
alone forms the next level.

The Deputy Superintendent
There are four associate sup­

erintendents who are in turn superior to the 13 service
area directors.

The service area is the basic unit of o r ­

ganization of the MDE, and the 13 areas reflect the broad
range of interests which MDE must serve.
There are two other elements shown on the chart in
Table 5 which are worthy of some attention here.

A large

group of secondary boards and commissions report to the
State Board of Education.

Pre-1965, these were indepen­

dent, but the new constitution required that there be no
more than 20 primary state agencies.

To achieve this,

some previously independent bodies were required to report

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TABLE #5
ORGANIZATIONAL CHART OF THE MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

68

to the State Board of Education, adding to the conglomer­
ate nature of MDE.
The second subsection of the organization chart
which should be emphasized here contains two staff posi­
tions:

School and Community Affairs and Legislation and

Public Affairs.

These are essentially liaison units and

together they interact with the state and federal govern­
ments, the general public, parent complaints and inquiries,
and a broad range of minority interests.

Some of these

roles will emerge more fully later in this study.
The service areas have been described as very d i ­
verse, matching the broad range of environmental influ­
ences impinging on MDE.

It is possible to rearrange those

service areas according to clusters which have more me a n ­
ing for our present purposes than the actual (Table 5) MDE
organization.

This is shown in Figure 5.

First, there is that central cluster of activities
in which state education agencies typically engage.
MDE service areas deal with these:

Four

General Education (cur­

riculum) , Teacher Education (includes certification),
School Management, and Department Services
nance).

(budget and f i ­

These are the core, the basic maintenance functions

common to state education agencies.
There are two other state level activities in which
MDE engages which are beyond these core activities.

These

are the State Library and Special Education; the latter

69

Basic Domain
General Education
Teacher Certification
School Management
Finance/Budget
Fede ral
Vocational Education
Rehabilitation
Compensatory Educa­
tion
Research, Assess­
ment, and Evaluation

Other State Tasks
State Library
Special Education
a. School - Blind
b. School - Deaf
Ad ult, Higher
Education

Student Assistance
Higher Education Mgt
Adult Continuing
Education

FIGURE 5 . --The Range of Concerns of the Thirteen
MDE Service A r e a s .

70

includes the two state-run schools for the deaf and the
blind.

While Michigan is not likely unique in assigning

these activities to its state education agency, it is
clear that they are an extension of the core tasks.
There are other programs which are primarily the
result of federal influence, either via funding or regula­
tion.

Four service areas fall into this cluster:

voca­

tional education, rehabilitation services, compensatory
education, and research, assessment and evaluation services.
None of these operations is independent of either state
dollars or control, but federal influence is large enough
to be of interest here.

The theme of federal impact will

recur throughout this study.
The domain of MDE extends even beyond this, h o w ­
ever, into the realm of higher education.

MDE distributes

and regulates dollars via Student Financial Assistance S e r ­
vices.

MDE also attempts to regulate post secondary insti­

tutions through its Higher Education Management service
area.

A third service area, Adult Continuing Education S e r ­

vices, is responsible for an additional collection of non
K-12 concerns.
This description and the illustrations in Figure 5
and Table S suggest that MDE is a large organization with
a broad range of concerns and clientele.

The increases,

since 1965, in both size and diversity are thus documented.
These have been associated with concurrent changes in func­
tioning .

71

The MDE has been described earlier as increasingly
concerned with regulation.

The influences of the consti­

tution, the state Legislature, and the federal government
were introduced and will be considered in the fifth chapter
of this study.

One more view point may be helpful.

One

Associate Superintendent, Dr. Ferris Crawford, has been
with MDE since 1946.

While 29 years of service does not

guarantee valid perceptions,
source of data.

it certainly suggests a rich

Dr. Crawford has explicitly dealt with the

changing functions of the Department over a period of 40
years.

He agrees that 196S is the turning point, and notes

the following changes in the behavior of MDE now as c o m ­
pared to the 1935-1965 era.
First, according to Dr. Crawford, there is an in­
crease in information-producing activities which he classi­
fies as cooperative in a broad sense.

There is now more

reporting to the Legislature, governor, and citizens.

An

independent corroboration of this was provided by a docu­
ment prepared by Superintendent Porter in which he listed
33 recurring yearly reports required from MDE.

This list

was supplemented on occasion by unpredictable requests,
usually from the Legislature and Governor.
Second, Dr. Crawford perceived an increase in the
advocacy activity of MDE as evidenced by proposed legisla­
tion, ongoing liaison, and position papers.

MDE has

(via

the State Board) formally adopted position papers on a

72

variety of topics from desegregation through organization
to compensatory education and telecommunications.

There

were roughly 30 of these at the time of the study.

Each

could thus be conceived of as a position which MDE advoca­
ted.
Third, Dr. Crawford viewed MDE as more regulative
with regard to schools, being more concerned with rules,
approvals,

and state plans.

Fourth, he saw MDE as more advocative toward
schools and colleges of education,

trying to disseminate

MDE notions concerning assessment, rational planning

(Ac­

countability) and other types of behavior focused by MDE.
Fifth--and not independent--he perceived that MDE
was much less involved in cooperative shared-task behaviors
with schools and colleges of education.

Advocacy of the

MDE positions on issues seems to have replaced an earlier
tradition of cooperative undertakings.

Dr. Crawford re­

ported that "The cooperative efforts are pretty much down
to committees and commissions."
While this study did not attempt to validate the
perceptions of Dr. Crawford,

it is a fact that a trend t o ­

ward regulation and rationality observed in this research
do agree at least in a general and descriptive way with
the assertions reported above.
There is one additional characteristic of MDE
which is of interest here.

While large and diversified in

73

structure and clientele, MDE has no extensive regional
operations.

Still,

its diversity is continued in its ar ­

chitecture.

Of the 13 service areas, only one is housed

in the same building as the central office.

The other 12

service areas are scattered around the center of Lansing
in ten different buildings.

While it is dangerous to in­

fer too much from such a small data set, it is interesting
to note the consistent diversity in clientele, organiza­
tional structure, and physical location.
Thus MDE emerges as a large and complex organiza­
tion functioning in an equally complex environment.

Since

that complex environment is the source of resources--and
thus uncertainty--for MDE,

it is appropriate to focus more

specifically on that concept now.
On the Concept of Uncertainty
What does environmental uncertainty mean to the
Michigan Department of Education?

Generally, the agency

must import energy--useable resources--in order to survive,
produce output and grow.
personnel,

information,

Such resources include money,
favorable policy, and so on.

These

resources must be acquired from the environment of the MDE.
The agency engages in a finite number of strategies to a s ­
sure that it gets these reources from its environment, thus
reducing uncertainty about that environment.

74

For example, money from the state forms the basic
operating revenue of the MDE.

This is an exchange relation­

ship in simplest form; the agency gets funds to regulate
those programs approved by the government.

If the governor

or the Legislature disapprove of some MDE endeavor, that
endeavor is likely to remain unfunded.'

One would expect

the agency to intercede at several levels to argue in favor
of its own priorities.
Opposition from the Michigan Education Association
(MEA) while not fatal to MDE, can certainly be a stumbling
block.

Thus, the position of the MEA on any issue is, at

least conceptually, a potential source of uncertainty.

As

is shown later in this report, the MDE invests much energy
in communicating with the MEA and in seeking coalitions
where feasible.

To remove a source of opposition and to

possibly turn it into a fellow coalition-member, is to be
very successful in reducing environmental uncertainty.
The federal Congress often passes legislation which
remains unfunded or under-funded.

Each year, the MDE faces

uncertainty from Washington and may respond by hoping,
trading, or lobbying to turn that uncertainty into dollars.
Examples of situations like these are also included later.
In general, the MDE--like any organization--needs
a supply of resources to operate.

This study addresses the

question of how the MDE reduces uncertainty about its con­
tinued supply of those resources from its environment.

75

Summary
There is a finite set of resources that are useable
by the Michigan Department of Education.
and briefly described.

These are listed

A description of the agency and of

the elements which compose its environment is provided.

More

detailed and specific descriptions of the agency (MDE)
and of its environment will be included in the discussion
of the seven case studies in chapter five of this disserta­
tion .
The immediate task, however, is to expand the con­
text of this study by reviewing the available literature
which deals with educational agencies and/or with attempts
by organizations to reduce environmental uncertainty.
will be accomplished in the next chapter.

This

C HA P TE R T H R E E

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

To this point, a model has been developed in which
the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) is conceived of
as seeking to reduce uncertainty in its environment.
fically,

Speci­

the model suggests that MDE--or any other open

system will engage in a variety of strategies to assure a
continuing supply of resources from an uncertain environment.
Thus the model has four parts:

the organization, its environ­

ment, the resources sought, and the strategies used.

-f strategy applied
MDE

Environment
—

resources required <----- /

For this study of the Michigan Department of Education, the
four parts of the model have been described at an operational
level in chapters one and two.
There are two conceptually different subsections
within this chapter.

The body of literature which deals

with the problem of reducing uncertainty is thoroughly in­
vestigated in the first chapter of this study where the
76

77

list of strategies is developed.

Some of the works cited

there will be recalled first to set the stage for this
review chapter.

None of those authors deal directly with the

field of education, but all do consider organizations at some
level.

The second and largest section of this chapter is a

review of studies of educational agencies.

These typically

do not have a theoretical stance which is directly compatible
with the present study.

They are, however, briefly described,

and elements which contribute to the present task are identi­
fied.
Studies of Non-Educational Organizations
As mentioned earlier,

the present study relies

heavily on the work of James D. Thompson, particularly his
definitive text Organizations in A c t ion.^

In that theoreti­

cal work, Thompson suggested that organizations seek to re­
duce uncertainty about their ’'task environment" in four ways,
all of which have been included in this study.
conflict,

These are

contracting, co-optation and coalition.

these is fully described earlier in this study.

Each of
Since

Thompson's study is not based on field data, the concepts
are not operationalized in his work.
^Thompson, James D.
2

Organizations in A c t i o n , 196 7.

These are discussed, and Thompson credited, in the
first chapter of this dissertation.

78

Another theoretical work by Cyert and March, A
Behavioral Theory of the Firm,1 discussed the uses of co­
alition, usually in the business world.

While that work is

also referenced earlier in this study,

it is especially

worth retrieving now for two reasons.

First, The Cyert and

March study discusses coalitions which include some members
of an agency with some outsiders.

For example, the Quality

Control division of an auto manufacturer could have such a
good relationship with a state's Consumer Protection Agency
that the two would constitute a coalition, trying to control
the goals of the auto plant.

It will be shown later in this

study that some elements of the MDE often behave in this
manner.

The second reason that the Cyert and March emphasis

on coalitions is immediately relevant relates to this chapter.
Two studies of political influences on federal-level educa­
tional spending explore how coalitions formed to pass the
1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a major legisla­
tive action.
Philip Selznick,
relevance here.

contributed another study which has

He observed the Tennesee Valley Authority in

its early years, and concluded that its major strategy for
survival was one of co-optation.

By including powerful local,

regional, and even national elements in its decision making
1Ibid.
2

Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots.

79

process,

the agency avoided conflict and assured support

for some of its policies.

The land grant universities which

shared sphere of influence of the TVA were the most critical
instance of this co-optive strategy.

In addition to the

extension workers and country agents from the land grant in­
stitutions and state agencies, TVA shared its decision making
with local business and political leaders, the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, and the Farm Bureau.

This cost the TVA

control and even success of some programs but others were
able to continue:

flood control, power generation and other

agricultural innovations.

This was still a powerful strategy

for the TVA did not become reactive,

it "gave away" its own

independence--within limits--to improve the receptivity of
its environment relative to other policies.
Even though Selznick focused on only one of the
several strategies considered in this study of the Michigan
Department of Education, his work makes two points of direct
relevance here.

First, co-optation is a reliable means to

assure survival--to reduce uncertainty about resources.
Second, strategies must often be directed to elements in
the environment having only indirect control of monetary
resources.

Those organizations which were co-opted by TVA

were typically providers of more abstract resources such as
policy commitment and public support.
be described in this MDE study.

Similar cases will

80

In his Bureaucratic Phenomenon,^ Michel Crozier uses
an open systems perspective in a study of the French Civil
Service.

He argues that the Civil Service had, at the time

of his study,

lost its ability to act proactively,

its own environment.

2

to shape

Change in the rest of the world--both

public and private--plus an increasing number of low-ability,
low-investment staff reduce the ability of the agency to
intervene out into its environment.

Crozier postulated

that the French bureaucracy was becoming so atrophied that
it was losing even its reactive abilities.
While there are few similarities between the agencies,
the Crozier work does have much relevance to the present
effort.

First, it demonstrates the descriptive and explan­

atory utility of open systems theory in organizational r e ­
search.

Second,

it focuses attention on the desirability

of the capacity to act proactively in attempts to reduce
uncertainty.

Last,

it suggests that the desirability of

reducing uncertainty is operative not only at the organiza­
tional level but at the level of the individual workers as
well.

The first two conclusions have the most direct

application to the present study since the focus is at the
level "organization."
The discussion of any organization which provides
the most direct support for the stance of the present MDE
1Ibid, 1964.
2Ibid, p. 308.

81

study is provided by Charles Perrow.^

Perrow reviews a

series of studies of organizations and credits those who
do case studies of organizations

with three successes.

He first applauds those researchers for doing wholistic
studies, because "the emphasis upon the organization as a
whole forces upon us a conception of the variety of organ3
izations."
Second, Perrow notes that case studies demon­
strate the fact that "at least some organizations do take
on a life of their own and irrespective of the desires of
those presumably in control."4

This is not so anthropo­

morphic as it may sound when one takes a systems view; if
an organization is an open system it has needs and capacities
which are different from the simple sum of its parts.

The

fact that there are usually unintended consequences to human
actions within organizations affirms, according to Perrow,
the wisdom of recognizing that another level of entity is
operative.

The third area of contribution, according to

P err o w ,
of the institutional school must surely be the emphasis
on the environment.
No other model of organizations
^Charles Perrow, Complex Organizations. Glencoe,
Illinois:
Scott, Foresman and Company, 1973, Chapter 5,
pp. 177-204.
2

Perrow calls these researchers members of the
"Institutional School."
3 Ibid, p. 187.
4 Ibid,

p.

188.

82

has taken the environment into account as much as the
institutional model.
For the purpose of the present study a closer examination
of that assertion is required.
Concerning organizations and their environments,
Perrow raises two questions of direct relevance for this
study of the Michigan Department of Education.

Perrow first

complains that, in most available studies,
parts of the 'environment' are seen as affecting organ­
izations, but the organization is not seen as defining,
creating and shaping its environment.2
His second notion concerns the elements of the environments
of organizations.
The environment of most powerful organizations is . . .
made up of other organizations with similar interests
or ones they control.*
Perrow asserts that organizations exist in an environment
which is composed of other organizations.

He is not con­

vinced that organizations are always simply reactive to the
larger society, to their environment.
in a

Organizations behave

proactive manner, having great influence on the be­

havior of the members of their environment.
Society is adaptive to organizations, to the large,
powerful organizations controlled by a few, often
^Ibid, p. 189, emphasis added.
Perrow realizes
that others have recognized and studied environments but
credits the institutional school with providing real-life
case studies.
2Ibid, p. 199.
3 Ibid, p.

199.

83

overlapping, leaders.
To see these organizations as
adaptive to a 'turbulent,' dynamic ever-changing environ­
ment is to indulge in fantasy.1
This is certainly the view advanced in the first chapter
of this dissertation.

In fact, regarding the MDE, not only

have the members of the environment been identified, but
the resources and strategies which are the connecting parts
of the model have also been described.

Perrow's work is

very supportive of the present study which has,

in turn,

extended his model to some degree.
The realm of proactive strategies has had some other
smaller studies.

Emery and Trist

7

discuss means of reducing

uncertainty and conclude that in complex environments , con­
flict is judged to be almost always counter-productive in
the long run in such environments.

They describe examples

or organizations which have successfully used cooperative
strategies such as exchange, co-optation, or coalition.
a review of research on health care agencies,
White

In

Levine and

found that an exchange pattern was followed by clus­

ters of health-care organizations.
other received referrals,
domain of the others.

Each assured that the

and each respected the specialized

This was considered to be a stable,

long-term exchange relationship, and was judged by the
^lb i d , p. 199.
2

3

Emery and Trist, Environments.
Levine and White,

"Health Organizations."

84

authors as being successful at assuring a certain supply
of resources.

Both Thompson and Anthony Downs* discuss the

tendency of organizations to grow and expand influence.
Thompson discusses the values of vertical integration, of
annexing a source of supply

(of resources) or a market.

The above studies suggest a preference for p r o ­
active strategies.

This study conceives of five proactive

strategies, strategies in which an organization acts on its
environment,

it intervenes rather than reacts, changes the

environment rather than itself.

These five strategies are

competition, bargaining, co-optation, coalition, and annexa­
tion.

But these are not the only strategies available to

an organization.
strategies

Organizations may also employ passive

(ignore, absorb) and reactive strategies

(post

facto response, measure, predict, avoid, maintain options,
and increase o p t ions).
for study.

These have not been popular topics

A review of the development of the list of

strategies in chapter one of this study will make clear that
fewer authors have attempted to operationalize these concepts
at the level of organizational behavior.

Emery and Trist

do consider strategies of this type, but only on the way to
concluding that modern organizations exist in an environment
which is so complex that only proactive, cooperative stra­
tegies

(bargain, co-opt, coalition)
*Downs, Inside Bureacracy.

are viable.

85

In summary, there are some theoretical works and
some studies in the field which deal with the problem of
reducing uncertainty at the organizational level.

All of

those included here save one* are concerned with events at
the level "organization," not directly with the actions of
the people who make up the system.
.the use of proactive strategies.

There is emphasis on
Those authors who have

considered other strategies conclude that those strategies
which are labelled proactive here are the most likely to be
successful for an organization.

With that summary in mind,

the focus will now shift to studies of educational agencies.
Studies of Educational Agencies
Studies of educational agencies have typically had
a less thorough theoretical grounding than those reviewed
immediately above.

Consequently, more care will be needed

to first describe the content of each study and second to
make explicit how each contributes to the present argument.
Recall that the model is concerned with means by which or ­
ganizations

(acting as open systems) use the strategies

already discussed to reduce uncertainty about the continued
supply of resources from their environments.

The organization

under study is the Michigan Department of education
a state education agency.
*Crozier, Bureaucratic Phenomenon.

(MDU),

86
The first work to be reviewed compares the education
agencies of the 50 states.
This description of state agencies by Sam P. Harris
focuses on federal impact, but also provides an excellent
introduction to the examination of state-level influences.
Harris reports:
The United States Constitution does not specifically
mention education; the 10th amendment provides that
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Education is regarded as a State function in our con­
stitutional arrangement.1
But the problem of interaction between the various
actors at the state level is not as simple as the above
might suggest.
Such problems associated with State Boards of Education
have prevented their taking a more active role in the
State policy system:
(1) many board members have almost
no comprehension of the S t atefs resources; (2) while
policy determination is explicit, many board members
have no legitimate powers--the State legislature is
likely to retain the prerogative for most education
policies; and (3) typical State board members have in­
sufficient standing with the Governor and/or legislature
as a source of information, advice or p o l i c y . *
This sets the stage for the present study.

The sit­

uation Harris describes is typical, he says, and true in
Michigan in part.

The agency in Michigan is limited in its

legal ability to influence education and it is indeed the
Sam P. Harris, State Departments of Educatio n,
State Boards of Education, and Chief State School Officers,
Washington! b.H.E.W. , 1973, p. T~.
2 I b i d . , p.

110.

87

Legislature, as will be shown later in this study, which
holds power here.

If the MDE is to influence policy making

in Michigan, it will have to deal with the two environmen­
tal elements referred to by Harris:
the Governor.

the Legislature and

This introduces --or reintroduces--the central

question of the present study in context.
act to acquire resources
ply of resources)
ment?

How will the MDE

(to reduce uncertainty about s u p ­

from these two elements in its environ­

What strategies will be used?

These questions are,

of course, dealt with in chapter five of this study.
A work by James Koerner carries a 1968 date, but
describes conditions in the states that were not typically
true at that time.*

Koerner complains about problems of

rurally dominated legislatures,
and part-time legislators.

restrictive constitutions,

He describes the chief state

school officers and state agencies as "characteristically
weak and ineffective."

The work is interesting in that it

describes how things are not in 1975, industrial, Michigan.
Our well-paid, representative,

full-time Legislature has

problems, but not those described by Koerner.

Still, the

Koerner book helps to make clear some important points which
will emerge within this study of MDE.

First, the Legislature

in 1975 Michigan is not subject to rural domination, and is

(Boston:

*James D. Koerner, Who Controls American Education?
Beacon Press, 1968).
2Ibid., p. 91.

88

a full-time body.

As will be shown later it has been very

active in passing education-related legislation.

Thus it is,

at least potentially, a major force in the environment of
MDE, perhaps more so than if the situation Koerner described
were true.
The almost-classical description of state-level
policy making in education by Laurence Iannacone is much
more helpful.^
Iannacone uses, albeit briefly, a systems perspective.
His definitions of the main points of open systems theory
do not differ substantively from those presented earlier in
this study.

The core of his general argument is that systems

in education-- classrooms, schools, or districts --manage to
function as closed systems because of political impediments
to change.

It is for this reason he opposes non-partisan

involvement and staggered elections; he would prefer that
education entered the partisan political world openly.
Iannacone is primarily concerned with the nature and
behavior of the professional educators in each state.
generally includes members of all interest groups:
administrators, board members, and state leaders.

This

teachers,
He created

a typology based on the extent to which such interest groups
are (1) individually strong on a state-wide basis, and (2)

York:

^Laurence Iannacone, Politics in Education, (New
Center for Applied Research, 1968).

89

united across groups.

Michigan is the only member of a

category called 'state-side fragmented.'

In this pattern,

the varying interests, all individually strong, come to
the legislature, governor, or courts, disunited but indi­
vidually intense.

Since the present study does not intend

to be comparative across states, no further investigation
of Iannacone*s categories will be undertaken.

The key point

is the potentially competitive pattern of interest group
action in Michigan.
If the interest groups in Michigan are, as Iannacone
says, both strong and disunited, then the MDE faces a very
complex environment.

According to Emery and Trist, coopera­

tive strategies would be called for (bargain, co-opt, coalesce)
as opposed to competition.

How is this handled?

Iannacone

conceives of the interest groups as posessing considerable
potential resources such as information,
policy commitments,

and votes.

lobbying support,

The present study asks

whether MDE acts to acquire a certain supply of these and
whether cooperative strategies do dominate.
The largest recent examination of state-level, policy
making in education was released in August of 1974 by the
Educational Governance Project

(EGP).^

The Ohio State

University prepared the research which culminated in a
*Raold F. Campbell and Tim L. Mazzoni, Jr., editors,
S tate Policy Making for the Public Schools, (Columbus, Ohio:
1'he Ohio State University, 1974).

90

14 volume report, using U.S.O.E. Title V funds.

This re­

port included 12 volumes of case studies from the 12 states
sampled, and two summary volumes.

The summary volumes and

the Michigan report are considered in the present review.
The writers purport to use a systems framework for
examining policy decisions.

For each of 12 states, the

following actors were described:
chief state school officer,
groups.

governor, state board,

state agency staff and interest

The authors express the intent to treat the legis­

lature and the courts
as "givens."

(especially the former) as non-central,

In fact, the legislature is treated as the

central system and the others emerge as merely potential
influences.

The present study of MDE would suggest that the

fact of the EGP report describes reality better than the in­
tent .
In essence, the authors postulate a simple exchange
model of policy making, with conflict and exchange as the
primary strategies.

From this rather simple conceptual

model the authors exhibit much creativity in forming con­
clusions.

The rich case study data, which was almost totally

neglected in the summary volumes, may have contributed to
their insight.
The EGP report is very critical of the Iannacone
typology.

The EGP writers objected to Iannacone's emphasis

on interest groups and neglect of the state education
agencies, particularly of the state boards of education.

91

It was also observed that more states tended in 1973-74
to look like Michigan; with a number of strong, state-wide
groups in open conflict.
cone 1s model.

This was predictable from Ianna­

The EGP report did not in any state find a

single "monolith" of all education groups in formal and o n ­
going coalition, even though "in most states, the ’education
l o b b y ’ was perceived as being among the most influential
in the s t a t e . T h e

EGP did find both CSSOs and governors

to be active members of the policy making group in almost
every instance.
None of the case studies selected by the EGP within
their study of Michigan is duplicated in this study.
general observations will, however,

Some

lead to comparable data.

It is a measure of the thoroughness of the EGP report
perhaps an artifact of their methodology)

(or

that it concludes

"Given P o r t e r ’s strength with other state educational policy
making system components, however, the groups have been able
to do little more than ’g r i p e ’ about their relationship."

2

This should be remembered in the discussions of Chapter 3,
Special Education, and Higher Education which follow in
the

fifth

chapter of this dissertation.

The specific Michigan data presented in the EGP
report support the general conclusion of their study and
1Ibid. ,
2
See E. Hines et. al., State Policy Making for the
Public Schools of Michigan (one of the EGP volumes) , p. T3"9.
p

.

3

7

.

92

reaffirm the earlier observations of Iannacone.

All me m ­

bers of the policy making arena perceive the interest groups
in Michigan to be divided.

The study did not, however,

pick up the distinction between administrators in general,
as represented by the Michigan Association of School Admin­
istrators (MASA) and the highly specific, visible, and
powerful interests of the urban school districts.

This

phenomenon will be examined in the present study.
The EGP study contributes in several ways to this
study of MDE.

The EGP study did reaffirm Iannacone*s

assertion that interest groups in Michigan were very strong
and apparently disunited.

The emphasis in the EGP study of

the role of the Governor agrees with the expanded definition
of the environment of MDE employed in the present study.
There are more influences operating than interest groups.
There was little investigation in the EGP study of instances
in which non-formal arrangements contribute to the develop­
ment of policy;
for example.

arrangements such as bargains or coalitions,

The EGP study considered three major issues:

finance, desegregation and the Assessment Program,

Of these,

only the last was an instance in which a state education
agency could hope to have any significant legal authority.
Legislatures tend to retain power over finance and desegre­
gation efforts have inevitably ended in the courts.

Conse­

quently the present study of seven cases might reasonably
expect to acquire more information about the active roles of
the MDE in education.

93

A thoughtful examination of a single issue, the
implementation of the Chapter Three compensatory education
program,

is supplied by Murphy and Cohen.*

The coverage is

both concise and thorough, and is worthy of considerable
space here.
There was pressure in 1970 to change previous allo­
cation methods for the state compensatory education program.
The 1971 legislation authorized distribution of money to
the lowest performers on the state assessment tests.

Re­

funding each successive year was to be pro-rated according
to the number of children in the program who achieved at
a predetermined level the previous year.

When the possi­

bility of penalizing some districts in the 1972-73 alloca­
tions arose, a waiver was written, supposedly to cover only
that year.

The most visible argument was that districts had

been given too little time to have impact in 1971-72, since
the initial legislation was not passed until October of 1972.
When the issue arose again in the summer of 1973,
the legislature was faced with reducing payment by five
million dollars,
A new clause,

the bulk of which would be taken from Detroit.

39a, was created, agreeing to fund districts

at the same level as before if they would only adopt a d i f ­
ferent delivery system.

Allocation for 19 73-74 was handled

"^Jerome T. Murphy and David K. Cohen, "Accounta­
bility in Education; the Michigan Experience," Public
Interest, Vol. 36, Summer 1974, pp. 53-81.

94

in that manner.

Murphy and Cohen report that resulting

changes observed in five schools were trivial.
The other

requirements of Chapter Three are p r e ­

vious specifications of objectives coupled with pre- and
post-testing of those objectives.

This provision, according

to the authors, did not raise serious controversy.

Murphy

and Cohen did, however, regard the reporting of huge suc­
cesses via Chapter Three

(particularly by state Superinten­

dent of Education John Porter) as questionable, asserting
that too little hard data had been amassed to warrant such
conclusions.
The Chapter Three program is one of the seven cases
chosen for thorough study in this dissertation.

Thus much

of what was reported by Murphy and Cohen will be reiterated
later in this report.

For the moment, the Murphy and Cohen

article is of value in helping establish the focus of the
present study.

It is clear that the Chapter Three program

is ultimately under the control of the legislature.

It was

also made very clear by Murphy and Cohen (and this study also)
that MDE was and is very interested the Chapter Three program.
When the MDE versus Legislature conflict arose, MDE immediately
lost--why?

What motivated the legislature to remove the

power of MDE to withhold funds?

That there were other e le ­

ments of the environment involved is the assertion of this
study, and a careful description of that activity will follow
in a later chapter.

Thus it is possible to accommodate the

95

Murphy and Cohen results within the model developed in the
first chapter of this dissertation.

Further, the model is

so complete that it suggests additional questions about the
Chapter Three issue, questions beyond the Murphy and Cohen
article--these questions, e.g., nWhat other actors?", "were
proactive strategies used?"--are dealt with later in this
study.
The large impact of federal programs --particularly
of ESEA--has been discussed.

Summaries of their programs

and of their impact on MDE are available in Tables 3, 4 and
5.

We will now turn to a review of research about the de­

velopment and consequences of some recent federal involve­
ment in education.
A statement by Iannacone sets the theme of most of
the available literature, in that he feels not only will the
states1 role not be usurped by federal involvement, but
federal dollars "are likely to increase the power of the
states over education."*

With that introduction it is

appropriate to turn to a pair of major examinations of the
newest major federal program,

the Elementary and Secondary

Education Act (ESEA) of 1965.
Philip Meranto uses a systems approach in his study
of the passage of ESEA.

Meranto used a modification of

1 Ibid., p. 37.
^Philip Meranto, The Politics of Federal Aid to
Education in 1965, (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press,
1967).------------

96

the political systems approach developed by David Easton
and mentioned earlier.

Meranto conceives of the legisla­

tion as output of Congress--the system--and asks what inputs
led to that particular output.

He is particularly concerned

with changes between 1961, when a similar bill was rejected,
and 1965, when ESEA was passed.
Two levels of change are considered,

environmental

changes, and changes within the legislative system.

Meranto

argues that the ten variables he subsumes under those two
levels were all crucial to passage of the Act; a negative
condition for any one would have prevented passage.

The

data that he presents in a discussion of those ten relevant
input variables is convincing; the case for complexity is
well made.

This notion of interdependence is the essence

of a systems view.
The Meranto study has several implications for the
present examination of the Michigan Department of Education.
First, he views environmental changes as inputs, and also
considers changes within the Congress as input factors
follows Easton in referring to these as withinputs).

(he
In

this study of the MDE, it has been asserted that interactions
and changes within the system will not be considered.

Such

a stance is supportable in the present context since change
over time is not a major focus.

If, however, the MDE were

to be viewed over a long term in the same way that Meranto
viewed the U.S. Congress,

it would be necessary to take

97

account of internal changes over time.

The same would be

true for any attempt to compare two or more states.
Meranto recognizes that the interest groups who
lobby the U.S. Congress must be viewed as sources of inputs,
or in Easton's terms, as 'demand articulators.'

He devotes

less attention than the present study to the complexity of
the exchanges that occur, and tends to restrict himself to
a "pressure group" sort of view of the interest groups.

This

study will take more of an exchange view, arguing that the
interest groups do bring valuable resources to the " b a r ­
gaining table."
Certainly the recognition by Meranto that a complex
coalition was necessary to pass ESEA is helpful to the present
MDE study.

Meranto, however,

is not the only author to

deal with that phenomenon.
While Meranto*s work is an insightful summary, the
definitive study of ESEA was prepared by Bailey and Mosher.*
Some elements of that report will help to give context to
this observation of MDE-federal relations.
of Education

The U.S. Office

(USOE) used--or was affected by--many of the

strategies outlined in the first chapter of this dissertation.
The Council of Chief State School Officers

(CCSSO)

was one of the oldest allies of the Office of Education.
*Steven K. Bailey and Edith K. Mosher, ESEA:
The
Office of Education Administers a L a w , (Syracuse!
Syracuse
University Press, 1968).

98

In recent years, the Council has become a powerful lobbying
force.

It was the National Defence Education Act

(NDEA)

that finally began to make the Office of Eduation a force
in its own right.
It is clear that ESEA was passed as a result of an
unlikely coalition of government and interest-group ele­
ments.

Instead of creating a true general aid bill, the

Congress made ESEA a collage of categoricals which had the
same result but which was more politically saleable.

There

was something for everyone, but the unwritten prohibition
against overt general aid was not violated.
When initial USOE guidelines for Title I were per­
ceived as too restrictive,

the states--especially the CCSSO--

lobbied vigorously and successfully.

As a result, much more

discretion within the allocation formula was given to states.
The U.S. Office used an openly co-optive strategy
when implementing Title V.
agency staffs and chiefs.

A meeting was held with state
In June, all CSSOs attended a

briefing session with U.S. Office personnel regarding the
whole ESEA bill.

Concurrently, the U.S. Office had created

a large questionnaire concerning Title V and had mailed it
to a dozen states for feedback.

Finally, OE personnel hand-

carried the revised questionnaire to all states and helped
them to complete it.
The Bailey and Mosher study has two lessons
present MDE study.

for the

First, it provides some context for the

99

federal programs discussed here.

Second, it demonstrates

that at least some of the strategies discussed in the con­
ceptual framework of this study do indeed operate in the
world of education and politics.
pass the initial ESEA legislation.

Coalition was necessary to
Conflict, especially that

voiced by the Chief State School Officers, was also a suc­
cessful strategy from the point of view of the state agencies.
The use of co-optation by the U.S. Office of Education
indicates a recognition there of at least one proactive
strategy.

This precedent at the federal level is at least

indirectly supportive of the present attempt to investigate
how a state agency applies similar strategies to reduce u n ­
certainty in its environment.
The report by Sam P. Harris, mentioned earlier,
deals with many

elements of interest in the context of

fed­

eral programs.

For example, throughout his report there is

a theme of increasing service replacing older regulatory
behaviors.

It will be evident later that there is some

disagreement with this view in Michigan.
Harris perceives that state agencies have become
more proactive,

having

"...

evolved from a position

merely reacting

to and reflecting their environment to

of actively taking the lead in shaping it."1

of
that

Harris suggests

that federal money has contributed to this overall strength­
ening of the state agencies, and that the outcome was
X I b i d . , p.

22.

100

intended.

Harris believes that Title V particularly occurred

because ". . . Congress had evidence that where federal
funds were limited to categorical program administration,
serious imbalances in the staffing of state agencies occurred
and gaps in needed services existed."*

According to Harris,

the highly discretionary nature of Title V was an attempt
to allow agencies to fill these gaps, to build new optional
responses, to achieve more complexity and proactive ability.
Harris believes that the largest agency problem
before ESEA was staffing.

Staffs were, he says, too small,

underqualified, rurally-oriented, and agency-centered.
While he believes that ESEA, especially Title V, has helped,
such positions are still typically bureaucratic.

Staff are

restricted by 8 to 5 rules, travel restrictions, and a
general orientation away from their professional counter­
parts .
This section of the Harris report has two contribu­
tions to the present study.

First, it serves as a useful

introduction to Title V of ESEA in which state agencies in­
cluding MDE were given federal money to strengthen them­
selves.

This money had very few restrictions according to

Harris.

In the model developed for the present study, the

interaction could be described like this:
1 I b i d . , p. 24.

101

?
MDE

\
US Office

Title V $

/

t

The value of the model is exemplified in that it raises
the question about what strategy was employed, what did
MDE do in return?

The discussion of Title V later in this

study will address that question.

Second,

the general

picture of a growing, more proactive agency provided by
Harris provides an interesting point of departure, and his
description of the remaining restrictions affecting state
agencies suggests further questions to ask about MDE.
Two very useful discussions of separate ESEA p r o ­
grams are provided by Jerome T. Murphy.

Let us first review

his report of Title I.
The article analyses the status of Title I as of
1970.

Primary emphasis is on the author's home state, M a ssa­

chusetts.

As a former USOE staff member

(1964-1969), Murphy's

analysis is especially interesting, although it is often
impressionistic rather than systematic.
Murphy describes Title I as an act which responded
to a variety of demands.
the Kennedy

One was the vision of staffers in

(and later Johnson) administrations for real

educational reform.

Other purposes include "breaking the

federal aid barrier, raising achievement, pacifying the

102

ghettos, building bridges to private schools, and providing
fiscal relief to school districts.” *'
Murphy asserts that the U.S. Office of Education has
had little success in imposing its will on the states or
on the school districts.

The formula grant system of allo­

cating funds "past” states to districts was the main cause,
"while it by-passes state and local governments, it estab­
lishes a virtual entitlement for each state and locality
once the amount of federal appropriation is known.”

Thus

the U.S. Office is hardly in a position to exert real author­
ity either over the state agencies or through them.

The

service-orientation of USOE combined with a reluctance to
publicly label any part of this massive program a failure
contributed to that impotence.

When USOE tried to cut off

funds to Chicago for civil rights violations in 196S, the
attempt was vetoed by President Johnson.

Murphy suggests

that USOE generally lets the locals go their way, and trusts
the states for information.

USOE efforts to enforce separate

regulations calling for parent involvement and minimum e x ­
penditure per pupil were frustrated by Congressional pressure
from state agencies and district administrators.^

However,

^Jerome T. Murphy, "Title I of ESEA:
The Politics
of Implementing Educational Reform," Harvard Educational
Review, Vol. 41, Number 1, February, 1971, p. 43.
^Ibid., p . 39.
3Ibid., p. 45.
^See also Bailey and Mosher on this problem.

103

when those same lobbies received USOE support to disallow
use of Title I money for clothing, parent lobbies persuaded
the Secretary of HEW to intervene, softening the decision.
Massachusetts is examined as an example of state
efforts to selectively enforce Title I regulations, or to
subvert them.*

Murphy describes that state a g e n c y ’s Title

I office as underfunded and understaffed.

Staff there also

saw their orientation as one of serving rather than monitor­
ing.

Evaluation efforts were minimal but increasing.

Since

the money cannot be withheld by the state agency, effort
to comply with guidelines tended to be perfunctory.

Attempts

at enforcement of federal guidelines by the states were most
zealous "when state priorities are consistent with federal
priorities,

(when) the states can use the federal priorities

to back up their efforts to influence local policy."

Like­

wise, the local district administrators align themselves
with the state on federal views when such views converge-but only then.
What is the relevance for this study of the Michigan
Department of Education?

First, the Murphy analysis des­

cribes a highly limited role for the state agency in rela­
tion to Title I.

Second, the state agency is pictured as

opportunistic, aligning with "the feds" when purposes
* I b i d . , p. 54.
2 I b id., p. 59.

104

matched, and at other times joining with local educators
as opposing USOE.

Third,, the USOE is viewed as equally

impotent in ability to seriously impact upon local or state
agencies.

Fourth and last, the cause of all of the above

is at least alluded to:

the pipeline from the U.S. Congress

usually carries money directly to the school district on a
formula basis*

Opportunity for bureaucrats to skim off

power or influence is limited--but it does exist.
How then does Title I contribute to the ability of
a state agency to reduce uncertainty?
to selective enforcement of guidelines.

Murphy does allude
A state agency can

be more or less aggressive in enforcing guidelines as it
chooses.

This creates the possibility of interactions with

two elements of the agencies environment, the local districts
and the US Office of Education.

The suggestion of increased

power of the parent groups opens up a new realm of potential
alliances or conflicts.

There is still another option,

according to the Murphy study and the model presented here.
A state agency can literally assume a passive stance and

simply collect is administrative allocation (about one percent).
Title I is nflow-through” money, and state agencies including
MDE are allocated a small proportion to cover their costs
in monitoring the funds.

Barring the total collapse of ESEA,

there is little uncertainty associated with Title I.

Thus

a less aggressive state agency would not be likely to
agitate for any major change except perhaps for more dollars.

105

This is not the case in Michigan, where the MDE is seeking
a total change in the funding mechanism and criteria for
Title I.

Passive strategies are not the norm in MDE!
More power for state agencies is available from the

one federal title that is exclusively concerned with them,
Title V.

In two lengthy examinations of Title V, J. Murphy

applies several theoretical concepts.

1 2

*

After observing

Title V outcomes in nine states, Murphy's general conclu­
sion was that Title V led to "more of the same," that exist­
ing programs used Title V to expand what they were already
doing.

There was little innovation or experimentation.
Two of his interpretations are of interest here.

The first is the determination that state agencies typically
behave reactively, applying even new resources to nearby,
visible problems, because these are more known, more certain
problems.

Long range planning involves dealing with u n ­

certainty; Murphy concludes that state agencies avoid even
that much association with uncertainty.
Murphy summarizes:

For that reason

"It is not surprising that organizations

tend to behave like fire companies, moving from crisis to
crisis extinguishing brush fires, rather than developing
3
long range plans,"
Which is true in Michigan?
^Jerome T. Murphy, State Agencies and Discretionary
Funds , (Lexington, Massachusetts":
Heath , 19‘
74) .
^Jerome T. Murphy, "Title V of ESEA:
The Impact Of
Discretionary Funds on State Education Bureaucracies,"
Harvard Educational Review, Volume 43, Number 3, August, 1973.
3Murphy, "Title V of ESEA," p. 374.

106

Second, Murphy concluded that new Title V resources
were allocated informally, according to the needs and wishes
of internal coalitions.

"The needs of the SEA are defined

not by any formal assessment, but by the desires of those
with access to the bargaining game.
an advocate,

If a need does not have

it is usually not considered.'1*

Such coalitions

could, however, include members beyond the agency, thus
strengthening their case.

Murphy did not, though, discuss

the use of such boundary-spanning coalitions as useful means
to reduce uncertainty about future demands from external
coalition members.
Murphy focused exclusively on the basic section of
Title V, section 503.

This section accounts, after 1968,

for 95% of the total allocation.

The present study will

follow that lead, ignoring the other subsections except
where their use is helpful in making a point.

This does

occur in one instance in chapter five.
In addition to constraints already mentioned, Murphy
argues that Title V money generally had little impact b e ­
cause rational planning was simply not an acceptable method
for allocating funds in most cases.

Agencies followed a

pattern of least possible change, least possible risk.
status quo was likely to be the unwritten guideline.

The
But in

1965, the Michigan Department had just barely recovered from
* I b i d . , p.

372.

107

the huge reorganization which resulted from the 1964 C o n ­
stitution.

There may have been less ability to define "the

status quo," and thus to pledge allegiance to it.
M u r p h y ’s is the first study of an educational
agency to deal explicitly with the concept of uncertainty.
It also suggests a preference for reactive behaviors rather
than for long-range

(proactive) planning.

This contrasts

with the work of Emery and Trist who advocate proactive,
cooperative strategies for organizations operating in com­
plex environments.

Such disagreement among theories is

likely to be productive.

The conflict will be addressed in

the discussion of Title V which is included in this study of
MDE.
Murphy also follows the lead of Cyert and March
in recognizing the influence of boundary-spanning coalitions.
This is the only use in the articles and books reviewed of
that concept; a concept which emerges in many
in this study of MDE.

instances

Murphy suggests that state education

agencies were constrained by outsiders

(in part) in decisions

to spend the "discretionary" Title V money.

Whether such

constraints existed in the MDE situation will be addressed*
The general question about the ability of organizations in
the environment of MDE to affect the behavior of the agency
by controlling its supply of resources pervades this research.

108

Conclusion
The literature from outside of the field of educa­
tion which introduced this chapter tended to be more sophis­
ticated in use of open systems theory.

Studies of educational

organizations were usually descriptive in nature.

These were,

however, easily integrated into the framework developed
earlier in this study.

Education agencies do exist in e n ­

vironments, and must engage in some type of strategies to
assure a continuing supply of resources.

Of the studies which

dealt with education-related agencies, some focused on statelevel policy decisions, some were concerned with federal in­
volvement through ESEA.

In both types, varying interpreta­

tions of systems theory occur.

There is consensus that state

education agencies have grown, but less agreement about
whether they have become more influential or proactive.
There appears to be a lot of variability on these and other
dimensions among the states.

Specific references to Michigan

were contained in three major works, helping to make their
more general themes applicable here.
In the only direct reference to uncertainty in the
education studies, it was argued that state agencies gen­
erally choose reactive behaviors because these involve less
uncertainty in the short term.

While the authors reviewed

contributed to a general descriptive-level understanding on
the elements in the environment surrounding MDE, there was
limited direct discussion of the means by which agencies

109

interact with these elements to reduce uncertainty.

It

was in these cases that the model developed in this study
was imposed to explain, after the fact, how these agencies
acted to reduce uncertainty.

Examples of the means by

which MDE accomplishes this reduction of uncertainty will
be provided in the fifth chapter of this dissertation.
the immediately following

(fourth) chapter, a discussion

of the means by which* those data were gathered will be
presented.

In

C HA P T E R FOUR

THE METHODOLOGY USED IN THE STUDY

The chapter contains two major components.

The

first is a review of some of the literature about field
studies and including examples of some studies which have
relevance for the present undertaking.

This component con­

cludes with a summary, taken from the literature, of the
major requirements of a field study.
The second component describes the methodology
used in this study of the Michigan Department of Education.
First, the specific methods are described.
application of the methods is discussed.

Second, the
Third, a discussion

of the ways in which this study conforms to the requirements
defined earlier is presented.
The overall goal of the chapter, of course, is to
show the reader how the advice of the authors reviewed in
the first half of the chapter has been fruitfully applied
in the study methodology which is described in the second
half.

110

*

Ill

Concerning the Adequacy of Field
Me thodo1ogy
In this section a two part review of a sample of
the literature related to field studies is presented.

First,

several authors who discuss how and when one ought to do a
field study are reviewed.

Second, several reports of the

methods used in completed field studies are also reviewed.
While the findings of the field studies themselves are not
of primary concern here, there is advantage in accessing
these discussions of methodology "in context."

From this

survey of two types of literature, a list of basic require­
ments and admonitions concerning field research is extracted.
It is this summary list which is the basis of the following
argument for the adequacy of the present field study of the
Michigan Department of Education.
The first of the articles concerned with field
methodology is also, appropriately, the most general.

This

comprehensive discussion of field methodology is that pro­
vided by Richard Scott in the Handbook of Organizations.^
Scott states flatly that "Most of what we know today about
organizations and the behavior of their members is known on
the basis of field studies."

He prefers the simplest

possible version of the Hughes definition of field studies:
*W. Richard Scott, "Field Methods in the Study of
Organizations," in James G. March, ed., Handbook of Organiza­
tions , (Chicago:
Rand McNally, 1965), pp^ 261-304.
2Ibid., p. 261.

112

. . . field work refers to observation of people in
situ . . . Thus the term 'field methods' is meant to
TncTude all the kinds of techniques which have been
employed to^exaraine behavior in naturally occurring
groups . . .
According to Scott, these methods include, "such
diverse methods as interviewing, observation and the analysis
of documentary materials and other group products.

. .”

He states that the selection of a specific method or c o m ­
bination depends on the requirements of the task.
Scott recognizes three types of study designs which
may be used in field research:
hypothesis testing.

exploratory, descriptive and

He states that more complete, unsystem­

atic, sustained data-gathering from a broader range of s u b ­
jects would more likely occur in the exploratory or d e s crip­
tive types.

Hypothesis -testing studies can, says Scott,

usually reduce the load of data collecting because of
improved ability to focus.

Scott recognizes that the three

types of study design are not mutually exclusive and that
they may even form respective phases of a single study.
Scott considers the various roles that a field r e ­
searcher may take; discussion for the purpose of this study
will be postponed until the review of the Gold article later
in this chapter.

Whatever the role, Scott concludes that

"Many writers emphasize that the researcher should direct
his initial energies to building relationships with subjects
1 I b i d . , p.

262.

113

rather than to gathering data."^

Such relationships will

be helpful later in the research--but they carry their own
problems with them.

Researchers will often devote more

attention to the informants who are most helpful and per­
sonally gratifying.

This introduces a bias in studies which

do not have some more systematic mode of sampling.

Further,

Scott says that friendship with subjects may lead to "over­
rapport" and subsequent loss of objectivity.

Scott notes

that these problems which are related to personal involve­
ment are lessened if the researcher is involved in a more
transitory--less sustained--relationship with the subjects.
However, Scott notes that,
also, the transitory investigator who has only brief
contacts with members. . , is more likely to misinter­
pret or fail to understand their comments and responses,
and is more likely to himself be misunderstood by them.2
Scott expresses a concern regarding the unsystematic
mode of observation employed in many field studies.

He

expresses a preference for pre-planned, systematic methods
of data collection and quotes Zelditch concerning the prob­
lems of the former unsystematic type:
Events and persons represented in field logs will
generally be sampled according to convenience rather
than the rules of probability sampling.
The sample
is unplanned, contains unknown biases.
It is not
so much random as haphazard, a distinction which is
critical.3
XIbid., p. 277.
^Ibid., p. 283.
3Ibid., p. 289.

114

While Scott's preference is not unreasonable, his negativism
regarding the modes of data collection which he calls u n ­
systematic is subject to dispute.

A very helpful discussion

of that same conflict is provided in an article by Glaser
and Strauss.
Glaser and Strauss have presented a widely referenced
argument for alternative methods of sampling.^

As a counter

to probability sampling, they suggest that data be sought
from sources that can best contribute to the developing
theory.

As each category is sampled as fully as needed,

the theory--to which the category contributed--is seen as
the best guide to the next source.

One seeks data, there­

fore, according to the needs of the developing theory,
Theoretical sampling is done in order to discover
categories and their properties, and to suggest the
interrelationships into a theory.
Statistical sampling
is done to obtain accurate evidence on distributions
of people among categories to be used. . . in each
type of research, the 'adequate sample' that we should
look for. . , is very different.2.
The intent of the researcher,

in such cases, is the gener­

ation rather than the testing, of a hypothesis or model.
This would therefore be a more appropriate method for e x ­
ploratory studies than for hypothesis-testing studies.
Glaser and Strauss suggest that "the adequate
theoretical sample is judged on the basis of how widely
1Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss, "Theoretical
Sampling," in Norman K. Denzin, e d . , Sociological M e t h o d s ,
(Chicago:
Aldine, 1970), pp. 105-114.
2 I b i d . , p.

106.

115

and diversely the analyst chose his groups for saturating
categories.

.

Further in the argument for purposeful

diversity they state that f,in theoretical sampling, no one
kind of data on a category nor technique for data collection
is necessarily appropriate.

Different kinds of data give

the analyst different views or vantage points from which to
understand a category and to develop its properties.

. .M

This should not be interpreted as a license to a bdi­
cate purpose.

The intent is to gather all necessary data

and the authors criticize a pair of studies which do not, in
their opinion, manage to obtain the proper variety of data:
For example, in one noted study of adolescents in high
school, only the adolescents were surveyed; and in a
study of workers in a factory, only workers were inter­
viewed. 3
This underlies a danger in field studies;

one may

study an organization or community in a wholistic manner
while ignoring the environment within which it acts.
such large category should be omitted.

No

In further defense

of varied data "slices," the authors continue:
The theory based on diverse data has taken into c o n ­
sideration more aspects of the substantial or formal
area, and therefore can cope with more diversity in
conditions and exceptions to hypotheses.^
XI b id., p . 106.
2 Ibid., p. 108.
3I b id., p. Ill
4 I b id., p. 111.

116

It is recognized, however,

that there are limits

to both types of sampling, theoretical and probability.
Theoretical sampling is adequate to discover and describe
a phenomenon, but probability sampling is necessary if
attempts are to be made to quantify it.
discover truth.

Statistics do not

They document it; they answer the question

some theoretician knew enough to ask.

The two procedures

are differentially appropriate according to the stage of
development of the theory.

The answer to "Which?*' is sit­

uational, not given.
Assuming that one has reconciled the issues raised
above and has chosen a field methodology, many questions
still have to be answered about the adequacy of the methods
as applied in the specific case.

Bruyn discusses the use

of participant observer methods to learn about a community
or a culture.

He expands upon the six criteria for relia­

bility and validity which were earlier discussed by George
Homans.

Any field study must deal with these basic contri­

butions to reliability and validity to some point.
Our criteria for adequacy revolve around the question
of the extent to which the observer has had an oppor­
tunity to personally experience the culture which he
seeks to know.l
Bruyn then reiterates and describes the six criteria.
Time:

The more time an individual spends with

a group, the more likely it is that he will obtain an
*Severyn T. Bruyn, The Human Perspective in
Sociology, (Englewood Cliffi"!
Prentice Hall, 1969),
p~I l 8 1 , emphasis added.

117

accurate interpretation of the social meanings its m e m ­
bers live by.
P l ace:

The closer the observer works geograph­

ically to the people he studies, the more accurate should
be his interpretations.
Social Circumstance:

The more varied the status

opportunities within which the observer can relate to his
subjects, and the more varied the activities he witnesses,
the more likely his interpretations will be true.
Langu age:

The more familiar the observer is with

the language of his subjects, the more accurate should be
his interpretations.
Intimacy:

The greater degree of intimacy the o b ­

server achieves with his subjects,

the more accurate his

interpretations.
Consensus:

The more the observer confirms the

expressive meaning of the community, either directly or
indirectly, the more accurate will be his interpretations
of them.*
While Bruyn is clear that his own concern is with
determining subjective meaning, with interpreting a culture
or a community, the six indices are nevertheless useable
* I b i d . , pp.

181-184.

118

measures of adequacy for any situation in which information
is obtained from people by interactive m e a n s .

Thus what

constitutes adequacy.for a study of a community should be
no less adequate for a study of an organization to the e x ­
tent that methods and goals are similar.
The importance of the above notwithstanding, Bruyn
suggests some further concerns regarding validity.

He states

that reliability and validity of a method are not to be
judged in the short term, that
Finally, the reliability of the procedures and conclu­
sions of particular researchers must be tested over the
years.
If a piece of research cannot be repeated there
is no basis for considering a study valid or reliable
or, consequently, scientific.
The proof is in the future, it seems.
Having determined to do a field study, and being
aware of the indices of adequacy, a researcher is still
faced with many decisions.

For example,

ments of the six indices is

not always a one dimensional

issue; there may be trade-offs involved.

meeting

the require­

That this is true

is illustrated by the apparently simple issue of intimacy.
While the Bruyn-Homans indices suggest that intimacy
is a desirable state, there are limits to the value of this
state.

Georg

Simmel considered this problem in his dis­

cussion of intimate content

and intimate

form.'*' In the

^Kurt H. Wolff, editor,
The Sociology of Georg
Simmel, (Glencoe, Illinois:
the Free Press7 19&G)» pp*
126-128.
Simmel*s discussion is in fact about dyads, par­
ticularly in marriage, but the distinction still applies.

119

intimate content,

the information or object that is shared

is important, secret, close to the actors.

In intimate

form, it is the relationship itself and all accompanying
affect which is shared.

According to Simmel:

Inversely, certain external situations or moods may
move us to make very personal statements and confessions
usually reserved for our close friends only to relatively
strange people.
But in such cases we nevertheless feel
that this 'intimate* content does not yet make the
relation an intimate o n e .1
To obtain intimate content is surely a desirable goal
for a researcher, but intimate form may lead to bias; the
relationship may become more important than the information.
That the question of intimacy and resulting bias is tied to
role is demonstrated in the discussion of roles by Raymond
L. Gold.
Gold identifies four possible roles for field researchers who are conducting observational studies.

His

concern in the article reviewed was the impact of each role
of the research, and possible biases which could result.
review of the four suggested methods will serve to illus­
trate his argument.
Complete Participant:

The researcher pretends to

be a member of the group he seeks to study.

"He must bind

the mask of pretense to himself or stand the risk of
^Ibid., p. 127., emphasis in the original.
^Raymond L. G o l d , , "Roles in Sociological Field
Observations,'* in Norman K. Denzen Sociological M e t h o d s ,
(Chicago:
Aldine, 1970), pp. 370- 38(*.

A

120

exposure and research failure."1

On the other hand, the

researcher must avoid adopting the beliefs of the respondents
at risk of losing objectivity.
Participant’as-Observer:

The Tesearcher and the

informants are both aware of the researchers role.

The re­

searcher nevertheless acts as if he were in fact a member
of the group under study.

The danger of "going native,"

of adopting the perspective of the subjects,

increases with

time.
Observer-as-Participant:

The researcher interacts

with the subject for a short period of time, such as a single
interview.

The risk of "going native" is lessened, but the

depth of understanding gained by repeated encounters is
sacrificed.
Complete O b s e r v e r :

The researcher is a detached

observer, possible on a recurring and/or systematic basis.
The intent is to be unobtrusive.

This, role has the least

danger of "going native,” but is farthest removed from the
subjects and the meanings which exist only in their roles.
The Gold typology is easy to understand and a d e ­
quately defines the range of possible roles.
dangers are clear:

The twin

at one end is overidentification, at

the other is ethnocentrism.
1 Ibid., p. 374.
2 I bid., p. 476.

For whatever role is chosen,

121

a trade-off must be made.

Gold implies that the researcher

is responsible for determining which problem is operative
in a given case,

and for controlling that source of

ity so far as is

possible.

invalid­

Lutz and Iannacone in turn discuss the application
of field study approaches to the study of educational o r ­
ganizations.

In

that work three specific roles are

dis­

cussed :
1.

the participant as an observer

2.

the observer as a participant

3.

the observer as a non-participant*

These approximate the range of roles described above by
Gold.

Lutz and Iannacone also list a

series

of methods

useful in data collection and consider which are most appro­
priate to the three roles they defined earlier.

Their listing

includes the following:
1.

Observation and recording of descriptive data

2.

Recording direct quotes or sentiment

3.

Unstructured interview

4.

Structured interview guides

5.

Detailed interaction tally guides

6.

Interaction frequency tallies

7.

Paper and pencil tests

*Frank W. Lutz and Laurence Iannacone, Understanding
Educational Organizations, (Columbus, Ohio:
M e r r i l l , 1969)7
pmr.
-------

122

8.

Written reports

9.

Radio and T.V.

reports1

The authors conclude that a wider range of methods is
possible as a researcher's role approaches that of a n o n ­
participant.

On the other hand, they recognize that a true

non-participant role is not possible in the type of methods
appropriate to the study of organization.

There is no

situation in which an open observer can fail to have some
impact on his subjects; Heisenberg will not be denied.
The final point made by the authors is that data
collected have meaning only in the context of a useable
theoretical model.

While in the Lutz and Iannacone work

this argument constitutes an advertisement for their own
model of political power in education, the point is valid.
In the present study, a model of MDE behavior has been d e ­
veloped in advance.

Data will be reported in the context

of that model and will in turn have impact on the final
nature of the model developed earlier in this study.
Becker makes two
present study.

points

that are germane to the

First, he emphasizes the "people watching"

nature of many field studies.
The participant observer gathers data by participating
in the daily life of the group or organization he studies.
He watches the people he is studying to see what sit­
uations they ordinarily meet and how they behave in
them.
He enters into conversations with some or all
1 I b i d . , p.

113.

123

of the participants in these situations and discovers
their interpretations of the events he has observed.*
The point is made several times in this chapter that the
present study of the MDE is not interested in the "inter­
pretations of the events" of the members of the organization.
It is the events themselves, the validated verified public
actions of the organization that form the data base here.
Granted, much of the information about events was obtained
from interactions with people, just as Becker described.
Granted also, the presentation of data in the next (fifth)
chapter of this dissertation most often uses the verbatim
descriptions of the members of the organizations or others
who are informed about it.

Still, the point is not to

publish the attitudes or names of the members.

The point

is to describe actual occurrences, events, behaviors,
emitted by the organization.

It is these events which

form the base of data which will lead to later conclusions
about the behavior of the organization.
Becker deals with a second point which is of interest
here.

Of the general collection of methods called partici­

pant observation, he says that:
Sociologists use this (p.o.) method when they are
especially interested in understanding a particular
organization or substantive problem rather than demon­
strating relations between abstractly defined variables...
Howard S. Becker, "Problems of Inference and Proof
in Participant Observation," in Norman K. Denzin, e d . ,
Sociological Methods, (Chicago:
Aldine, 1970), p. 398.

123

of the participants in these situations and discovers
their interpretations of the events he has observed.*
The point is made several times in this chapter that the
present study of the MDE is not interested in the "inter­
pretations of the events" of the members of the organization.
It is the events themselves, the validated verified public
actions of the organization that form the data base here.
Granted, much of the information about events was obtained
from interactions with people, just as Becker described.
Granted also, the presentation of data in the next

(fifth)

chapter of this dissertation most often uses the verbatim
descriptions of the members of the organizations or others
who are informed about it.

Still, the point is not to

publish the attitudes or names of the members.

The point

is to describe actual occurrences, events, behaviors,
emitted by the organization.

It is these events which

form the base of data which will lead to later conclusions
about the behavior of the organization.
Becker deals with a second point which is of interest
here.

Of the general collection of methods called partici­

pant observation, he says that:
Sociologists use this (p.o.) method when they are
especially interested in understanding a particular
organization or substantive problem rather than demon­
strating relations between abstractly defined variables...
Howard S. Becker, "Problems of Inference and Proof
in Participant Observation," in Norman K. Denzin, e d . ,
Sociological M e t h o d s , (Chicago:
Aldine, 1970), p. 398.

124

they assume they do not know enough about the organiza­
tion a priori to identify relevant problems and hypoth­
eses and that they must discover these in the course of
the research.1
This description is similar to that of the exploratory or
descriptive studies discussed by Scott above.

While Becker

agrees with Scott that these methods can be used in a system­
atic fashion to test hypotheses, the Becker stance is gen­
erally closer to that of Glaser and Strauss.

That is,

Becker emphasizes the "alpha study" nature of participant
observer methods, and the utility of such methods in dis­
covering- -rather than verifying --truth.
With the Becker article we complete the first part
of this review.

The authors reviewed so far in this chapter

have discussed the problems and advantages which accompany
a decision to use field methodology.

The next series of

reviews are based on the discussion of methodology provided
by the authors of several major field studies.

Emphasis is

therefore on what was done rather than on the results.

The

authors recount the issues which were viewed by them as most
crucial in the context of their studies.

As one would e x ­

pect, there is a great deal of reiteration of the issues
already presented.

On the other hand, some "new" issues

which have meaning only in context are presented and dis­
cussed.
^ b i d . , p.

399.

125

C u s i c k ’s study of adolescent group behavior in a
high school asked the question,

"what are the perspectives

they use to deal with what they perceive to be the social
reality of the school environment?”* Cusick acted as a
participant observer in that study.

In that work,

the same

six criteria for adequacy as discussed by Bruyn are reiter­
ated.Cusick finds these
however.

not totally adequate

by themselves,

It is the right of the reader toparticipate

in

the judgement of the validity of a study.
The real proof, however, is in the presentation of the
data.
For that reason, one reporting such a study must
present his findings in extensive narrative form.
It is especially important to avoid over-inferring in
the data chapter.
The writer must allow the reader to
draw his own conclusions from the data as he presents
that data in as realistic and complete a manner as
_
possible.
In fact, this is a major test of validity.
Cusick reports the use of six "major approaches"
during his field work.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

These included the following:

attendance at classes
attendance at meetings
informal interviewing
formal interviewing
use of records
observation’

The problem of entry into the agency was solved
when a group of athletes responded to a request from a
teacher to help him with the study.

After attending some

classes with them, Cusick reports that:
*Philip A. Cusick, Inside High S c h o o l , (New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), pT 229.
2Ibid., p. 233.
3 I b i d . , p.

239.

126

In this way, keeping a few basic contacts and con­
stantly enlarging my circle of acquaintences, I quickly
became known well enough in the class to go where I
pleased, and carry on the study as I wished.
Cusick also mentions that the students paid little a t t e n ­
tion to his role as a researcher.

Students, especially

those most intimate with him, preferred to attend to the
personal relationship and not to the formal role.
Cusick notes that his approaches are similar to
those used by Herbert Gans in the latter^s study of The Urban
V i l lagers.*

Gans studied a slum community of Italian-Amer-

icans in a major U.S.

city.

During the study of the com­

munity Gans and his wife lived in the area.

He reports the

use of the following "six major approaches:"
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Use of the West E n d ’s facilities
Attendance at meetings, gatherings, and public
places
Informal visiting with neighbors and friends
Formal and informal interviewing of community
functionaries
Use of informants
Observation

Gans also discusses the possible range of roles in
such a study.

His list describes the same range as that of

Raymond L. Gold, presented earlier.

While Gans used all of

the possible roles at different stages of research or at
different locations in the community, he was most often
openly a researcher, but one who was also known and accepted
on a personal level.

Gans notes some major problems that

he faced which have relevance for the present discussion.
"^Herbert Gans, The Urban V i l l a g e r s , (New York:
Free Press, 1962).

The

127

Regarding the problem of entry, Gans reports that
once he had decided to be open about his role,

initial

entry was gained through neighbors who wanted to help.
This pleasant solution would not have been as likely to
occur for an outsider--but Gans paid a price for his m e m b e r ­
ship in lost objectivity.

He did, however,

report that this

identification, "going native," is easily solved if the r e ­
searcher will just leave both the scene and the data for a
reasonable time.

Thus he felt that he was able to take

advantage of his personal relationships with the subjects
during the study yet retrieve his objectivity once some time
had elapsed.
In Men Who M a n a g e , Dalton reported on a study of
five different organizations A

Most of his time was spent

at large manufacturing plants.

While his role was hidden

and not known to his informants, the general methodology
appears very similar to other studies of organizations.
Dalton reports the use of the following "techniques and
sources of data:"
1.

formal interviews, usually in an "under cover"
manner since informants did not usually know
Dalton's true role.

2.

work diaries, records of events at the two major
plants during Dalton's tenure there

3.

participant-observation, in a "complete partici­
pant" role in some cases.
Dalton worked at two
■^Melville Dalton. Men Who Manage,

1959).

(New York:

Wiley,

128

of the organizations he studied, and gained data
during that time
4.

socializing, with managers and workers, since he
lived in the same community.*
Dalton also comments specifically on the difficulty

of overidentification with informants.

This was a particu­

larly large problem since his membership in the groups was
real and his researcher role hidden.

This observation is

consistent with Gold's suggestion that the problems of
"going native" were largest in the hidden "complete p a r ti­
cipant" role.
Dalton did not really have an entry problem since
he was already employed in one of the organizations he
wished to study.

For the others, he relied on data from

many informal interviews with a variety of informants.

He

told these informants that he was interested in a wide range
of problems related to personnel, and through this intro­
duction eventually elicited reports about the informants'
own roles and situations.

Thus while he was dependent on

personal relationships to some extent --especially with long­
term informants--the degree of subterfuge he used makes
comparisons with other field studies difficult.
Dalton's study differs

from the bulk of those r e ­

viewed here in his role as a complete participant.

Peter

Blau reports concerning two studies, and is anomalous in
^ I b i d . , p . 276.

129

two respects.

Blau attempted a quantitative study, and

used a more systematic scheme of sampling than the others.
Blau reports .the use of what he calls "quantitative
case studies" in two studies of bureaucracies.*

Blau fo­

cuses on the need to be flexible as a researcher, but not
totally reactive.
The researcher who compulsively insists on following
his predesigned plan will miss these rare opportunities.
Conversely, the one who is seduced by every new lead
will find that he has failed to collect information
on the theoretical problems that prompted his research.
Blau was granted formal entry to the agencies he was studying
by top management.

Since he was studying lower levels in

the civil service hierarchy, this initial identification
with management aroused some suspicion of him.

His initial

habit of taking obvious notes added to the suspicion.

It

was only time and the development of trust on a personal
level that finally removed those feelings.

It is interest­

ing to note that except for the initial rejection reported
above, Blau’s emphasis on quantitative data caused no
problems that were very different from those encountered by
others.
William F. Whyte makes two points similar to Blau
in Street Corner Society:
. . . one has to learn when to question and when not
to question, as well as what questions to ask.
*Peter M. Blau, The Dynamics of Bureaucracy,
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955).
^ I b i d . , p.

22.

130

As I sat and listened, I learned the answers to ques­
tions I would not even have had the sense to ask had
I been getting my information solely on an interview
b a s i s .1
This is a very lucid statement of a major benefit of field
research:

one does not need to assume in advance that he

knows what all of the questions are.

This is why field

studies may have a large exploratory phase before more sys­
tematic methods of collecting data are employed.
Glaser and Strauss,

Scott,

and Becker have argued in support of

this view.
Whyte's entry to the Italian-American community he
wished to study was accomplished in a single stroke.

A

social worker in a settlement house in the community intro­
duced Whyte to Doc, a member of the community who became
Whyte's guide,

informant, and, in Whyte's terms, "Doc became,

in a very real sense, a collaborator in the research."

2

While field researchers rarely find (or need) such an enter­
prising quide as Doc, the relationship between Doc and Whyte
emphasized a fact that does seem to recur in field studies.
It is the ability of the researcher to establish open and
trusting personal relationships - -not the sophistication of
his explanation--that is crucial to real access.

The im­

portance of that personal level of interchange has been
^William F. Whyte, Street Corner S o c i e t y , (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press^ 1943), p. 303.
^ I b i d . , p.

301.

131

discussed earlier, and the dangers noted.

An interesting

example of the importance of such personal rapport is p ro­
vided in the next study reviewed, that of Alvin W. Gouldner.
Gouldner's Patterns of Industrial Bureacracy was
one of the earliest organizational studies.

He describes

that study as follows:
. . . it is primarily exploratory and comprises an
effort to develop new concepts and hypotheses which
will lend themselves to validation by experimental
methods.1
Gouldner obtained data by using three methods.

First, he

used interviews as a basic tool, and reports that these
were often non-directive.

He obtained, however, a total of

92 standardized interviews as the basis of his data.

Second,

Gouldner (and his associates) also interacted informally
throughout the gypsum plant, thus obtaining many observa­
tions.

Third, "many thousands of pages of documentary
?
material were obtained and read.*'
Gouldner reports that entry was gained at two levels.
They met several members of management through the labor
relations director, and introduced themselves to the workers
via a union meeting.

’’Thus we had made a 'double-entry'

into the plant, coming in almost simultaneously by way of
3
the Company and the Union."
*Alvin W. Gouldner, Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy,
(New York: The Free Press, 1954).
2Ibid,, p. 251.
3I b i d . , p.

255.

132

Gouldner*s research team was especially well re­
ceived in part because all of them were veterans.

This

helped the men in the. plant feel some empathy since many
of them were also veterans, some from the recently completed
WW II.

Gouldner dwells on the advantages of the close per­

sonal rapport which resulted:
We tentatively conclude from this experience that the
dangers of interviewer 'overidentification* or ’overrapport* can be much exaggerated, and that it is some­
times indispensable to develop friendly ties with cer­
tain kinds of respondents in order to obtain their
cooperation.1
A unique aspect of the Gouldner study was the ongoing use
of a research team.

He maintains that the regular, weekly

meetings of the group contributed to both the morale of
the researchers and to the development of the theory.

The

diverse points of view were felt to add valuable new per­
ceptions .
The last study in this chapter was not an organiza­
tional study at all.

In fact, it comes from beyond the realm

of sociology, from problems of medical education.
is that it demonstrates a key methodological point.

Its forte
That

is, the advantages of multiple data sources are appreciated
beyond the realm of organizational studies.
In a study of how experienced physicians reach a
diagnosis of a patient, Shulman employed multiple methods.
Using videotape and audiotape, three types of data were
recorded.

First was the description of what the physician

actually did and said.
1 Ibid, p.

259.

Second was his immediate

133

introspections while doing it, and (third) his stimulated
retrospective recall."*

The advantage of the multiple

sources was, according to Shulman, that "the multi-level
quality of the data enables us to 1triangulate' on our o b ­
servations and interpretations from the perspectives of
each of the three data sources."

In the present study of

the Michigan Department of Education, the three basic methods-observing meetings,

interviewing, and reading--constitute

a similarly strong argument for both validity and relia­
bility .
Conclusions
Articles and books dealing with the use of field
methodology have been reviewed.

From these, a series of

recurring conclusions can be drawn.
1.

Field studies can be exploratory, descriptive,

or hypothesis -testing.

The first two are situations which

are particularly amenable to the strengths of field m e th o d ­
ology.
2.
may take on.

There are several roles which a field researcher
These carry differential problems of over­

identification and ethnocentrism.
*Lee S. Shulman, "The Psychology of School Subjects:
A Premature Obituary?"
Journal of Research in Science T e ach­
ing . Vol. 11, Number 4, 1974, p. 321.
2I b i d . , p. 322.

134

3.

Field studies usually use multiple methods;

observing, interviewing and reading are most common.

Sys­

tematic measures of interaction were also mentioned.

This

multiple perspective contributes to reliability and validity.
4.

"Interview" types described varied from random

interaction through very formal standardized schedules.
5.

Field studies typically use multiple data sources.

These also serve as a means of increasing reliability and
validity.
6.

There are advantages to both reactive and sys­

tematic means of sampling, of choosing categories or re­
spondents .
7.

The most commonly used argument for reliability

and validity is the six-step index developed by Homans.
Generally, adequacy increases as the level of each of the
following increases:

amount of time, proximity regarding

place, variety of social circumstance* common language, in­
timacy, and consensus.
8.

Intimacy

(see Homan indices, above)

is a special

problem in that intimacy of content is desirable, but in­
timacy of form is often a source of bias.
9.

Where two or more researchers worked together,

the added perspective provided an opportunity to test inter­
observer reliability.
10.

Field researchers reported that gaining entr

was a major issue and a potential limiting factor.

135

11.

Researchers generally found that personal

acceptance was more important than the completeness of their
explanation of the research task.
12.

The public presentation of data was judged to

be a contributor to judgements of validity.
13.

The desirability of statistical, systematic

hypothesis-testing follow-up to descriptive field studies
was acknowledged,

as was the fact that such replications

would constitute retroactive contributions to validity.
These are,

in a very condensed form, the salient

points from a sample of articles and books related to field
research.
ter.

This concludes the first major task of this chap­

Next, the methodology used in the study of the Michigan

Department of Education will be described and supported.
The Methodology Used to Study the Michigan
Department of fcctucation
The over-riding question of this study is "How does
the Michigan Department of Education reduce uncertainty
about the supply of resources

from its environment?"

In

the first chapter, a series of thirteen strategies used by
MDE to accomplish this reduction of uncertainty was presented.
In the second chapter, the other elements of the proposed
model were described:
environment,

the MDE itself,

the members of its

and the resources sought by the MDE.

model follows.

The basic

136

strategy enacted
System (MDE)

Environment
resource acquired

Operationally,

the question involves identifying for any

given interaction, the resource sought, the strategy used
and the member(s)

of the environment which participated.

For example, the MDE might attempt to co-opt the members of
a parent lobby to gain public support.
How does one gain evidence about such interactions?
The most obvious answer is that one should be "on site,"
should engage in a field study.

The MDE will not act out

its strategies in the office of the laboratory of even a
very convincing researcher.

Often these interactions are

brief and informal and not recorded, so post facto analysis
of documents

(while helpful!) would be insufficient.

One

must be on site.
It has been repeatedly emphasized in this study that
the unit of analysis is the whole agency, the Michigan
Department of Education.

The goal is to identify those b e ­

haviors which are emitted by the agency in a formal sense.
The concern is with how the agency behaves, not how its
members behave.

It is not the same thing.

"But after all, an organization is made up of people."
True, and a human is also made up of cells, a forest of
trees.

One can learn a great deal by studying cells and

137

trees--but sometimes it is useful to define the system at
a higher level.

Organizations are more than people, they

include rules and goals and buildings and information and
telephones.

There is almost no limit.

It is possible, then,

to conceive of an organization as a system composed of human
elements and non-human elements and all of the relations b e ­
tween these elements.

Thus, to ask questions at an organ­

izational level is justifiable.
Organizations do emit behaviors as organizations.
They commit resources, pay b i l l s , enact regulations and
enter into contracts.

They own things and employ people

and receive requests for money, action, legislation, and s y m ­
pathy.

This is not anthropomorphic;

it is fact.

How does

one obtain data about how such an organization behaves?
Most of the time that an organization emits a b e ­
havior which causes it to interact with some member of its
environment, some record is kept.

Most actions between o r ­

ganizations involving exchanges of resources

(i.e., the

actions of interest in this study) are important enough to
require formal approval.
variably recorded.

Such interactions are almost i n ­

Thus, a field researcher on site can

examine the written output of the MDE and the agencies with
which it interacts.

That is a start, but would surely not

be judged sufficient by the authors reviewed in the first
part of this chapter.

It is at this level that access to

people becomes critical.

138
Why is it logical to seek information about the b e ­
havior of an organization from its members?

Recall that the

organization is defined as containing more than people:
rules, information, buildings, all these and all of the re­
lations between them.

Thus things other than people have

influence on the final action of the organization.
only people can "act for" the organization.

But

It is not the

computer (hopefully!) that commits MDE to a coalition with
another state agency, it is the State Board, in all like­
lihood.

It is not the combined information banks of 13

service areas which decide to redirect federal money to
save a testing program, it is the director of Research and
Evaluation who must act.

Thus the behaviors, the actions

of an organization can be identified by observing or inter­
viewing the members who have the power to act for the
agency.
The model describes how MDE acquires resources from
other organizations in its environment.

This has several

implications concerning which people may serve as sources of
data.

First, persons should have enough power to be able to

commit or acquire resources in behalf of MDE.

Second, senior

members of other agencies will likely be equally informative.
Third, situations in which persons from MDE interact with
persons from organizations in the environment of MDE are
likely to be informative.

Thus it is the task of the re­

searcher to seek data from persons with power--near the top

139
of the organization--from both MDE and members of its e n ­
vironment, especially in cases of interorganizational in­
terface.

To put it another way,

it would seem to be profit­

able to observe those with power to act for the agency in
terms of acquiring resources in situations where this is
most likely to occur.
While this required that people be observed and
studied, the study was spared many of the problems that plague
other field studies.

What was needed in the MDE study was

verified information about events.

There was no overt

attempt to seek feelings or attitudes or opinions or p e r ­
ceptions from the subjects.

The purpose was to find facts.

Either MDE staff met with the US Office or they did not.
Either John Porter wrote a response to the legislator or he
did not.

Either the State Board approved the report or they

did not.

This was not an attempt to uncover values and other

abstractions,

it was a study of events.

There is no attempt to pretend that this point of
departure immediately solves all problems of reliability and
validity.

Still,

it is easier to verify the occurrence of

an official action of the MDE than to obtain agreement on
the meaning of a norm among an adolescent group.

It b e ­

comes apparent in the next chapter, however, that not all
MDE behavior is formal and obvious and easy to document.

A

series of nods in a meeting may signal a commitment to enter
a coalition whose existence will never be formally

140

acknowledged.

So even this study of events is not free from

the need for human interpretation.
In order to obtain information about the strategies
used by MDE to reduce uncertainty, three methods were used.
First, as stated above, many formal and semi-formal d o c u ­
ments were read.

Second, many high-level meetings were

attended.

interviews were conducted with a variety

Third,

of people from MDE and other organizations.

These will be

described more thoroughly later in this chapter.

At this

time, the means of entry to the organization will be d i s ­
cussed.
Two researchers shared the data collection task
even though they had different questions to ask.

The second

researcher, Dr. Philip A. Cusick, was and is a member of the
faculty of the College of Education at Michigan State U n i ­
versity.

At the request of Dr. Cusick, the Dean of the

College of Education interceded for us.

The Dean contacted

the Associate Superintendent for Research and School A d m i n ­
istration at MDE, Dr. Philip Kearney, and explained our r e ­
quest .
Dr. Kearney was familiar with Dr. Cusick's book,
Inside High S c hoo l, and with field methods in general.

A

graduate of the University of Chicago, he was well instructed
in the earlier work of Lloyd Warner.^

Informally, Dr. Kearney

^See, for example, Lloyd Warner and Associates,
Democracy in Jonesville, (Evanston, Illinois:
Harper and

Row, 1 9 4 9 ) 7 -----------

141

agreed and promised to act on our behalf within the MDE
to assure formal approval.

The two of us met with Dr.

Kearney in early October of 1974.
Dr. Kearney made us welcome and seemed to have
gained a good understanding of our goals from his earlier
telephone conversations with Dr. Cusick.

He summarized

his understanding of the project as follows:
1. We would spend nearly

a year on site.

2. We would be concerned

with decision making at

the top level of the agency.
He suggested that we might like to '’follow people around”
to learn how they function and on three occasions later
this technique was used.

Dr. Kearney had already arranged

for us to attend two meetings the next week to get acquainted.
The next Monday at nine, the Executive Council of
MDE met.

This group included the top nine or ten members

of the agency.

Dr.

Kearney introduced us and only one member

of the group questioned our presence, asking what we hoped
to get out of it.

Dr. Cusick explained that he taught o r ­

ganizational theory at the University, and that I was doing
dissertation research.

That sufficed.

For the rest of the

meeting we sat, present but uninvolved, taking down a word
occasionally and looking as interested as we were.
careful

not to take so many notes

as to be a threat.

I was
Even

five months later after meeting with the same group two or
three times a month,

I still got teased if I took notes.

142

It was only a cheerful, "How come every time I talk you
start to write?" but it served as a reminder to remain u n ­
obtrusive.
A second meeting followed the same morning.

This

was the Administrative Council and included the top 25
(roughly) members of the organization.

We were introduced

again and Dr. Cusick explained our purpose in about a minute.
The Deputy Superintendent presided and asked jokingly if
any of the people there were threatened.

Half raised their

hands and all laughed, then they got on with their business.
By chance, the members of the Administrative Council were
almost all of the people we wanted to interview in the first
round.
That was enough.

We had been legitimized and when

we called on the members for interview appointments, treat­
ment was almost unanimously courteous,
ful.

interested and h e l p ­

The personal influence of Dr. Kearney and his position

as Associate Superintendent for Research and School A d m i n ­
istration, were helpful.
For the next nine months

I was involved in research.

I attended at least half of the Executive Council sessions
faithfully throughout the fall and winter.

This consistent

but unobtrusive presence combined with the contacts made
through interviews paid off.

As trust increased, so did

invitations--to lunch, to Washington and to meetings with
other agencies.

While these will be enumerated in another

143

section, they are mentioned here to make a point.

As in

many other studies, it was the trust on a personal basis
which assured continued access to the non-trivial actions
of people at the decision making level.

But contrary to

other's reports, this was accomplished with a minimum of
personal investment of the "intimacy of form" type--it was
enough to be perceived as personally trustable.
With that introduction to the methodology and the
agency, a complete description of the methods used will be
presented.
Describing the Methods
Three methods of collecting data were used.
meetings were attended.

First,

Second, interviews were conducted.

Third, documents were collected and read.

These methods

were applied to persons and documents both internal and
external to MDE.

In this section, these three methods are

described; they are not in context.

The way in which these

three methods were applied is discussed in the following
section.
Observing Meetings
The first method was to observe a variety of meetings.
Access to all public meetings, especially State Board of
Education meetings, did not require permission.

Access to

internal meetings of ongoing or ad hoc committees at all
levels was also granted.

Access to meetings involving other

144

agencies was dealt with on a situational basis.

In only

one instance was attendance at an interagency meeting r e ­
fused, and that was due to a fear that members of the other
agency would be inhibited by the presence of an outsider.
In another instance, an invitation was extended by the
Deputy Superintendent to accompany the Michigan delegation
of executive-level staff to a private session with the C o m ­
missioner of the US Office of Education and his senior staff.
Last, several public and private meetings of organizations
in the environment of MDE were attended; meetings to which
MDE personnel were not invited, usually by intent.
In most of these meetings the researcher was an o b ­
server only, not a participant.

Rare occasions of other

roles are explained as they arise.

In public meetings, the

researcher would sit apart from the participants in the m e e t ­
ing and would take notes during the meeting.
did the same.
lobbyists,

Often, others

For example, at State Board meetings, staff,

reporters and the general public were present.

Many of these took notes , so one more person doing so was
not conspicuous.

In more private meetings--for example the

Executive Council, the eight senior staff--the researcher
sat

(silently) with the participants and took notes only

rarely.

That was the least obvious and interfering role, to

sit apart would have accentuated the researcher's non-parti­
cipant role.

A physically present, attentive and obviously

interested observer was not labelled as an outsider.

145

That fact is partly due to method as described and
partly to the open attitude of the subjects.

But the fact

that the researcher was regularly present in a wide variety
of circumstances also created an atmosphere of acceptance.
Such acceptance simply would not have been granted to another
researcher--no matter how competent --who had not invested
the time to be regarded as familiar, as an outsider.

Thus

the ability to use the observation method successfully de­
pends on many factors, not all of which are objective.
Interviews
Observations of the above types accounted for about
one third of the total notes acquired.

An even larger share

resulted from the various types of interviews.

Types of

interviews can be described according to a pair of variables.
The first is focus:

is there a specific piece or set of

information which is the goal of the interview?
is structure:

The second

is there a predetermined plan or schedule for

seeking the information?
It is possible to conceive of three types of inter­
views .
Informal.--There is no goal, no schedule or structure.
This is simply a chance interaction, a conversation.
Open-ended.--Here there is a goal, at least in gen­
eral terms.

There is no interview guide or agenda.

are spontaneous but goal-directed.

Questions

146

Formal.--The researcher has a goal and a formal
schedule for the interview which must be adhered to, within
reason.
All three types of interviews were conducted.

The

informal "interviews’* were probably the most numerous and
were often productive,

in spite of their undirected nature.

For example, the friendly chatter with staff at break time
at Board meetings is certainly without goal or structure.
Still, such interactions were often the source of serendipi­
tous information about attitudes, events or sources.
would only be made later in private.

Notes

To even call such in­

teractions interviews is perhaps to glorify them needlessly.
To describe them as sources of often valuable data is simply
to state a fact.
The second type includes those open-ended interviews
which were focused in that they sought answers to predeter­
mined questions.

Yet there was no particular order or struc­

ture for seeking the information.
norm early in this study.
example,

Such interviews were the

One or both researchers would, for

talk to a service area director to learn what his

responsibilities and activities were.

There was such diver­

sity among respondents that to increase focus would have
caused a loss of range and the latter was of more initial
interest.

Therefore, that series of interviews was goal-

directed, but very open-ended, semi-formal and conversational.
Researchers took notes during and after such interviews.

147

The last type is the formal structured, focused in­
terview.

The last series of interviews, conducted during

the spring of 1975, approximated this model.

MDE staff and

others were interviewed in a structured manner and these
interviews were taped for later transcription.

This added

some formality and, as a result, some inhibition, but the
cost was judged to be worth the gain in quantity of verbatim
data.
By spring, when taped interviews were conducted, the
researcher had established sufficient personal rapport that
in many cases the added factor of the tape recorder did not
seem to matter.

Cross-checks with other subjects and with

data from less formal exchanges did not indicate that any
inaccuracy or bias was introduced by taping.
noted that while a formal "interview map"

It should be

(which approximates

the exploratory questions following in this chapter) was
used, not all persons were asked all questions.
of program descriptions, for example,

was

Repetition

avoided so that

the unique information of each subject could be acquired.
Reading Documentary Material
The last method of gathering data was simply reading.
This does not refer to the general review of the literature,
but to specific examination of material related to issues
of concern in the study.

For example, each State Board

meeting was the occasion for production of over a hundred
pages of type.

Some of this output was collected and read.

148

Other sources

included formal reports, Department publica­

tions, minutes of meetings, correspondence, position papers
and occasional articles by MDE staff-

Only limited amounts

of this material have been quoted and referenced.

Generally,

the over four thousand pages«*of print collected have been
used most often as a reality test.

For example, the accur­

acy of an event described in an interview was often checked
by referring to written reports describing the same event.
The discrepancies were usually identified and explained.
Obviously, much of the material collected has not been care­
fully explored, but its availability as a check on validity
and reliability is sufficient justification for maintaining
an extensive file.
In summary,
observing meetings,

three methods were used in the study:
interviewing, and reading.

now been described out of context.

Each has

What follows is a des­

cription of how these methods were actually applied to the
task of studying MDE and how it reduces uncertainty.
Applying the Methods
There were several stages to the research.

First,

research efforts concentrated on developing a bank of data
describing the agency.

Second, data-gathering time was r e ­

duced and more time was devoted to developing a theoretical
framework.

Third, a focused or data-gathering phase followed

in which the explanatory ability of the framework was tested
against data gathered for that purpose.

In the fourth and

149

TIME

Fall
1974

METHOD

Winter
1975

Spring
1975

Spring
Summer
197S

Observing
Informal
Interviews

X

Interviewing:
Open-Ended

X

X

X

Developing
Theory
Interviewing:
Structured, Focused

Analysis and
Reporting
Reading

FIGURE 6.--Times at which different methods played
a major role in research.

150

last stage, analysis and reporting occurred.

Each of these

four parts of the research effort took from two to three
months.

Each stage will now be described in more detail.

Figure 6 summarizes the use of different methods at each
stage.
In the autumn of 1974, the problem of entry into the
organization was solved as described earlier.

Access to the

MDE was tentatively granted by the Associate Superintendent
for Research and School Administration,

and later confirmed

by the Superintendent and other executive-level personnel.
At that time,

in the early fall of 1974, very little

was known to the researcher about the workings of the organ­
ization.

It was thus determined that completion of an explora­

tory-descriptive study was the first task.
During the fall of 1974, meetings were observed and
interviews were conducted.

Reports and memoranda arising

out of the activities of MDE during that time were collected
and read.
oriented,

All of these activities were actually quite goalin that there was a body of knowledge that was

being sought.

At this stage, as stated, the study was both

exploratory and descriptive in character, although it is
true that theoretical issues did emerge early.
of thorough description,
was used.

In pursuit

a series of exploratory questions

In truth, these questions varied and evolved, but

the following listing does retroactive justice to the in­
tent of the exploratory phase;

it describes the type of

questions asked during the open-ended interviews.

1.

What are the formal purposes of the Michigan

Department of Education?
it accountable?
2.

Who does it serve?

What are its expressed goals?

What is the structure of the agency?

ponents are included?

What com­

What sort of hierarchy is operative?

How centralized is the control of power?
3.

To whom is

Of information?

What are the tasks which staff perform?

services do they provide for clients?

What

What sort of relation­

ship do MDE staff have with clients?
4.

What agencies does MDE interact with?

levels does this occur?

Are channels formal or informal?

What resources are involved?

What other organizations are

consistent allies or opponents?
5.

At what

Who initiates interactions?

What sources of power does MDE have?

Do informed

sources complement the legal authority of the agency?
power really tied to money or to legal authority?

Is

Have

these sources changed over time?
6.

How has the agency changed since 1963 (or

earlier)?

Is the agency more regulative, more service-

oriented?

Is it more or less innovative?

What trends are

obvious and will they continue?
7.

What major projects are operative?

origin and disposition of each?
the agency operates?
pressed goals?

What is the

Have these changed the way

Is such activity consistent with e x ­

What next?

These guided the first phase of the research during
the fall of 1974.

Whatever the method--observing, interviewing

15 2

or reading--the general goal was to obtain the kind of d e s ­
criptive information suggested by the exploratory questions.
The data gathered in this phase were never assembled
in a way that provided a direct response to the exploratory
questions.

This list of questions were generated after the

fact to communicate the range of information sought in the
fall of 1974.
quickly.

The questions evolved and changed very

The model of MDE behavior, as explained in chapter

one, demanded a refinement of the questions.

This occurred

later, and will be discussed in this chapter.
attention will return to the task at hand:

For the moment

describing how

the different methods were used during the first phase of
the research in the autumn of 1974.
This first series of interviews was focused but u n ­
structured.

The goal in each one was simply to find the

answers to the exploratory questions, to generally learn what
the agency did, and what the people in the agency did to c o n ­
tribute to that general agency behavior.

Consequently it

was decided that all persons in the top four levels of the
MDE would be interviewed.

These included the Superintendent

of Education, the Deputy Superintendent,
Superintendents and thirteen

four

(4) Associate

(13) Service Area Directors.

The Service Area is the basic unit of organization of the
Department as shown in Table 5.

Other staff reporting to

top-level MDE personnel were also interviewed.

These in­

cluded the Executive Assistant to the Superintendent,

the

153

Assistant Superintendent for Legislation and Public Affairs,
the Assistant (to the Superintendent) for School and Co m ­
munity Affairs, the two staff responsible for liaison with
the state and federal governments, and the Director of Per­
sonnel Management*
In two cases, Service Area Directors were unavailable
and supervisory staff reporting directly to them were sub­
stituted.

In one case, a Service Area--Vocational Rehabili-

tational Services--was not investigated at all.

In this in­

stance, the Service Area functioned in fact as an autonomous
agency, has little impact on the policy of MDE and was e x ­
pected to be removed from the Department in the near future
by legislative act.
No open-ended interviews with persons outside of
the MDE were conducted at that stage, but the researcher
did have much contact with outsiders at meetings, as will
be explained later in this chapter.

It should also be

emphasized that the sampling procedure for this series of
interviews was systematic and preplanned, not the result
of the whims of a reactive observer.

On the other hand,

the researcher often followed hunches or "leads'* to data
sources but these were usually meetings, not interviews.
Thus both systematic and reactive modes were employed.
The first open-ended interview in this series was
conducted on October 9, 1974; the last on December 10, 1974.
During and beyond that time, meetings were attended, documents

154
were collected and informal interactions occurred.

The o u t ­

come of this first stage of research was the generation of
about 250 pages of typed notes, many of which were gathered
by a second researcher.
During the period, and through the rest of the study,
observations were also occurring.
were of meetings.

The meetings which were attended most

often were internal,
personnel.

In most cases, these

involving only Department of Education

In addition to these internal meetings, o b ser­

vations were conducted on three other types of meetings;
public,

interagency and extra-agency.

of the four types,

Discussion of each

including examples of each, follow.

Several regular and irregular internal meetings
were observed.

Almost every week,

the Superintendent met

with his top nine or ten staff at 7:30 a.m. Monday morning.
About half of these Executive Council sessions were attended
over a period of eight months.
The Deputy Superintendent presides over meetings of
the Administrative Council.

This group meets every three

weeks and includes the top four levels of MDE personnel e x ­
cept for the Superintendent.
meetings.

About 25 people attend these

Only a few of these were observed.

Other ongoing and ad hoc meetings were observed on
occasion.

One quarterly meeting of the whole professional

staff was attended.

Meetings of internal planning groups

were observed on two occasions.

Other observations of

155

this type were made not only in the first s t age, but through­
out the whole study.
Many public meetings were attended.

The meetings

of the State Board of Education were the most common e x a m ­
ples of this type.

The Board met in regular and committee-

of-the-whole sessions twice monthly.

On one occasion, a

public meeting was observed in which MDE staff explained
and defended their accountability program to professionals
from the southwestern part of the state.
Another common type of meeting was the interagency
type.

In these, one or more representatives of one or more

external agencies met with MDE personnel.

In this study,

many of the meetings of this type--but not all--were arranged
by the Department.
equals.

Others were more mutual, meetings among

Other agencies observed in this type of meeting

included the interest groups mentioned in the second chapter,
the US Office of Education senior staff, urban administra­
tors, state senators,

legislators,

aides, the Governor’s

educational staff and other interest g r oups.

Most of these

were closed meetings and focused on very specific topics
of mutual interest.
The last type of meeting observed is labelled
"extra-agency.”

In these meetings, MDE representatives

were intentionally or unwittingly excluded, but items rele­
vant to MDE activities were discussed.

Most of these were

meetings of coalitions of professionals or agencies with
major (or exclusive)

interest in educational policy making.

1 S6

The observation of meetings continued from September
of 1974 through June of 1975.
early in the study,

These observations helped,

to provide a description of the Michigan

Department of Education.

In a later stage, during the w i n ­

ter of 1975, such observations added to the data bank and
served as a reality test for the model which was being
developed.

Later in the spring of 1975, observations of

meetings provided data with which to test the model, the
theoretical framework describing MDE behavior, which had
been developed earlier.
As the second stage of the research began, a new
task emerged.

A large collection of data describing the

activities of the agency existed.
data it was evident

By analysis of these

(even early in the fall) that the MDE

constantly tried to behave in an anticipatory fashion.
Staff complained of "always having to put out fires" and
"never getting caught up enough to plan."

It seemed that

at that stage that control over an unpredictable environ­
ment was the issue.
It was at this stage that the theories of James D.
Thompson

(initially a systems theorist) were applied and

later integrated.

At a theoretical level, the "control"

question was viewed to mean the same to a system as "reduc­
tion of uncertainty."

The theory discussed in the first

chapter of this dissertation arose from that assumption.
A list of strategies by which a system could reduce

157

uncertainty was developed.

In this way, a model of organ­

izational behavior was created.
The MDE was conceived of as an open system which
sought to reduce uncertainty of resources

(energy) from an

environment composed mostly of other organizations.

The

strategies were suggested as the means by which MDE accom­
plished that reduction of uncertainty.

The strategies

existed from the beginning at an operational level.

Des­

cription of other components of the explanatory model is
accomplished in the three preceding chapters of this disser­
tation.

The development of this model took about three

months.
It was decided to test the model by doing seven in­
tensive case studies.

These were chosen to reflect the wide

range of activity in the agency, but avoided activities that
were not really integrated at all such as the State Library
or the Vocational Renabilitation Program.

The following

cases were selected for intensive study.
Higher Education.

MDE attempts to influence de­

cisions in the legislature by providing information.

They

are seeking to increase their control of higher education,
to formally take on a planning and coordination role,

A

decision from the Supreme Court about the right of MDE to
control state colleges and universities is pending.
Special Education.

The 1964 Constitution assigned

the responsibility for education of all handicapped per­
sons from five to twenty-five to the state.

Public Act

158

19 8 reaffirmed this and has been the basis for growth of
the role of the state in this area.

A federal court may

order MDE to provide educational programs to persons in
mental institutions.

Implementation efforts have begun

to forestall further court action.
Chapter T h r e e .

Chapter Three is the State compen­

satory education program.

A penalty clause tied to the

funding formula promised to give MDE increased control, but
there has been little real impact.
Professional Development.

The legislature has ten­

tatively authorized the creation of organizations to p r o ­
vide in-service teacher education.

Once achieved, a p r o ­

posed pilot version could become a model for a state-wide
network of professional development centers.
Title I .

This is the core of the federal Elementary

and Secondary Education Act.

It provides millions of dollars

annually for compensatory programs in Michigan.

MDE admin­

isters the program in Michigan.
Title I I I .

The federal government provides money

to school districts for "innovative and exemplary programs."
MDE has managed to use this to develop its "accountability"
planning model.
Title V .

This federal program has, since 196S, p r o ­

vided several million dollars of direct aid to MDE to
strengthen the state agency.

159

These seven programs reflect the range of elements
in the environment of MDE.

Major sources, in order, are

the Constitution, the Legislature and the Federal Congress
and US Office of Education.

In most of the cases above,

especially those at the state level, interest group activity
is substantial.

The research will reveal what resources

are available in each case and what strategies are used by
MDE to reduce uncertainty.
Cases were chosen from that set of things over which
MDE could, conceivably, exercise some reasonable control.
Thus school finance,

for example, was excluded.

Legislators

typically retain control over those decisions in all states.
Also, since the MDE does not have direct authority to legis­
late curriculum, that whole realm of educational activity
was not an appropriate area for this study.

By the time the

selection of cases was finalized--late winter of 1974--enough
research had occurred to enable the researchers to make wise
choices.
It was decided that formal, structured interviews
should be conducted during the spring of 1975 to learn more
about the seven c a s e s .
time.

Observations continued during that

Data gathered from earlier interviews and observations

constitutes a secondary source, but these final interviews
are used as the core of this research report.
A purposive sample of persons to be interviewed was
chosen.

Because six months of research had already occurred,

160

it was possible to identify those who would be most infor­
mative about each case.

For each case, at least one inter­

view with a person in each of these categories was sought:
MDE executive level, MDE staff level, State Board of E d uca­
tion and State Government.
the seven cases.

This was achieved in five of

Title I and Title III were often combined

with Title V in discussions and so fewer interviews were
needed.

No structured interviews were conducted with fed­

eral-level personnel and only one with an interest -group
representative.

It is in these categories, however, that

other supplementary methods take the limelight.
For example, Figure 7 shows the sources of data in
the last, formal series of interviews.

Was Source Used?
MDE executive -level

Yes

MDE staff

Yes

State Board

Yes

State Government

Yes

Federal Government
Interest Groups, Other Professionals

No
Yes(Once)

FIGURE 7.--Sources for Final, Formal Interviews.

Clearly, the federal and interest group categories are under­
represented.

However, enlarging the chart to compare all

161

data sources to all research methods provides a much more
balanced picture.

This is shown in Figure 8 .

It is evident

that the variety of methods used in this study leads to a
reasonably broad coverage of each topic.
The final series of formal interviews was, however,
the largest single source of descriptive data.

A total of

188 pages of data were collected and transcribed.

Some

further description of that series of interviews is in order.
By the time planning for the final series of inter­
views occurred, two very useful inputs were available.

One

was the collection of notes that observations and open-ended
interviews had generated over a six-month span.
was the theoretical framework;

The other

the elements of which con­

stituted a model for describing the behavior of the Michigan
Department of Education.

These two items helped to deter­

mine both the sample and the questions.
The range of possible responses was judged to be too
broad to allow the use of a very closed instrument.

Conse­

quently, a list of general questions was generated, all of
which allowed a broad range of interpretation and response.
These questions are in fact simply a refinement of the g e n ­
eral exploratory questions which had guided the study since
its inception.
standardized.

At this stage they finally became relatively
Even at this stage, however,

the qualitative

nature of the study permitted the researcher to be loyal
to the intent--if not the instrument--of the research.

For

162

>

a>

Data Source

G
i—*

©0
G
•H

t—t
rt

U

g

0>
l/l
43
O

e

o
G

G
t—i

tV

-o
<D
T3
G
W
•
G
<D
G.
O

+j
G
h-t
i—(

u-

Reading

4->

*->

:*
o
>

"by"

>

t-i
<D

>

V

;*
<u

or "about1

Method

5
t-i
O

MDE Executive-level

X

X

X

X

X

MDE Staff

X

X

X

X

X

State Board

X

X

State Government

X

X

Federal Government,
US Office
Interest Groups,
Others

FIGURE 8 .--Methods used with various data sources

163

example,

this list of questions served as a checklist, a

"map” during every interview (see Figure 9).

In many cases

a subject would not know about one set of items.
happened,

When this

the instrument was unrestrictive enough that the

interview was simple redirected to a topic with more p o ­
tential.

Thus,

ideally, every respondent would be able to

answer every question about every case.

But when reality

interfered with ideals, it was easily accommodated.
All but one of these formal case study interviews
was taped for later transcription.

Some were transcribed

verbatim, but in most interviews some editing was done to
exclude irrelevant transition material, digressions and
similar material.

The last interview of this series was

completed on May 16, 1975.

The total file of data at the

end of the research amounted to about 500 pages of typed
notes and over 4000 pages of collected documents.
In the following

(fifth) chapter of this disserta­

tion, the data are presented.

For each case study the p r e ­

sentation of data follows roughly the list of questions
used for the final interviews and shown in Figure 9.

Re­

call that data included came from m e e t i n g s , three types of
interviews and a variety of documents.

While the data, as

promised, are typically descriptive of events, they are n e v ­
ertheless in the words of the people who acted for the agency
in those events.

This returns our focus to the problems of

the adequacy of field methods.

An evaluation of this study

164

MDE Study:

1.

Final Interview Checklist

Describe the program involved,
origin
how communicated to you
when you first heard of it
essential components

2.

What anticipatory action did MDE take?

3.

Describe the exchange relationship.
other organizations
gain for MDE
what MDE provides for others
allies
opponents
conspicuous neutralists

4.

Describe the outcome of the issue/program.
what aspects/problems remain unsolved
action still ongoing
future action by MDE
future action by other participants

5.

Define the impact of the issue.
how was MDE changed
who else was changed/how?
unintended consequences

6.

How will the future be different because of
this action?

FIGURE 9

Interview checklist, used as a map for
the final series of formal interviews.

16S

will now be undertaken using the summary extracted from the
earlier review of literature as a basis for judgement.
Evaluating the Methodology
The general question of "Why field methodology?" has
been introduced and pervades the dissertation, particularly
this chapter.

It is, as mentioned earlier, a choice which

is related to the goal of the study.

To describe and e x ­

plain the behavior of a major organization in relation to
its environment, one must be on site.

One must be there

watching when an interaction occurs, in some instances,
because results are often not recorded.

Even in the more

common instances where major interactions are formally
recorded--and it is a major assertion of this study that
this is typically so--the issue that finally is approved by
the State Board of Education had a long and meaningful h i s ­
tory that is not available to one who only reads the minutes.
There is immense value in being on site.
Having made that choice, other issues arise.

The

review of literature relating to field studies illustrated
several concerns.
conclusions.

These were extracted to form a series of

Now these conclusions will be repeated and

the present study evaluated:

does it meet the criteria

required by the practitioners and advocates whose work formed
the basis of the review earlier in this chapter?

166

Type of Study
March categorizes field studies as exploratory,
descriptive, or hypothesis-testing.

The first phase of

this study--furing the fall of 1974--was exploratory in a
sense.

The main objective at that stage though was to d e s ­

cribe the organization thoroughly.

Then a model which is

intended to describe and explain the actions of the agency
was developed.

Consequently,

the last phase of the study

could be labelled "model-testing."

This is perhaps a less

rigorous task than testing hypotheses, but probably belongs
in the same realm.

Thus the MDE study contains aspects of

all three types of field studies.
Role
According to Gold, there are four roles a field re­
searcher may use.

In the MDE study, the researchers role

varied according to method.
serving meetings,

Three methods were used:

interviewing and reading.

ob­

The concerns

that Gold expresses are operative in the first two instances.
When observing meetings,

the observer sought to take

on a complete observer role and to be as unobtrusive as
possible.

The success of the attempt is attested to by the

fact that in eight months of meeting with MDE staff, the re­
searcher spoke to the assumbled group only once--and that
was in response to a direct and unpredicted request from an
associate superintendent.

In the complete observer role, a

16 7

researcher should be "functionally invisible" and this was
so to a large degree.
In the observations,

the complete observer role was

subject to the criticism of being removed from the meanings
which are available only to true participants.
this problem ethnocentrism.

Gold labels

However, a later discussion of

intimacy and other factors following in this paper will
argue that the researcher was not seriously excluded from
shared meanings of the subjects.
A second method was interviewing and two other
roles were used.

Interviewing occurred at three levels:

informal or conversational, open-ended, and formal.

These

carried varying dangers of "going-native" versus ethnocentrism,

conceived by Gold as being opposite ends of a continuum

of problems.

Informal interviews were quite open and friendly

and the researcher’s role was the participant-as-observer
role which Gold says is subject to "going-native," but com­
bats ethnocentrism,

In addition, a full series of open-

ended interviews and another series of formal interviews
were conducted.

In both open-ended and formal interviews,

the researcher interacted with subjects for short periods
of time.

These approximate the conditions of G o l d ’s o b ­

server as participant role.

More objectivity was assured--

if Gold's logic holds--in the more formal settings.

On the

other hand, the constant informal meetings which intervened
helped to assure shared meaning with the subjects.

Thus

168

using a variety of roles helped to overcome the weaknesses
associated with any single role.
Methods
In the MDE study the data sources are accessed by
three methods:

interviewing, observing and reading.

In

this study, any report of an incident was subject to v e r i ­
fication by other methods.

Consistency across three methods

suggests a reliable methodology and approximates an argument
for construct validity.
Interviews
The range of interview types used in the MDE study
matches the range discussed by the authors reviewed earlier.
To reiterate,

it is argued here that consistent data from

such a wide range of roles constitutes an argument for both
reliability and validity.
Sources
As mentioned earlier, a variety of human sources
was used.

Data were collected from MDE executive-level

staff (the top eight or t e n ) , from other staff at the "middlemanagement" level and from members of the State Board of
Education.
levels.

Thus the agency itself was viewed at three

In addition to these, external sources provided a

second test of consistency, since other contributors in ­
cluded state government persons

(legislators and staff)

and members of many professional interest groups.

Agreement

169

on the nature of an event from such a range of respondents
constitutes a very credible argument for both reliability
and validity.
Sampling
In the early part of the study all of the persons
in the top four levels of MDE were interviewed.

Concur­

rently, almost all Executive Council meetings were attended.
This was a very exhaustive sample and can be categorized
as systematic for present purposes.
Concurrently and for all of the rest of the study,
any other available meeting which seemed like it would con­
tribute largely to the study was accessed.

Thus some of

the research was quite reactive.
In the final series of interviews, a purposive
sample representing four types of internal and external
people was defined.

It is apparent that several methods

were used with the systematic and purposive methods p r o ­
viding a solid base for data collection, supplemented by
the reactive, serendipitous data gathered by following leads
and intuitions.
The Bruyn-Homans Indices
Amount of T i m e .--It is argued that the amount of
time spent on site in a field study is a critical contribu­
tion to validity and reliability.

In this study, more than

nine months elapsed from the beginning to the end of the

170

data collection phase.

One spin-off benefit of such a

lengthy study is the ability to check the internal consis­
tency of data from early and late observations.
Proximity.--It is also argued that field data are
more likely to be valid if they are collected on site, close
to the "subject” and so on.
agency:

This is a study of a state-wide

Where does that agency "occur?”

Data were collected

at the central building and in five other agency offices.
Respondents were also observed interacting with colleagues
and clients at other locations beyond MDE offices.
included schools, the State University,

These

conference rooms,

airports, bars, restaurants and other agenciesf offices in
Washington and Lansing.

The agency was conceived to exist

or occur where it interfaced with members of its environment.
That is why the list of places is so diverse.

Wherever the

business of the agency is, is where the researcher may prof­
itably be.
Variety of Social C i r c u m s t a n c e s -This increases
the range of input, and allows verification according to
the same principle of consistency as above.

In the MDE

study, respondents were seen in formal interviews, closed
meetings, public meetings, shared tasks, at lunch and in­
formally in neutral situations.

The differential levels of

formality in interviews described earlier is relevant here.
While the variety of methods and sources mentioned above

171

was generally the result of systematic prior choice, the
variety of social circumstances in which respondents were
encountered was much less controlled.*

If anything, this

fact increases the strength of the argument.

If respon­

dents provide consistent data across a wide variety of
social circumstances which occur in a near-random mode,
those data are likely to be reliable and valid.
Common Language.--An important contribution to re­
liability and validity is common language.

The author has

spent twelve years as a professional educator, four of them
in Michigan.

This fact, combined with the large amount

of on site time suggests that the language criterion has
been m e t .
Intimacy.- -Because of the danger of "going native"
discussed earlier, intimacy may cause more problems than
it solves.

The author was generally accepted and was ten­

tatively regarded as a supporter of the agency.

The fact

that access was granted to the executive-level sessions
certainly assured intimacy with the inner workings of the
agency.

There were no instances, however, in which very

close personal relations were established.

This helps to

assure that the bias in selection and interpretation of
data that an "advocate" might evidence did not occur.
*See the section later in this chapter on "Seren­
dipity" for a more complete description of the range of
activities .

172

Intimacy of access, of content is certainly desirable and
has been obtained in the present study.

The danger of bias

which accompanies personal intimacy, intimacy of form, has
been avoided.
Consensus.--This term usually refers to a c o ns en­
sus regarding the social meaning of words or actions or
events.

In the MDE study an attempt was made to focus on

data which were unambiguous, to collect data about events
which were public and verifiable.

Still, most of the data

came through people and consensus is an issue.

It is argued

that the variety of m e t h o d s , the variety of sources and the
attention already devoted to the rest of the six-part index
constitute sufficient testing for consensu s.
Intimacy
This problem has been discussed above.

In the MDE

study, the verbatim data presented in the next chapter will
constitute an argument that the researcher has managed to
elicit intimate content.
dual interactions

The short duration of the indivi­

(although they recurred over a period of

about nine months) prevented the development of relations
that could be said to have intimate form.
Research Teams
The fact that the two researchers were present for
many observations and interviews provided a valuable

173

opportunity to share ideas from a common base of experience
and to test for inter-observer reliability.
Entry
The means of entry has been described.

The process

was simplified by the previous experience of the second
researcher, Dr. Philip Cusick.
Personal Acceptance
While the researcher was accepted,
most authors describe as necessary,

in the way that

it was as a trusted

acquaintance, never as a true colleague or, except in one
case, as a friend.

In terms of access to information the

researcher was almost an T,insider," but this was not so
on a social level.
Validity:
Public Presentation
of D a t a ------- ---------------The researcher must share his data with the audience,
presenting large sections of verbatim interview, for exam­
ple.

This enables the reader in turn to judge for himself

the validity of the conclusion.

If the author's description

matches the perception of the knowledgeable reader, it is
likely that the author has correctly described the phenomenon
under study.

In this MDE study, the judges of validity are,

potentially, the members of the educational community in
Michigan,
countries.

in other states, and possibly even in other
To that end, the next chapter does contain large

amounts of raw data.

174

Validity:

Future Efforts

The ultimate validity test is in the hands of others.
Other studies in similar settings will confirm or deny the
accuracy of this one.

Ideally, some of these future studies

will be rigorous, statistically sophisticated efforts.
Statistics do not discover truth, but they do document it.
A field study often provides more hypotheses than conclu­
sions; it requires confirmation and replication.

It is

argued that the present study is a reliable and valid des­
cription of one agency.

The external validity of the con­

clusions in this study is dependent on future research.
Replication studies using field methods in other settings
would be useful.

Rigorous statistical treatments of com­

ponents of this study would also be useful.

Both would

serve to expand knowledge of the ways in which organizations
seek to reduce uncertainty in their environments.
On Serendipity and Validity
Like most doctoral research, the present effort
was dramatically underfunded.

The means chosen by the

author to assure an income for the duration of the study
proved, by luck, to contribute to the study itself.

They

did so by providing other interactions with the Michigan
Department of Education.
The Middle Cities Education Association (MCEA) is
a consortium formed by 13 large urban districts in Michigan.
These districts have a total pupil population of over

175

250,000,

about 15% of all Michigan students.

The consortium

is involved in lobbying, professional development and re­
search.

The author was employed half-time by the Middle

Cities consortium for the duration of the MDE study.

This

had two benefits.
First, the employment required interaction with toplevel administrators from these 13 school districts.

Much

of their conversation was about matters involving MDE.
Many meetings included MDE personnel.

This added to the

bank of data from professionals in the environment of the
agency.
A second part of the employment involved the author
in a research contract with the Michigan Department of E d ­
ucation.

This provided a "client's -eye" view of the agency;

an intensive interaction with a small but influential s ub­
set of MDE staff.
Beyond these, the author also performed a small
evaluation project for a Title III project in an urban school
in southern Michigan.

The evaluation report was required

by the Michigan Department of Education.

Two technical-

level MDE staff acted as liaison with the project.

This

provided a chance to observe the agency interacting with the
schools on a day-to-day basis and to observe MDE staff from
that level, two and three steps below the Service Area
directors mentioned earlier.
All of these interactions with MDE and with persons
and organizations from its environment added to the range

176

of inputs.

Some appear in the notes, others served as leads.

Still others served only as tests of consistency and, when
they served only to confirm previous information, rarely
appear in the study.

Thus the claim to internal consistency

over a wide range of data has even another basis for support.
Summary of the Chapter
A review of some of the literature concerned with
the theory and practice of field methodology was undertaken.
A summary of basic requirements for field studies was e x ­
tracted.

The methods used in the MDE study were described

and their application was explained in context.

The m e t h o d ­

ology is then evaluated in terms of the summary of require­
ments from the first section of this chapter.
In the next chapter, the data collected by this
application of field methodology is presented;

consistent

with the view in this chapter that public presentation of
data allows evaluation of external validity.

C H A P T E R FIVE

PRESENTATION OF THE RESULTS OF THE
CASE STUDIES

The purpose of the study is to determine how the
Michigan Department of Education reduces uncertainty about
resources in its environment.

In this chapter the data

which were gathered in order to answer that question are
presented in the form of seven case studies, studies of
major issues which have affected the Department in the
recent past.
The dominant assumption affecting the plan of this
chapter is that public presentation of data contributes
to the evaluation of external validity.

Consequently much

of the text in this chapter will be in the words of the
people who were subjects in the study.

Some will be from

records of interviews and some will be from spontaneous
verbalizations.

Some will be taken from meetings and

public presentations.

Other data will be taken from the

internal and public written documents.

This is not to say

that the interpretive role of the writer will be neglected;
it merely says that the data will be given priority in those
instances in which they make the point best.
177

178

Overview of the Chapter
Seven case studies are presented,
in the preceding

as introduced

(fourth) chapter of this dissertation.

These deal with Higher Education, Special Education, Chapter
3, Professional Development Centers and with ESEA Title I,
Title III and Title V.
tive form.

Each case is discussed in a n a r r a ­

Consideration is given to each of the major

points which formed the final interview checklist shown
earlier in Figure 9.

These include the following:

1.

origin of the case and initial impact on MDE

2.

anticipatory action, if any, by MDE

3.

major interactions with other organizations

4.

outcome,

5.

continuing trends,

impact of the case on MDE and others
intended future action

This will provide for the reader a relatively complete
description of each case which was studied.

After these

data have been presented, for each case there is a closing
section entitled "Interpretation."

There the data already

presented are analysed in terms of the model which was
developed in chapter one and expanded in chapter two.
A review of that model will be helpful here.

The

system employs one or more strategies to assure a continued
supply of resources from its environment.

The system under

study here is the Michigan Department of Education.

179

strategy enacted
The System

The Environment
resource acquired^

The environment in this case is composed primarily of
other organizations who may control resources useful to
MDE:

state legislature, governor,

interest groups.

federal government and

The Michigan Constitution is an additional

non-organization element which is a part of the environment
of M D E .1 Potential strategies to assure resource inputs are
listed in chapter one.

The resources which are typically

sought are described in chapter two.

For every case study,

each of these four elements of the model shall be described,
system, environment, resource and strategy.
Re-Introducing the Agency
An introduction to the Michigan Department of E d u ­
cation was provided in chapter two.
ter

The bulk of this chap­

(five) will be devoted to a description of that agency

and its behavior in several circumstances.

A fairly brief

re-introduction is presented here.
The MDE is a reasonably typical state education
agency.

It is typical in that it has some control over

K-12 programs in the state's schools.
certification,

It controls teacher

transportation, building codes and collects

^See also Table 2 in chapter two for a more complete
description of the environment of MDE.

180

data on a myriad of school functions.
state aid to school districts.

It disburses the

It is the final appeal in

cases of property boundary disputes for purposes of educa­
tional taxation.

The MDE does not have control over

curriculum as does New York's Board of Regents, for example.
In addition to the K-12 area in general, there are
some special services provided to schools.

The MDE d i s ­

tributes federal and state money for vocational, special,
higher and compensatory education.

It also conducts or

contracts for a variety of research efforts in the K-12
area, as will be shown here.
Michigan is one of a few states in which the K-12
agency also has responsibility for higher education.
varying

To a

(and contested) extent, MDE regulates student aid

and program planning in higher education, adult education,
community colleges and universities.

MDE also has adminis­

trative responsibility for the State Library for vocational
rehabilitation and for the two state schools for the blind
and deaf.

Clearly, the range of responsibilities is broad.

The physical configuration of the agency is equally
diversified.

Excluding the School for the Blind, about 2,400

staff are spread among nine locations in Lansing.

Even

where some subsystems of MDE share a building, they are
often on different floors.

The agency functions as a con­

glomerate and geographically looks like one.

181

About half of the research time in the present
study was spent at one location.
head office.

This was the de facto

In the Michigan National Tower in downtown

L a n s i n g , the office of the Superintendent is the core of
the agency.

The deputy and three of the four associates

also have offices on the same floor.

Further,

the staff

of the State Board of Education and the Board Room itself
are there.

Several other units which report to these

executive-level staff are also housed in the Tower.

These

include Planning, Personnel, Community Affairs, Community
Colleges, Legislation and Public Affairs, and one service
area, Research Evaluation and Assessment Services.

The

rest of the agency is literally spread all over (and b e ­
yond!) the city of Lansing.
For example,

the Special Education staff are housed

two blocks from the central office and share part of an
old office building with Higher Education Management staff.
The Compensatory Education and General Education service
areas share a different decentralized location.

Another

location is the home of the Vocational Education, Adult and
Continuing Education, and Student Financial Aids service
areas.

The State Library is a few blocks east of the

Tower, but its "back-up" collection of duplicates is several
miles south and the law library it administers is a few
blocks west.

The Vocational Rehabilitation service area

supervises its own state-wide regionalized operation from

182

still another Lansing location.
the point is made:

The examples go on but

the subunits of the agency are as

physically diverse as are their client groups.
For several years, the Superintendent and the State
Board have tried to gain approval of the Governor and Leg­
islature to build a new single office complex.

Permission

has been withheld because of a fear that the city of Lansing
would suffer.

The attempt continues and the Superintendent

speaks at least half seriously of the time when
we get all these people in a twelve story building,
we can begin to run our homogenizing machine and begin
that building to start rattling . . . Right now its
like sending Special Ed to Siberia, well, hell, you're
out in Siberia, it's kinda cold up there and they're
now in Moscow . . . when I grab 'em and bring 'em
back to Moscow, they're going to start playing and
talking a little more like Moscoovites!T
Until then, the Bank Tower which houses the Office of the
Superintendent and the State Board offices is nevertheless
the nerve

center

of the diffuse agency.

Because such a large proportion of the leadership
of the agency is centralized in this one building, much of
the research was conducted there.

Where the location of

In most cases, the anonymity of the respondents is
preserved.
There are some exceptions.
There is no attempt
to hide the identity of the state, for example, or of the
agency.
Public figures such as the Superintendent of E d u ­
cation and elected officials are identified only if their
identity contributes to the meaning of the passage involved.
Where disguise is both transparent and clumsy, it is avoided.
Generally, though, respondents are identified only by level,
such as "an executive-level MDE staff member" or by occasion,
such as "at the Grand Rapids Accountability workshop."

183

an event is relevant to its meaning, that relationship
will be made clear.

There is, for example, one aspect

of the location of the Bank Tower--the "head office" of MDE-that is necessary to understand.

The Tower is directly

across the street from the Capitol, which houses all the
legislative and lobbying activity that plays such a large
part in this chapter.

The Capitol is thus referred to

simply as "across the street," and any action by the Governor
or Legislature is said to have come from "across the street."
This term is regularly used in quotes.

Otherwise, beyond

the already established fact that MDE is physically dis­
persed, almost disassociated, the physical context of events
will not be a major concern.
The Accountability Model as Context
The Michigan Department of Education is committed
to advocacy of its six-step accountability model.

This is

a six-step rational planning model, suitable for instances
where closed-system assumptions are operating.

Whether

such is the case in education is an argument that has been
raised by opponents of the model.

MDE has also been criti­

cized for attempting to inflict the model on schools without
soliciting input.

This is less true than it was, according

to the present study.

The arguments concerning implementa­

tion of the accountability model have been well documented
elsewhere and need not be reiterated h e r e .1

1Philip Kearney, "Developing a New Role for the
State Education Agency:
the Michigan Experience, (a paper

184

What is important here is that commitment to the model p e r ­
vades MDE and all other events--at least in the K-12 level-are subject to being affected by the accountability model.
The six steps of the model are as follows:
1.

The Identification of Common Goals

2.

The Development of Performance Objectives

3.

The Assessment of Needs

4.

The Analysis of Delivery Systems

5.

Evaluation

6.

Recommendations for Improvement

A complete recent statement of the meaning of each step has
been presented in an MDE report and is included here as
Table 6 .

In summary, the model asks that school districts

pre-specify their operationalized goals and report tested
level of attainment.

Districts should identify which com­

ponents of their delivery system--all elements having im­
pact upon student learning--are effective and ineffective.
delivered at the Institute for Chief State School Officers,
San Diego, August 5, 1971; E. House, W. Rivers and D. Stufflebeam, "Assessment of Michigan's Accountability System,"
Teachers Voice, April 22, 1974, supplement; Jerome T. Murphy
and David Cohen, "Accountability in Education - the Michigan
Experience," The Public Interest (Summer 1974); "Survey on
Educational Accountability for the Michigan Department of
Education," Detroit:
The Market Opinion Research Corp.,
May, 1974; "A Staff Response to the Report:
An Assessment
of the Michigan Accountability System," (Lansing:
MDE,
May 1974); Herman W. Coleman, "Statement on Assessment/
Accountability in Michigan," paper distributed to the U.S.
Office of Education, Washington, October 22, 1974; John W.
Porter, "The Accountability Story in Michigan," Phi Delta
Kappan, 54, September 1972; "A Position Statement on Educational Accountability," Lansing, Michigan:
MDE, March,
1972.

185

TABLE 6,--A Description of the Six Steps of the MDE Rational
Planning "Accountability” Model.1
The first step is the identification of educational g o als.
Local districts and educators are~encouraged to adopt or
modify these goals or to identify completely new sets of
their own.
The second step in the process is the development of o b j e c ­
t i v e s , which add detail to the general statements called
g o a l s . Objectives can be adopted or modified, or new o b ­
jectives may be developed by local districts.
Step three of the accountability process is an assessment
of educational needs through assessment testing.
Tests
determine if students are meeting statewide or local m i n ­
imal objectives.
Data assist educators and citizens to
identify program areas which may need more attention.
Step four, an analysis of delivery s y s t e m s , examines teach­
ing methods, use of materials, facilities, staffing and
professional training with focus on how they serve to meet
the objectives.
Evaluation, the fifth step in the accountability process,
Helps determine if the existing, new or revised methods
aided children in learning better.
Evaluations conducted
at the state level, at the local district level and at the
classroom level, seek to determine whether these programs
are effective.
The final step in the accountability process, recommenda­
tions for improvement, completes the cycle.
Districts
share their successes with others or modify their programs.

This table is taken from The P u b l i c fs Understanding
and Attitudes Toward Educational Accountability^ the report
of the Superintendent of Public" Instruction, fLansing, M i c h ­
igan:
MDE, August, 1974), p. 90.

186

Revision should follow.
here.

The models virtues are not at issue

What is of interest here is that MDE has used many

methods to encourage, force or coax teachers and schools
and districts to adopt the model.

Some of these instances

will be discussed in this chapter as the seven case studies
are presented.

However varied is the behavior of MDE, ad ­

vocacy of their rational planning model, the "Accountability"
model, is consistent, at least in the K-12 arena.
The Issues and the Organization
As stated earlier, it is the purpose of this study
to determine how MDE reduces uncertainty in its environment.
To do so, case studies of major occurrences in the agency
were undertaken.

The range of cases reflects the range of

environmental elements to which MDE must attend in order
to reduce uncertainty.
Seven issues were chosen for the intensive case
studies.

These were purposely chosen to demonstrate the

range of major environmental influences on MDE, the Con­
stitution, the Legislature, the federal government, inter­
est groups and parents.

The seven cases or issues also

reflect the breadth of involvement of the agency.

Figure 10

illustrates where the cases occur according to the organ­
ization of the agency.
Most curricular matters, all things related to K-12
instruction, are ultimately the responsibility of the A s s o ­
ciate Superintendent for School Program Development.

Four

STATE BOARD

Administrative
Secretary
SUPERINTENDENT

DEPUTY

Research *
and
School
Administration

School
Programs

Title

Title

Special

111

Education

Higher
Education

PDC

Higher
Education
Mgt.

•Title V Impact
FIGURE 10.--The Location of the Seven Casa Studies According to the Organizational Chart of HOB.

187

Public Affairs

Finance

Data

188

of the case studies reported here are programs or services
reporting in that manner.

They are Special Education,

Chapter 3 f Title I and Title III.

The professional d e ­

velopment center is a responsibility of the Associate Super­
intendent for Research and School Administration.

The

Higher Education Management service area reports to a third
associate, the Associate Superintendent for Higher Education.
To this point, the cases do, as promised, match the range of
agency concerns.
Title V of ESEA provides a large amount of discre­
tionary money to be applied to whatever concerns are deemed
to "strengthen11 the agency.

Thus, the ubiquitous nature

of Title V in the chart is a true description of the nature
of that source of funds, as will be shown later.

Neglect

of peripheral units such as the State Library and the
Vocational Rehabilitation program is intentional.

While

these may be a part of the conglomerate that is MDE, they
are not typically areas of major policy concern.

They are

not sources of uncertainty in any meaningful sense.

At

one point it appeared that the whole Vocational Rehabilita­
tion area was to be taken away to another agency by legis­
lative act, but nobody cared.

In no Executive Council

meeting was it a topic of concern.

At no point was it e vi­

dent that any strategies to reduce the uncertainty about the
future of that subsystem were employed.
did not have impact on the agency;

Its actions simply

it could be cut loose

like ballast--without threatening the rest of the agency.

189

As Figure

s h o w s , only two of the cases affect the

Associate Superintendent for Research and School Administra­
tion.

This frankly underestimates his large personal in­

fluence at all levels of the agency.
tions,

Beyond these limita­

the cases selected do reflect the range of major

endeavors of the Michigan Department of Education as deter­
mined by this study Governing Education in Michigan
The first four of the seven case studies presented
in this chapter deal with issues internal to the state.
No major federal funds or regulations impinge in a direct
manner.

In each of these cases, the state government of

Michigan is a major element in the relevant environment
from the point of view of MDE.

The fact that the Capitol

is physically across the street from MDE coincidentally
reflects the almost omnipresent influence on MDE from that
source.
All of the events discussed here--in fact the very
existence of the agency itself--occur in the context of the
1963 Michigan Constitution,
1835.

the fourth constitution since

It was that constitution that required a reduction

of major departments to 20.

The "conglomerate" nature of

MDE resulted from that requirement.
While the predecessor to MDE had been primarily a
K-12 agency, the new Michigan Department of Education as
created by the 1963 constitution has very broad

190

responsibilities.

New responsibilities beyond the general

K-12 program arena included the State Library, Vocational
Rehabilitation and the State Tenure Commission.

In the area

of post-secondary education, MDE now has responsibility for
Community Colleges, Adult Continuing Education, Student
Financial Assistance and Higher Education Management.

Sev­

eral statutory boards also report to the State Board of
Education,

including the State Board for Libraries and the

State Board for Public Community and Junior Colleges.

The

MDE is also administratively responsible for the State
School for the Blind and the School for the Deaf.
The MDE still retains the K-12 functions of its
predecessors.

The administration and leadership of the

K-12 education arena is still the primary function of MDE
as will be shown by the case studies which follow.

In the

K-12 arena, MDE is responsible for general education, com­
pensatory education and both special and vocational educa­
tion.

MDE also provides the typical teacher certification,

school management and financial services to schools.

MDE

disburses the state aid allocations and is responsible for
related accounting and monitoring.
The 1963 constitution provides for the election by
partisan ballot of a State Board of Education--the "Board
of Directors" of MDE.
term of eight years.

Two are elected each year for a
The governor may fill vacancies.

The governor is also an ex-officio member of the State Board

191

and his representative attends Board meetings on his behalf.
The Superintendent is also an ex-officio member of the State
Board and also acts as its non-voting chairman.

While this

probably enhances the power of the Superintendent , it also
provides for a firm communication link between the three
levels, Board, Superintendent and the Department staff.
Three of the powers of the MDE--via the State Board-are of particular interest here.

First, the MDE does not

have legal authority to mandate curriculum.

Thus, attempts

to influence public schools must use other means, such as
the MDE Accountability model.

Second, MDE has only tenuous

control over higher education, as will be shown in the first
case study.

Third, the MDE position with respect to school

finance is one of advising the Legislature,
power to decide on allocations.

it has no legal

All three of these--cur­

riculum, higher education and finance--are areas where the
Legislature holds the power.
Michigan has a bicameral Legislature including 110
members in the House of Representatives and 38 in the Senate.
As of this writing, there is a Democratic majority in both
the Senate and the House.

In this study--reflecting the

use by MDE staff--the term "legislator" refers to an elected
member of either the Senate or the House.

The Legislature

controls the state aid to education bill and almost every­
thing else.

While local control is a philosophic utterance

in all quarters, the behavior of the Legislature sometimes

192

seems to belie the notion.

While the ability of the D e ­

partment of Education to exert control over education is an
open question, the ability of the state government to do
so is a fact.
The Educational Governance Project study described
the Michigan Legislature as well-informed and busy.1

The

Legislature is serviced by several staff support agencies
and each party maintains its own research potential.

The

"busyness" was based on the fact that from 1500 to 3000
bills are introduced each year.
become law.

Of these, from 250 to 400

The Governance study points out that the c o m ­

plex committee system--33 in the House,

14 in the Senate--

facilitates both the generation and the obstruction of bills.
Governor Milliken is a Republican, surrounded by
Democrats in both houses of the Legislature.

He has long

been known as a liberal Republican, however,

and while the

relationship may be an adversary one,

it is certainly not

strained, or fraught with conflict.
The present constitution limits severely the author­
ity of the governor in education.

The existence of an

elected State Board of Education is the major impediment
to gubernatorial power.

Governor Milliken would prefer to

appoint the members of the State Board and/or the Superin­
tendent.

A recent report of a Governor's Commission c o m ­

plained about the present situation.
1H i n e s , e t . a l . State Policy Making for M i c h i g a n .

193

It is difficult to conceive of a less workable struc­
ture, fraught with such possibilities for inaction
and lack of focus for leadership than the one existing
at the state level in education.1
The Governor has been particularly interested in school
finance reform and in aid to non-public schools.

Inability

to directly control education may be an impediment to him,
but certainly the strength of the Legislature is another.
As it is, Governor Milliken is constantly in formal
and informal touch with education in Michigan.
education staff member
Dr. James Phelps,

His senior

(and also delegate to the State Board),

is ubiquitous.

He was present and active

in a wide variety of education-related meetings observed
during the course of this study, usually as the formal
delegate of the Governor.

The Governor has another means

of input and that is through the budget process.

The Bureau

of Management and Budget reports to Governor Milliken and
it is possible for him to exercise some control via that
process.
In the final analysis, though, it is the Legislature
that controls education--as will be shown in this chapteri
MDE recognition of that fact is shown by the amount of energy
the agency invests in communicating with that body.

To

begin with, MDE employs a full time lobbyist to interact
1William G. Milliken, et. al. "The Governor ’s C o m ­
mission on Educational Reform," report of the Commission,
(Lansing, Michigan:
Office of the Governor, 1969).

194

with the Legislature.

This is essentially an information-

sharing role and is part of a larger effort.

The executive

secretary to the State Board reported that his office has
a rule of thumb requiring that legislators never have to
wait over 90 minutes for a response to a request for infor­
mation.

MDE gains additional input from the monthly m e e t ­

ings of its Legislative Advisory Committee, composed of
representatives of major interest groups and clients.
In addition to this input, MDE staff analyse every educationrelated bill which is introduced.

These analyses, along

with recommended positions, are finally presented to the
State Board every month.

Yearly, MDE publishes its own

list of (Board approved)

legislative priorities for the

coming year.

The Superintendent supplements these formal

channels with semi-formal regular meetings with key legis­
lators, e.g., the speaker, committee chairpersons, and so
on.
If the question is concerned with control of e d u ­
cation, there are many answers.

In spite of a tradition--

at least verbally--of local control in Michigan, the hand
of the state is pervasive.

A senior MDE staff member

argued that in reality, schools have very little freedom
beyond their traditional control of curriculum.
Outside of that

(curriculum):

. . . and who they hire to teach, outside of that
they*re controlled by rules at every turn.
They can't
spend a penny, they c a n ’t hold election for millage

195

unless they follow the law, they can't bond, they c an’t
do this . . . they have to file reports in a certain
way . . . everything is controlled by statute.
The fenders of the buses, great big issue six-seven
years ago, shall they be yellow shall they be black?
A piece of legislation goes through:
they have to be
yellow.
So all the black fenders get painted yellow.
Local control?
A legislator described the process in this way:
"What the legislative process is is a process of compromise.
The first thing you learn to do is to count to 56.

And

that's why the ______ bill isn't going anywhere, because he
can't count 56 votes."

(Fifty-six is the minimum for a

majority in the House.)
The same legislator told an audience that the MDE
position paper on school finance would never get read.

An

urban administrator asked "If the State Department of Edu­
cation goes to the pain of preparing so comprehensive a
document, why is it not reflected?"
The answer was blunt:

(in the legislation).

"Because the chairperson of the House

Education Committee brags that she doesn't want staff people
working for her," and again, "If you can't count to 56 on
these proposals, it doesn’t go anywhere."
The legislator criticized MDE for being too compliant:
"The bureaucrats are too scared to rock the boat, to criti­
cize."

Another was much less kind.

When asked about MDE,

he replied that they
. . . get in each other's way.
They've been growing
since January 1 of 1963 when Romney came in. We should
revive the old Roman idea of attrition:
take 10* of

196

them out on the first of the month and line them up
and shoot them.
If that doesn't help, do it again the
next month, until things get more efficient . . .
the appropriations committee has been loose as a goose
since 1963 about the proliferation of new staff for
the departments.
One executive-level MDE staff blamed the capricious
behavior of the Legislature on the tendency of elected rep­
resentatives to overreact in favor of constituents.
You see, the trouble is historically, if people come
to the Board and they can't get what they want from
the Board, they run to their individual legislator,
see, and complain that we didn't do anything for them
. . . that's not going to change, we just have a little
more credibility now . . . with the Legislature.
The Legislature has imposed some general demands of MDE.
The Legislature has passed many education-related bills in
recent years and has required MDE to evaluate on their b e ­
half in many cases.

An associate superintendent reported

that
The Legislature in so many respects has forced us to
do that.
They've started putting money into e d uca­
tion, real money, in the last five years and they're
saying "What are you going to do with it? What have
you done with it? What kind of progress have you
made?"
So, when they start asking that, we've got to
be able to say, "Hey, we've taken the money and we've
taken these youngsters from here to here, at least
. . . able to measure in some way, the progress they
made.
The Legislature is increasingly concerned with thorough,
quantitative evaluation of all programs they fund.

This

was agreed to by people on both sides of the street and
documented by legislation.

The adequacy of resources p r o ­

vided for this task is in question.

The following is also

typical of a myriad of complaints by MDE personnel at all
levels.

197

I think one of the biggest mistakes I ever made was
to assume that one of our roles was to take the Legis­
lature from its decision making mode--which is essen­
tially a give and take, seat of the pants, compromise,
pull this chit in, that chit out, and make them strictly
rational decision makers.
That's never going to happen.
The Legislature is, by structure, a reactive in­
strument.

It responds via elections and lobbies to the p o p ­

ular will of the moment.

While state government has many

ways to "cool" legislation, many checks and balances,

it is

in the last analysis a creature of its constituents.

This

makes it an unlikely ally for MDE, an agency whose attempts
to change educational practice are often very unpopular, at
least with come constituents.

The interactions which r e ­

sult from this dynamic interface form a part of each of
the four following case studies.
Since the Legislature is a consistent source of
potential resources for MDE,
of uncertainty.

it is also an important source

The several ways MDE shares information

with the Governor and Legislature

(included in this section)

illustrate MDE attempts to reduce uncertainty concerning
the behavior of these sources.
receives most attention.
resources.

As was shown, the Legislature

It has the most power, the most

As will be evident in the following case studies,

it takes more than analysis of bills to reduce uncertainty
about the behavior of state government.

198

Higher Education
Introduction
The purpose of this study is to determine how the
Michigan Department of Education acts to reduce uncertainty
about the supply of resources from its environment.

Since

resources range from dollars to good will, almost any e l e ­
ment with significant power to affect MDE can be a source
of uncertainty worthy of examination.
In this section, the legal authority of MDE over
programs in higher education is the central issue.

This

issue of program approval has been sensitive because it is
ambiguous and the source of the ambiguity is the 1963 c o n ­
stitution.

That document, which created MDE, brought

MDE into the arena of higher education.

While charging the

Department of Education with the responsibility to "plan
and coordinate" higher education, the same constitution
also guaranteed total autonomy in governance to the same
colleges MDE was to control.

Thus, the constitution which

could have been a source of legal authority for MDE has in
fact simply been a source of uncertainty.
Since the constitution is unclear, MDE has sought
to find resources elsewhere.

A suit before the State Supreme

Court will soon determine the legality of the Salmon d e ­
cision.

This decision supported the autonomy of the three

largest universities against both the State Board of
Education and the Legislature.

The Legislature accepted

a lower court decision, but MDE pursued the appeal.

199

Whether the appeal matters to anyone is still an
open question.

The Legislature has gained de facto con­

trol of university programs through its funding mechanisms.
That i s f the Legislature allocates funds only for programs
it approves of.

MDE has been quick to adopt the Legisla­

ture as a new source of resources.

The MDE strategy is to

provide quality information and recommendations on high
visibility programs to the Legislature.

In fact, MDE acts

in these situations as an extra legislative research staff.
To the extent that the Legislature finds the information
useful, the theory goes, it will continue to fund that
function of MDE.

To date, MDE has found the Legislature

to be a more certain supplier of resources than the 1963
constitution.

The level of support, however,

is not impres­

sively high.
A thorough description of that sequence of events
will now be presented.
Text
The 1963 constitution of the State of Michigan re­
quired that the number of major departments in the state
government be reduced to not more than 20.

Several func­

tions relating to higher education were brought under the
aegis of the newly established Michigan Department of Edu­
cation.

These include the Higher Education Assistance

Authority, the Higher Education Facilities Authority and
the State Board for Community and Junior Colleges.

On the

200

other hand, the 1963 constitution also provided for inde­
pendent boards of governors for the state-supported degreegranting institutions.

It is this apparent contradiction

that had led to conflict about the role of the Michigan
Department of Education in the higher education arena.
It is stated in section 3 of article 8 of the 1963
constitution that
Leadership and general supervision over all public edu­
cation, including adult education and instructional
programs in state institutions, except as to institu­
tions of higher education granting baccalaureate d e ­
grees is vested in a state board of education.
That seems to exclude higher education from the realm of
activities over which the state board--a part of the agency
we are calling MDE--has authority.

But the following s e n ­

tence in section 3 reads:
It (the State Board) shall serve as the general planning
and coordinating body for all public education, in­
cluding higher education and shall advise the Legis­
lature as to the financial requirements in connection
herewith.
This section forms the basis of the argument made by MDE
officials for an active role by that agency.

Note that

the Board "advises" and the Legislature is the decision
maker regarding finance.
The concluding paragraph of that same section 3 of
the constitution manage to further complicate the question:
The power of the boards of institutions of higher
education provided in this constitution to supervise
their respective institutions and control and direct
the expenditure of the institutions' funds shall not
be limited by this section.
Conflict was inevitable and has arisen regularly.

201

Michigan has 14 degree-granting colleges and u n i ­
versities.

Three of these are schools of considerable size

and reputation:

Wayne State University, Michigan State

University and the University of Michigan.

Collectively

these are known (and are hereafter referred to) as the "big
three" universities.

Recently,

in 1971, the big three

launched a suit against the Legislature.

The Legislature

had been attempting to regulate these universities by
writing language into the appropriations bills which amounted
to legislative control of the internal spending of the money
which was appropriated.

The suit quoted the constitution

as the basis for autonomy and in district court the Salmon
decision1 upheld the "big three" universities.

Prior to

the decision, however, the State Board of Education had
voluntarily entered the suit as a co-defendant.
was that MDE would gain clear authority.

The hope

In the words of

one MDE staff member
. . . well, the suit was brought by the big three against
the Legislature which was writing some sections in the
appropriations bill telling them how to spend money and
the State Board wasn't the defendent, the State Board
contended or entered that case as an intervening de­
fendant, the State Board contended that the issue
applied equally to the authority of the State Board . . .
the Legislature dropped out during the appeal process
. . . and the Board continued as an intervening defen­
dant contending that the appeal should go to the supreme
c o urt. . .
University of Michigan, Michigan State University
and Wayne State University v. Allison Green, Glen Allen and
the State Board of Education, Ingham County Circuit Court,
November 19 73.

202

The Court of Appeals, division 2, upheld the earlier d e ­
cision in May, 1973.

The case did eventually go to the S u ­

preme Court of Michigan on appeal from the State Board of
Education.

No decision has been handed down at this time.

This leaves the MDE in a position of uncertainty.
What are the arguments, beyond the constitutional
one, for an active MDE role in higher education?

A me m ­

ber of the State Board of Education advocated the political
neutrality of that agency:
The point I ’m trying to make is, its an agency that
can stand apart in terms of the political arena, of
the executive and the legislative branches and say
to these people, "Look, you might not like what you're
looking at, you might not like the recommendations,
but here is an honest shot at what we see as the needs
and what we perceive should be the future developments
in education in any one of these sectors.”
The more common argument, however,

is that resources

are finite and should be allocated on the basis of state­
wide needs

(as interpreted by MDE)

political savvy.

rather than according to

This view implies that the Legislature

pays more attention to political than to rational inputs.
In the words of a State Board member:
There are political careers that have been built and
maintained in the state of Michigan simply by the way
universities are funded.
I ’m rather vague on this,
but I think you could show a pattern, particularly
in the outstate areas, where senators and state reps
have convinced areas where a university, or a small
university or college is, that that colleges' growth,
that colleges' very eiqistence . . . is solely depen­
dent on their ability as a politician.
Now you could get a good backlash on a statement like
that, but I think I've seen it; I think I've witnessed

203

it . . . it gets permeated in the university, and into
the town area around, the lay people so to speak, that
'By God, if we didn't have senator so and so down there,
bringing the goodies back from those big thieves down
below, we wouldn't have nothing and we wouldn't survive.'
There would be some validity, but what I object to is
that it goes on the assumption that there are no honest
people.
That Board Member and MDE staff maintain that they
can supply information which will lead to more rational
decision making in the Legislature.

For example, MDE

supplied the Legislature with an evaluation of three recent
requests to establish a law school.

Three institutions--

Michigan State University, Western Michigan University and
Grand Valley State College--all applied to the Legislature
for funding.

MDE asked whether--according to MDE criterion--

a new law school was needed at all.
The director of the MDE Higher Education Management
service area is in charge of such tasks.

Regarding the law

school issue, he said
These institutions want law schools and this comes up
again and again--Western
and Gran«KValley and MSU.
So our study of two years ago indicates, looking at the
need for lawyers, that we have a sufficient number of
lawyers in Michigan. The demand side of it is that the
ratio of people applying to admissions indicate a demand
for legal education . . . whether the state wants to
subsidize legal education . . . even though there is no
demand for attorneys . . .
. . . what we want to try to do is bring the demand and
supply into coordination . . . that's what we mean by
coordination, whether there is indeed a need for addi­
tional law school . . . there is obviously no need for
three law schools.
And Z think the State Board has a
role to play in which of the three is best able to p ro­
vide . . . we're going to review this . . . that's what
I mean by coordination.

204

The attempt by Michigan State University to gain
approval for a dental school provided another example.

MSU

has two medical schools and a school of veterinary medicine.
It would appear that MSU is consciously trying to expand
its capacities regarding all phases of medical education.
The same MDE staff member reported his agency's response.
. . . dental ed is another issue . . . MSU has an appli­
cation . . . they want to round out their med complex
by adding a dental school.
Now our study indicates
that if we do nothing at all, the increased enrollments
at the U. of M. and the U. of D., then the state will
have all the dentists it needs for the next 20 years.
We're looking at the cost of developing a dental school.
That school is not justified and that's the position
we're going to recommend to the State Board.
A similar report was done regarding a proposed
optometry school at a small state college and a similar lack
of true need was reported by MDE.
The point in all such analyses is to influence the
Legislature through providing high-quality information.
MDE staff concerned with higher education report that
. . .People over there (Legislature) have told us, 'It's
not so much whether you guys have authority, it's the
quality of your analysis and if you do a good job of
analyizing requests, then you'll be listened to and if
you do a crummy job of analyizing even with all the
authority in the world, people w o n ’t listen to you-that's all there is to it.
This leads to a selectivity by MDE staff in the issues
they tackle.

They keep the risks low.

An MDE staff member

reports that
We concentrate on high impact issues, dental, medical,
law, optometry, but not on Ph.D.'s in science.
It's a
matter of establishing credibility with the Legislature
to demonstrate that we can do a good job on those reports

205

that we do and demonstrate quality and if they say
this looks like a good approach so that they do fund
us to do those kinds of reviews.
Let us stop to emphasize that last observation:
us to do those kinds of reviews."

"They fund

It was not always so.

Another staff member reported that the MDE, via
the State Board lost a costly battle long ago.
took a position against branch campuses.

The MDE/SBE

The University of

Michigan (U of M) had a branch campus in Flint, Michigan.
The MDE attempted to force U of M to make the Flint campus
an independent institution.

An executive-level MDE staff

member who was with MDE then recalled the conflict.
One of the very first major issues this board tried to
take up was to convert the U of M Flint branch into an
independent institution.
They ran into Senator Garland
Lane from Flint, who insisted that his people wanted
the word *U of M 1 on their diplomas, they didn't care
whether it catered to their needs or not.
Oakland was
a branch at the same time (of MSU) but since then,
Oakland has spun off and become independent and has
developed an independent character of its own.
It has
about three or four times the enrollment of U of M
Flint . . . It was a bad issue*
They took on Gar Lane,
who was at that timevice-chairman of the appropriations
committee and Gar at that time had a powerful arm and
consequently any time it came up to the Board they
decimated our education unit.
Very easily, by just
appropriating one position less and one position less
and pretty soon we're
down to one or two people.
Things
are better now, were
back up to four or five.
In fact, a 1972 report‘d shows three state supported staff
in the Planning and Coordination unit.

Two were secretaries.

In June of 1975 there were five state-funded positions in
Michigan Department of Education, A Position State­
ment on Higher Education Planning and Coordination^ (Lansing:
tficKvgan, Department of Education, 1972) , 35 pages, m i m e o ­
graphed .

206

the unit.1

A revival seems to be occurring, but it is a

revival within a fairly restricted role.
How do the universities react to the efforts by
MDE to "plan and coordinate" them?
junior colleges meet monthly.

The presidents of the

The MDE Associate Superin­

tendent for Higher Education has never been invited to attend.
Neither has the Director of the Higher Education Management
service area.

On the other hand, all but one of the univer­

sities provided information about their budgets to MDE in
1974.

Certainly the entry of MDE into the suit could not

have been greeted with enthusiasm by the universities.
Yet no one who was interviewed seemed to be con­
cerned about the outcome of the court case.

The autonomy

of the universities with regard to program decisions is
not a matter of concern to the Legislature.

An MDE staff

member from the Higher Education service area gave the
following reasons
The Legislature has gotten around the autonomy issue by
only funding programs it approves and supports, so you
really can't separate the two, if you can't control
degrees, then you can control the dollars . . . the
Legislature funds by programs so 'You can offer any p r o­
gram you want but we're not going to pay for it, unless
it happens to be one we're interested in supporting.'
Our point is that coordination is occurring at the
state level but it's occurring at the appropriations
committee, where the guy that gets supported happens
to be the guy who has the most votes, not necessarily
on educational issues.
1Verified by telephone to the Director of Higher
Education Management Services, June 25, 1975.

207

As long as the Legislature is able to maintain that
control, the MDE can have a role in influencing the decisions
of the Legislature.

But how do the legislators and others

in government feel about the intrusion of MDE into the realm
of higher education?

One legislative staff member was very

blunt:
In higher education, my opinion is they (MDE) ought to
get out of the business over there--they don't have the
personnel to do the job.
They publish all these planning
and coordination things, and want to provide for some
systematic role for the higher education system.
And
I think that's worthwhile, but the Supreme Court, the
Salmon decision, says the four year institutions are
locally autonomous and have their own governing boards.
The State Board can't set programs or approve budgets
or anything and this is so damaging that 1 think we
need a constitutional amendment to change that or the
legislature needs to create a new coordinating body
that goes through their funding apparatus to do t h i s ,
I just don't think the Department can do it with their
staff right now.
I think they're spinning their wheels.
The dangers of a more active and risky role were r e ­
iterated by the same respondent
Well, John Porter used to be director of that and at
that time they had a very successful division; they got
too successful and the lobbies wiped them out.
They
had a group of about 20 people at one time and they
alienated a few folks and they removed . . . they went
down to three people or something like that.
Chunk by
chunk, they took it all away and moved it over to
Management and Budget.
The people over here don't even think about the Depart­
ment's role in higher education.
Another aide was more kind, but equally disinterested
in MDE input.
I d o n ’t think they're capable--and i t ’s not the indi­
viduals being competent, i t ’s a matter of they have
enough to handle with K through 12.
All of post-secondary
should be dealt with by another Board or by no Board at all

208

The consensus continues that MDE input is not w e l ­
comed by the Legislature.

For another example a legislator

was thoroughly frustrated by the "big three" universities.
They resist
money.
And
time we try
it'll go on
such a damn

any language we sent them along with the
the Attorney General upholds them every
to put restrictions on the money.
I guess
as long as the constitution is written in
silly wayl

Yet he had no interest in reports from MDE.

He was more in­

terested in creating a new, strong, State Board for Higher
Education.

Such amendments to the constitution have been

introduced, but no estimate of support was available.1
The concept was popular, however, with all representatives
of the government with whom interviews were conducted.
One professional staff person from the Capitol side
of the street summed up both the issues and the frustrations
of MDE.

According to him, MDE is simply unable to exert any

influence.
Well, two comments.
What is planning and coordination?
Second, you should talk to former Senator Gar Lane from
Flint, he said it all when he said that, 'The appropri­
ations committee plans and coordinates.'
You see, the
appropriations committee, in writing the bill, do the
planning and coordinating, and they are not ready to
transfer that to some place in the Department of Educa­
tion to make those kinds of decisions.
And I think
politically there's a lot of truth to that.
A nd o b ­
viously the universities say 'We'll do our own.
We
don't want any outside interference.' So you have in
essence competition from three s o u r c e s , one is the
universities who want autonomy, 'Leave us alone!'; the
Legislature saying that 'We spend the bucks, therefore
we're the ones who call the tune'; and the Department
people saying 'Nobody listens to me!'
^House Joint Resolution Y, May 15, 1975,
by Representatives Mowat and Richard A. Young.

Introduced

209

It appears that the Legislature is barely willing to accept
"advice" from MDE and has little interest in an expanded
role for the agency.
Interpretation
In this case* it is the State Board which is legally
named as the responsible agent by the 1963 constitution.
Most of the relevant staff are housed in the Higher Education
Management service area.

Thus the persons who act for the

MDE in this instance are relatively few, but are for the most
part highly placed.

Since the entry into the suit and all

transmittals to the Legislature must have had Board approval,
the actions in this case can be conceived to be formal actions
of the MDE at a system level.
The elements of the MDE environment which were in­
volved are the Legislature,

the Governor's Office, Bureau of

Management and Budget, the Universities and two levels of
court.
What resources were open to MDE?

First, there was

some questionable legal authority based on section 3, article
8 , of the 1963 constitution.

Second, MDE used its personnel

in recent years to gather information to send to the Legis­
lature.

Both are uncertain relationships.

The decision of

the court is unknown and is now beyond the reach of any MDE
action.

It thus becomes a source of uncertainty which is

not subject to any proactive strategy.

But both the Legis­

lature and the MDE have employed a reactive strategy in

210

the aftermath of the Salmon decision, both have avoided
the source of uncertainty.

*

/

S

avoidance

MDE
Legislature

Constitution,
Court

V
Both have "hedged their bets" and sought an alternate route
to control.
The Legislature has acted to control universities
indirectly through selective funding.

MDE has chosen to

attempt to obtain resources from the legislature by offering
information in a bargaining strategy.

In spite of the verbal

denials of interest in MDE recommendations, MDE has been
granted two new state-funded staff positions by the Legisla­
ture and Governor.
exchange:

information

"

s,__
Legislature

MDE
_

limited resources

Thus the decision to bargain with expertise as their offering
seems to have paid off for MDE, at least in the short term.
The "newer" element in the environment,

the Legislature, has

at least for now proved to be a more certain supplier of re­
sources than the constitution.

Previous MDE experience in

the Flint campus conflict, however, has shown that the

211

Legislature is not interested in a powerful MDE influence
at the higher education level.

Thus MDE has chosen to be

very selective in the issues it investigates and reports
on.

With each,

if the reception is good, they can say

'’We'll do more with more staff!"

MDE staff have voiced

this argument; there is a desire to grow, to increase the
range of options available for exchange.
It is not clear whether the desire to "plan and
coordinate" higher education is tantamount to an attempt
to annex a source of uncertainty.

The authority of the MDE

in the K-12 area is more clear than in higher education.
The goals of the agency at that level are also more clear.
There is not, however, strong evidence that any MDE p e r ­
sonnel have firm and developed plans about what they would
do with a sudden increase in authority.

"More of the same"

seemed to be the goal.
In the interim,

it is unlikely that MDE would make

a strong move against the universities.

The power of the

pro-university forces--whether lobbyists or legislators-was once demonstrated.

MDE is likely to avoid serious con­

flict with those forces; they do not want their recovering
capacity to be decimated again.

MDE thus tries to meet leg­

islative needs well enough to get refunded (hopefully even
higher), but seeks to avoid conflict with other environmental
elements in the process.

212

The tenuous nature of the conglomerate that is MDE
was evidenced by several interviews.

In two separate s e r ­

vice areas dealing with higher education, MDE staff praised
their superintendent

(John Porter) but admitted that, as

one said, "John P ort e r ’s name is mud" in the universities.
In both cases, MDE was viewed as "a convenient administrative
umbrella--we could move next door and it wouldn't really
matter."

The same jobs would need to be done.

Thus these

subunits or subsystems of MDE seem to maintain and advocate
modularity and are willing to move to a different config­
uration- -e .g . a State Board for Higher Education--if need
arose.

They are specialists who are virtually irreplacable,

it is likely that their service areas would survive a trans­
fer almost intact.
MDE staff in higher education are equally confident
about their ability to influence the course of higher e d u ­
cation.

They argue that both dollars and enrollments are

dwindling and that the universities must eventually compro­
mise and share and set priorities.

As a provider of "factual"

information, MDE staff and State Board members argued that
MDE would be listened to by the Legislature.

The attitude

was " W e ’re inevitable," and within limits the argument is
compelling and seems to be workingSummary
MDE cannot exert any further proactive influence on
the Supreme Court.

Consequently it has ignored that

213

uncertain source of legal authority and has focused on the
Legislature.

MDE exchanges recommendations and data with

the Legislature for limited financial support of their
Higher Education Management staff.

MDE staff hope for an

increase in the intensity of that exchange relationship,
since the resources it provides have proved to be relatively
certain, however meager.
Special Education
Introduction
The purpose of this study is to determine how the
MDE reduces uncertainty concerning the supply of resources
from its environment.
In the previous case, the 1963 constitution proved
to be too uncertain a source of resources, and MDE modified
its behavior accordingly.

Thus, MDE found the Legislature

to be a more certain source of at least a minimal level of
resources.

There is some similarity in the case of special

education.

In this case study, the Legislature also proved

to be a source of uncertainty which was focused on by MDE.
In this case, however, MDE was not the sole actor.
One of the environmental elements having impact on
special education in Michigan is the parent lobby.

The

parents of the children who are potential recipients of
special education services were,

in the late 6 0 's, dissatis­

fied with the extent to which special education services

214

guaranteed by the 1963 constitution had been provided.
These parents, particularly those comprising the Michigan
Association for Retarded Citizens

(MARC), had been u n suc­

cessful in convincing the Legislature to support the con­
stitution by passing a Mandatory Special Education Act.
In 1970, the parent lobbies, especially MARC,
threatened to launch an initiative petition drive to place
the issue on a ballot.

The Legislature passed a Mandatory

Special Education Act, numbered 198, soon after.

The exact

role of the special education professionals in the field
(teachers and directors)

is unclear, but respondents agree

that the professionals supported the parents, and both were
supported by the MDE special education staff.

Thus a sub­

system of MDE joined external elements in an attempt to
force the Legislature to pass #198--an act which would
in turn determine goals of MDE.

The MDE Special Education

service area is accused of helping the others convince the
Legislature to make mandatory what they already wanted to
do, i.e., provide a higher level of service for handicapped
persons.

Thus the Legislature reduced uncertainty about

both purpose and resources, since goals and minimal levels
of service had to be enforced and since some funding to
regulate #198 would be assured.
A later issue followed a similar cause.

In 1974

the parent lobby, with unknown levels of encouragement from
MDE staff, determined that persons residing in state-run

215
institutions were not being adequately served.
a suit was filed (but not activated) by MARC.

In response,
The state

agencies involved assumed that they would lose and immediately
began to implement the desired services.

The State Department

of Mental Health is the agency in charge of most of the i n ­
stitutions in question.

MDE will serve a regulatory function.

The environmental elements in this case changed-from the constitution to the Legislature to the courts.
A continuing reduction of uncertainty resulted.
Text
There are two major events related to Special E d u ­
cation which have relevance for the present study of the
Michigan Department of Education.

The first is the passage

of Act 198, the Mandatory Special Education Act of 1971.
The second event is the initiation of activities in 1974
to provide Special Education to handicapped persons in
state-run institutions.

The development of each of these

events will be described here and the way in which each
reduced uncertainty for MDE will be made explicit.
From the General School Laws of Michigan as revised
in 1971, the following definition is taken:
'Special education programs and services' as used in
this act means educational and training programs and
services designed for handicapped persons--and ancillary
professional services for handicapped persons rendered
by agencies approved by the State Board of Education.1
^From Section 340-10 of the School Code as compiled
by MDE in Michigan Statutes Governing Special Education P r o ­
grams and Services, (Lans ing , M i ch ig a n : M D E , Mar ch 3(T, 1972) ,

216

'Handicapped1 as defined in P.A.

198 and in the School Code

includes almost every imaginable impairment--physical,
mental, emotional or combination.

The language is inclusive.

Public Act 198 made provision of mandatory the educa­
tional services for all handicapped persons age zero through
25.

The intent and main points are summarized in the

following memorandum from Superintendent John W. Porter.
The Mandatory Special Education Act (Act 198 of the
Public Acts of 1971) became effective in September,
1973.
According to the provisions of the act, local
school districts, or intermediate school districts if
local school districts default, are to provide, not
later than September, 1973, all handicapped persons,
ages 0-25, who have not graduated from high school,
special education programs and services designed to
develop their maximum potential, to the extent that
an appropriate educational or training program can be
provided.1
This describes the act.

The origin of that Mandatory act

is one of the two main concerns of this section.
The 1963 constitution of Michigan was clear in
Article VIII in its support of special education:
Section 8:
Institutions, programs and services for the
care, treatment, education or rehabilitation of these
inhabitants who are physically, mentally or otherwise
seriously impaired shall always be fostered and supported.
Prior to 1971 this had the support of legislation and MDE
rules and regulations.

Nevertheless, it was felt by some

parents and professionals that the needs of many students
were not being met.

The proposed solution to that neglect

*John W. Porter, Memorandum to the State Board of
Education, Lansing, Michigan, November 5, 1974, page 1.

217

was made very clear in the 19 71 state plan developed by the
Michigan Department of Education with input from a repre­
sentative advisory council.
1.

The delivery of Special Education Programs and S e r ­
vices must be made mandatory under Michigan statutes.

2.

The accountability for the delivery of special e d u ­
cation programs and services must be explicitly
stated and enforced.1

The stage was thus set within the special education community.
The goal was the passage of legislation making special
education mandatory,

thus putting the full legal power of

the state behind efforts to assure service for the clients
whose need MDE and its professional allies perceived.
Public Act 198 was passed by the Legislature rather
grudgingly.

According to one MDE staff, "Mandatory had been

introduced into the Legislature for six years previous to
that,

(1971) and had never gotten out of committee."

The

thrust was provided by parent lobbies, of which the Michigan
Association for Retarded Citizens

(MARC) was the strongest.

The MARC was prepared to launch a petition drive by which
the mandatory issue would appear as a proposal in the next
election ballot.

A member of the MDE Special Education staff

described the confrontation with the Legislature.
First of all you have to remember that MARC was one
of the major forces in getting the mandatory special
education act passed.
Our act was brought about by
Michigan Department of Education, State Plan for
the Delivery of Special Education Programs and Services"
(Lansing:
MbE, February, 19 71), p . 57

218

the fact that they used the initiative petition, as a
lever to get the legislature to pass it and they said,
•If you're not going to pass it, we're going to!' and
they actually had the petitions drawn up and circulated
and that's what got the thing moving.
Mandatory has
been introduced into the legislature for six years
previous to that and had never gotten out of committee.
(MDE staff)
Why was the threat of an initiative petition drive so strong?
One MDE staff member theorizes:
Well, my theory is--and I'm not a political scientist
by any means--but the Legislature does respond to con­
stituencies and in the case of an initiative petition
drive, it's a slap in the face of the Legislature, it
says that the Legislature has failed to enact something
that has a significant value to the population and
that value is so significant that the population is
willing to go over the heads of the Legislature and
pass it themselves.
So it's saying to the Legislature,
•You have failed to live up to your function, of taking
care of the needs of the people and the people have
taken it into their own hands' and I think they're very
sensitive about that.
And that's how 198 got through.
Whether or not the hypotheses of the MDE staffer are accurate,
is not of great consequence since the motivation of the L e g ­
islature is not the focus here.

It is the action which is

of immediate concern and two events emerge:

first, there

was a threatened petition drive; second, the Legislature
passed P.A.

198.

Respondents have to this point been consistent in
describing the central role of the parents.

A professional

staffer from "the other side of the street," the Capitol,
observed that the parent lobby was not the only force in­
volved.
I think the reason is fairly clear in a political sense
of 'Who lobbies up here?'
The special interests within
the schools lobby.
. . . so you have special ed

219

directors up here, sometimes without the consent of the
superintendent or the board that they work for . . .
Is that how the special education bill, #198, got
passed?
Pretty much.
Matter of fact, there was a great deal of
opposition to that from the school management, super­
intendents and boards; but they found it difficult to
speak out in opposition to it, you know, i t ’s education,
and education is good, you can't question it, even
though privately they were saying 'Oh this will be
terrible, w e ’ll lose our control' and it was the parents
and special ed directors who pushed that bill through,
because they silenced the opposition.
. . . I think
that's an example of an interest that cannot go through
the local boards and say we've got handicapped kids;
provide the service.
They didn't get a response, the
local school was incapable of responding to that at
the local level, so they just ran around and came up
to the state and got the decision made over the --not
objections--but over the inertia of the local board.
One legislator, who also heads a powerful committee,
complained about the passage of 198.

He said that not too

many bills actually get out of the house appropriations
committee, and
two-thirds of those that do get out fail in the senate.
It's too bad #198 didn't get strangled along the way
like that.
He feels that 'it gives to the handicapped
at the expense of the normals.' He said that 'it will
cost 113 million dollars next year and that's at no
g r owth.*
Why, then, did it pass?
A California court decision in the midst
helped to spur them on, because 'it held
tion was a constitutional right and that
kid was being denied equal protection.'
islation may have been truly protective,
want to wait until a court forced us.*

of things
that educaa handicapped
So their leg*We d i d n ’t

Thus at least one legislator who was present agrees with the
previous description of a pressured Legislature passing an
Act under some duress.

220

Thus it seems that the parent lobby, with the sup­
port of the special education professionals, was able to
pressure the Legislature into passing #198.

The respon­

dents from both sides of the street agreed that had the
petition drive been carried out, it would have been success­
ful.

The role of the MDE Special Education unit in that

interchange (198) will be examined later.
An MDE staff member from an area not directly
associated with Special Education gave a more picturesque
version of the coalition.
There are very powerful interest groups.
You d o n ’t
find anyone more militant than a parent who has a special
ed kid and feels that the kid's being shortchanged.
These people have a number of organizations.
The special
ed professionals themselves are kind of an unbelievable
group.
They're militant as hell and they wrap themselves
in these handicapped kids and march everywhere, that's
where the push comes from.
The special ed people are
so militant, so successful that their own superintendents
in that town will wash their hand of them--really, there's
no control of, or very little, direction.
If you talk to
superintendents about special ed; 'Go see my special ed
teacher.' That is where the initial push came from and
the contention is that these kids are being shortchanged,
and this might be true.
'What school districts are
doing is putting their bucks into the regular program
which is less expensive . . . and what w e ’re going to
do is advocate mandatory special ed whereby every kid
. is guaranteed an educational program that meets their
needs.'
And they went to the Legislature and said, 'Hey,
we're going to initiate a petition drive!
You don't
want to pass a law, we'll pass our own law!'
A digression on methods is appropriate here.

The co ­

alition referred to was not a formal one, it is not possible
to uncover documentary evidence.

Still, there is agreement

from a variety of sources in the verbatim data recorded here.
Sources include three levels of MDE staff from several

221

sections and both professional and elected members from the
Capitol.

Such consistency does make a convincing case for

the accuracy of the assertion:

'yes, there was a coalition

in 1971!'
On the general issue of the impact of the passage of
198, on MDE, the results are less clear.

The Associate

Superintendent for Finance says that the MDE did not grow
significantly as a result of Mandatory.

And he should know.

On the other hand, the Associate Superintendent for School
Program Development has called special education "the most
completely state controlled program I've ever seen."
it is not only money that can be
Another MDE staff member

Clearly

used as a resource.
from the Special Education

area agrees with this perception of increased legitimate
authority for MDE as a result of the act.
As far as special education services is concerned, we've
become more regulatory, because of mandatory, we've
been forced into a more aggressive attitude, because
now we've got the mandate to do something.
Before, it was permissive and you could do it if you
wanted to do it, but you didn't have to. And so we
used a more persuasive kind of thing.
We'd talk to
districts and say, 'Gee, it would be nice if you started
this program.'
But now we're in a position of saying,
'Now look; under the law, you have this responsibility,
you have to carry out your legal responsibility.'
And
t hat’s a basic change in the operation.
The eight pages of laws comprising the Mandatory
Special Education Act were translated by the MDE into 174
pages of rules and interpretations.

This could amount to

a lot of power, but MDE staff in fact exercises less than

222
might be expected.

The Special Education service area has

only IS staff, and cannot regulate as thoroughly as the
act allows.

The same staff member continued.

With the advent of Mandatory Special Education, we're
getting more into the monitoring and enforcement, planning
and these types of things.
A n d the horses that we've
got, not only are the numbers inadequate, but the people
that we've got, originally, were brought on board when
the consulting function was the important thing and we're
still bureaucratically organized around the consulting
function.
We need a major overhaul.
A different special education staff member complains that
"I've heard many of the Intermediate School superintendents
say that John (Porter, the Superintendent of Education) should
make an overt commitment."

Later, the same staffer says,

"We spend so much time putting out fires--no time for real
planning."

And speaking to a subordinate about a task already

a year overdue he says, "If we ever get on top of things,
maybe you can help us with that."
Another member of the Special Education staff c o m ­
plains that he is a victim of the "canary syndrome."
The guy was always getting out and banging on the side
of his truck and finally somebody asked him, 'What in
the world are y ou doing that for' and he said, 'Well,
I got a one ton truck and I've got two tons of canaries
in the back and I have to keep half of them flying all
the time!'
It's a beautiful analogy.
He complained that the Massachusetts agency had more people
to serve a smaller state and that in California,
a seven-man unit that does nothing but plan."

"They have

To work at

MDE was like driving that truck full of canaries.

223

The point is simply this:
enough.

legal authority is not

MDE has large legal authority under 198 to monitor

and enforce the provisions of the Mandatory Special E d u c a ­
tion Act.

But while the Legislature did grant MDE much

authority, there was not a correspondingly large increase
in money for MDE.

So, the agency cannot fully exercise

the power it now has.
When a member of the Governor's staff was asked
whether the act had enlarged the ability of MDE to control
schools, he replied negatively.
Money control they really don't have, because the
state aid formula is set by the Legislature.
They
don't have discretionary funds to say who gets special
ed money and who doesn't.
So control over the bucks
is not in the hands of the Department.
The controls,
if there are any, on the rules of regulation, but the
question is, 'Who enforces it?'
They don't.
A large
amount of it has gone back; they've asked for the
parents to enforce it.
. . . says to the parents
'Well, you go enforce it by taking them to court or
complaining.'
The Department has not been a real
regulatory agency in that effect, of enforcing the
law.
MDE does not have the authority to withhold funds from
schools.

What legal authority MDE does have, it is agreed,

is underemployed.
However great the potential for true control of p r o ­
grams, it does not appear that such power is being effectively
exercised by MDE.

The Legislature has clearly endowed MDE

with legal authority to regulate special education programs.
Yet the legislature has not increased the staff of MDE so
that they can exploit their new power in more than a reactive

22 4

manner.

Gross violations can be handled, but the ability of

MDE to plan, exercise leadership or regulate thoroughly is
restricted by the lack of accompanying staff.

Whether or

not such a situation is intentional on the part of the L e g ­
islature is not known.
This A c t - -198--brought much legal authority to MDE.

It

also provided money to schools for special education p r o ­
grams, an occurrence which advocates such as the MDE Special
Education staff applauded.

Both are events that MDE Special

Education staff might have been expected to encourage,
help along.

to

This raised the question of the role of that

staff in the passage of 198.
There is agreement among respondents - -most of whom
were nervous about being quoted--that the Special Education
Service Area was on the side of the ’'winning*1 coalition.
From the MDE point of view, it is a boundary spanning coali­
tion, involving MDE special education personnel with the
parent group lobby and the special education teachers' and
directors' lobby.

The accusation that the special education

staff of MDE have divided loyalties arose early in this study.
At one of the first Executive Council sessions attended,
MDE staff joked about the tendency of MDE special education
staff to align with teachers and parents.
which side they're on," one said.

"It's hard to tell

"They don't understand

that they work for the state government."

225

In an interview early in the study, an Associate
Superintendent complained that, "in special ed, the field
people are an extension of the district Special Ed director
and they join with the locals and beat up Lansing."

During

an Executive Council meeting, another associate referred
to the passage of the Mandatory bill.

He suggested that

the Legislature was "aided and abetted by Marv Beekman"
(the former director of Special Education for MDE).*
Another voice corrected him, saying "led by."

The first

speaker replied, "I was gonna say that but I thought it was
too strong."
On another occasion, another executive-level staff
member complained

that, with regard to Special Education,

some of our own people quite frankly, in my opinion
and in other peoples' opinion, instead of representing
us and representing the state, hell, they're just right
up there throwing the shoes at us.
It's true that's
their constitutency . . . wondering who in the hell
they work for!
They know who the paycheck comes from
but that's not the same people they work for!
A member of that special education staff had no
trouble determining which side he was on!
My position is that the Department hired me as an advocate
for handicapped kids, not as an advocate for the system.
And I will continue to perform my system duties and my
bureaucratic duties, but strictly with the understanding
that if there is a choice to make, between the Department
and the advocacy role, I ’ll take the advocacy role. As
I say, that's costly sometimes.
This is an instance in which the subject is so
well known that to disguise his identity would be both
clumsy and ineffective.

226

There has to be an inside person that's pushing and
knows what the system is and keeps after hounding
people and keeps others informed . . .
In another discussion, a staff member from the Special
Education service area was asked "Who are your clientele?"
Basically, I guess we have a hierarchy of clientele.
Our hierarchy starts at the handicapped kid, the first
person to whom we owe our allegiance, OK? The next
group is the special ed professionals in the field.
The next group is the general ed professional in the
field, all of education.
We don't exist in a vacuum;
we don't want to become the tail that wags the dog, . . .
Yet, the special education staff make it very clear that
none of them actively lobby, especially in the Legislature.
Nor would it help, they maintain, because the legislators
do not respond to bureaucrats

(as the Higher Education area

knows), they respond to voters.

So, while MDE staff do

honestly seem to avoid lobbying and are sensitive to the
formal channels of communication with legislators, one staff
from Special Education reported that
. . . on the other hand, there are ways of having input
into the Legislature through the professional groups
or through the parent groups and that kind of thing.
The bureaucrat doesn't mean anything to the legislator,
the bureaucrat is a means of getting some information.
But in terms of persuasion, the bureaucrat is down on
the totem pole.
He doesn't have any votes.
And I
keep telling my friends, the professionals out in the
field, when they ask, 'Why doesn't the state department
go out and get that money for u s ? ’ I keepy saying, 'Hell,
if you want that money, y o u ’re the guys that are going
to have to go out there, you got the votes.
We'll make
all the proposals in the world, but if somebody out there
in these peoples constituencies doesn't support 'em,
it's not gonna happen.'
This suggests that advocacy and information from MDE is
not enough.

The battles of special education will, according

227

to the above, be fought in the political arena--as was the
passage of 198.
It is clear that the Special Education service area
is truly a place of divided loyalties.

Limited information

about the impact of this truth on MDE behavior during the
passage of 198 was made available to us.
provided additional examples.

A secondary issue

This was the problem of p r o ­

viding special education services to institutionalized p e r ­
sons .
At the Executive Council meeting on October 14, the
superintendent mentioned to his staff that some sort of
action was going to be necessary regarding special education
services for institutionalized persons.

Dr. Porter had been

meeting the week before with representatives of the D e p art­
ment of Mental Health,

the Department of Management and B u d ­

get, Social Services and the lawyer for the Michigan A s s o c i ­
ation for Retarded Citizens.

As of the 14th, Dr. Porter

advised that the institutional issue would eventually cost
25 million dollars.
Dr. Porter gave the State Board of Education the
same information at its October 16 meeting.
Last week it was called to my attention that the Michigan
Association for Retarded Citizens was in the process of
suing the State Board of Education and the Department of
Mental Health for failing to provide mandatory special
education services to about 3,500 mentally ill persons
residing in state hospitals.1
*John W. Porter, Superintendent of Education, m e m o r ­
andum to the State Board of Education, October 15, 1974, p. 1.

228

Later the estimate was revised upward.
This neglected group are those handicapped persons who
reside in state hospitals and facilities operated by
the Michigan Department of Mental Health.
According to
data supplied by the Michigan Department of Mental
Health, 4,200 of the 5,450 handicapped persons in state
institutions are currently receiving either inadequate j
special education programs and services or none at all.
Whatever the number, it is clear that some persons, most of
whom are retarded, living in state supported institutions
run by the Department of Mental Health, were receiving less
than adequate service.

Apparently some persons in insti­

tutions run by the Department of Social Services were also
involved.

At no stage of the research did any person deny

the accuracy of the fact.

The MARC had simply filed a suit

to force the state to provide services guaranteed under the
Mandatory Special Education Act, P.A. 198.
In the same memo as above, Porter reported that
A suit against the state was being prepared by the
Michigan Association for Retarded Citizens and others.
This suit purported to compel the state to take immed­
iate steps to assure that the handicapped persons in
state institutions receive educational programs by
July 1, 1975 .2
As a result of the pending suit, the MDE considered entering
into a contract with the Department of Mental Health to
assure services.

The Office of the Attorney General dis­

couraged the use of a contract.

Consequently, the MDE

\lohn W. Porter, memorandum to S B E , November 5,
1974, p. 1.
2 I b i d . , p.

2.

229

developed a plan on its own to assure that the institu­
tionalized persons would be educated to the limits of their
potential, or to the end of twelfth grade.

This plan of

action was adopted and implementation was begun.

In Porter's

words, the Attorney General's Office recommended that MDE
move forward, irrespective of the lawsuit, to promptly
exercise their lawful powers under state law to the
end that special education programs and services are
afforded handicapped persons in state institutions by
the 1975-76 school y e a r . 1
This had the effect of showing intent to comply with the
suit.

It was hoped by MDE staff that the MARC would not

press the suit--so long as MDE was moving along in its plan
of action.
It seems simple enough.

The MARC filed a suit.

The MDE developed a plan and began to implement.
remains on file, not activated.
originate?

The suit

But how did the lawsuit

One MDE staff was quite open about his enthusiasm

for the suit.
But what happened to spur us along, is that we had what
I consider to be a friendly suit, by the Michigan
Association for Retarded Citizens.
It's basically a
parent group.
. . .They are the most active parent
group in the state and the most sophisticated politically.
This above interpretation was provided by a staff member
from the Special Education area.
An Associate Superintendent from another part of
MDE described the same action with much different emotion.
1 I b i d . , p.

3.

230

The "groups" refers to the lobbies, mostly to the Michigan
Association for Retarded Citizens

(MARC).

. . . Now the latest chapter is, these same groups said
last fall, 'Hey, state, you're doing a great job all
over the state except in one place and you know where
that is . . . the state hospitals.
You got the mandatory
special ed and you're enforcing it all over the state
and you're doing a good job . . . and you bastards aren't
even providing those services for your own kids.' So now
we got 5400 kids in state institutions . . . and they
got a court suit going.
Same group . . . They got a
suit in Grand Rapids (district court) right now on the
14th amendment and they kind of got it in limbo right now.
. . . They say 'We’re going to give you guys until July
1 and if the Legislature doesn't come through with the
program then we're going to press the court suit.
. . .
And hell, in state government, we'll all fall over our­
selves to accommodate them!'
Researcher:
Staff Member:
Researcher:

What are you going to do differently?
We're going to spend more money!
Are you assuming

you'd lose?

Staff Member:
I guess we have to be the way everybody's
running (laughing)--We ought to just call their bluff.
A staff member from a different MDE service area
added another dimension to the action.

The communication

links which were operating were not all formal.
There are some personal kinds of things involved here
too.
It happens that the former state director of special
ed, Marvin Beekman, has a son who's a lawyer.
And he
happens to be a lawyer for MARC, amongst other things.
So he's very knowledgeable in this area.
I ’ve already
had one phone call from him this morning, as a matter
of fact.
Cause now he's got two suits against us.
The second suit regards a local issue and does not require
further explanation here.
There is another lesson available.

It is not only

the telephone which serves to link the interests which are
involved in the institutional issue.

231

Word got out before they filed their suit that they
were going to file it.
And all of a sudden, Dr. Demp s y ,
from the Bureau of the Budget and Dr. Smith from the
Department of Mental Health and Dr. Porter, and p a r ­
ticularly Dr. D e m psy, became particularly disturbed
that this suit might be filed before last fall's
election.
And so they began to have some meetings
amongst those four department heads, including Houston
from Social Services, with the lawyer from MARC.
The memoranda to the State Board described several meetings
among these agency leaders.

The continuing process of nego­

tiation about how to respond to the suit may have prevented
public conflict.

Certainly the two or three state agencies

involved could not be involved in a round of publicly passing
on the blame.

So the state determined its plan of action

in advance, and apparently with constant input from the
MARC lawyer.
Now the whole strategy from the point the suit was
filed was to proceed with the original agreement and
the state's strategy is to, every time we go to court-if we are eventually forced to go to court--we'11 say,
'Look, we're doing this and we're doing it with all
deliberate speed.’ And that way we feel we can cut the
grounds out from under the suit and so far we've m a n ­
aged to keep reasonably far enough ahead . . . w e ' r e
showing reasonable enough progress--the threat is always
there that we'll be going back to court.
The suit was
filed, but it's in kind of an indefinite suspension
right now (MDE staf f ) .
But even though the crisis atmosphere has passed,
gram of inter-organization communication goes on.

the pro­
Now,

though, the tasks are more routine and have been delegated
by the agency chief's who handled the original impact of
the suit.
We meet very amicably every two weeks with the repre­
sentative from the Attorney General's Office for Mental
Health and the representative from the Attorney General's
Office for Education, a representative of the Department

232

of Mental Health, a representative from the Department
of Education and the attorney for MARC.
And we go over
the time table.
We meet, and hash out and say, 'O.K.,
what's been done and what hasn't been d o n e ? ’ (MDE staff)
However successful the coalition of parent lobbies
and special educators, the Special Education service area
of MDE is regarded with a suspicious eye by the professional
staff of the Legislature and Governor's Office.

The MDE

Special Education staff are perceived as advocates of their
field, committed to helping it grow.

One professional was

less kind.
The Department of Education Personnel are so enthusiastic
about special ed--at least the special ed division-that they claim they're about 25 million dollars short
and yet they come up with no facts or figures to show
why they are that short, so they're going to have tough
sledding.
The Governor's Office downstairs and I will
both be attacking that.
There's a good example of the
department having a vested interest.
The folks in
special ed want to promote special ed and this is all
off of their forms, but they haven't bothered to go back
and look at the costs and revenues of the programs, they
just come back and say we need another 22.5 million
dollars.
Another staff member from "across the street" was not con­
vinced that MDE or the other agencies ever asked whether the
suit was a real threat.

He suggested that as advocates,

they used the court suit as a straw man, to justify what
they wanted to do anyway.

To the suggestion that the court

had been supportive, he replied
Oh, I think that's questionable.
I think the threat
of the court action is there, but show me a court
decision that's required anybody to do anything.
There's
the threat of court action.

233

A legislator predicted that the only change would
be in the size of the MDE bureaucracy.

He said that the

money involved was, "not really a new cost, since the insittutions had been doing this before, it just shifts the
responsibility over to education.
people to go out and watch."

Now they'll need 12 new

While the MDE will not likely

be able to add that many new people--especially if 198 is
a guide--they may increase some.

But the majority of the

criticism of MDE was related to their estimates of costs
of school programs.
A staff member from the Legislature was similarly
suspicious.

"There will be more costs for the institutional

programs, but it won't be any 17 million dollars.

There

just aren't that many incarcerated special ed kids.

There

are somewhere around 4,000, well even at $2,000 apiece, you
get $8 million; that's nowhere near $22 or $25 million."
MDE staff from the Finance area complained just as loudly
that they were unable to get consistent estimates from their
colleagues in the Special Education area.
isolated problem, though.

This was an

MDE was viewed by outsiders in

the government as a very reliable agency in general with
regard to financial, legal and technical information.

A

legislative staff member had praise for that portion of
the MDE effort.
We get really good information of the technical things,
what does the law mean related to this case--whatever
it is--here, you know, there we get good service, good

234

information.
But you're talking about special programs
they want to support.
There you need your own indepen­
dent source of information.
. . . That's not uncommon,
but that's why you have the house fiscal agency and other
sources of information, to counteract the biases of the
Departments. You gotta expect the people in special
education to support special ed, I mean you wouldn't
expect them to do anything but that.
(Legislative
staff member).
At this writing,

the implementation of the Mandatory

Special Education A c t - -including the provision for services
for institutionalized persons --proceeds, roughly on schedule.
In spite of a lull in political activity,

the staff of the

MDE Special Education service area are undoubtedly as busy
implementing as advocating.

After all, "you wouldn't expect

them to do anything but that."
Interpretation
There are two parts to the special education issue
which are worthy of analysis.

Both 198 and the institution­

alized issue affected the supply of resources to MDE.
Concerning the passage of 198, it appears as though
Special Education Services--a subsystem of MDE--was involved
in a coalition with external g r o u p s .

These external allies

were the parent lobby and the professionals in the field.
Such a coalition is referred to as a boundary-spanning
coalition, from the point of view of the Special Education
area within MDE.

The coalition influenced the Legislature

and MDE was given considerable legal authority as a result.
MDE was able to write regulations, to enforce them and to
distribute money.

However, there was not a proportional

235

increase in staff, so the increase in authority did not
really change the de facto power of MDE significantly.

But

most districts w o u l d .comply and MDE could handle the gross
violations.

The goal of the coalition members can be said

to have been reasonably well achieved.

In diagramatic

form, the transation looked like this.
Parents and
Profess ionals
boundary-spanning coalition
MDE

Legislature

(Special Ed)
N ______

legal authority, flow^
through money, but no staff

FIGURE 11.- -Public Act 198.
The effect was to change the behavior of schools
and of the MDE.

From the point of view of the Special E d u ­

cation unit, the strategy is also an end run.
subsystem wanted to change the goals of MDE.

That is, one
Rather than

enter into the internal conflict regarding goals, this s u b ­
system by-passed the MDE power structure.

The Special E d u ­

cation area became part of a coalition which "ran around”
this internal power structure to the Legislature.

In turn,

the Legislature provided MDE with new resources and respon­
sibilities .
The institutional programs were handled in a similar
manner.

The MDE Special Education staff considered the

236

lawsuit by the Michigan Association for Retarded Citizens
(MARC) to be a "friendly" one.

This is not very active

coalition behavior, but there is no doubt that the two
groups had common goals.

Thus the Special Education staff

within MDE can be described as coalition members with the
MARC.

Again, the coalition is a boundary-spanning one.
The relevant environment in this case also contained

the federal court and the other state agencies:

Mental

Health, Social Services and Management,?and Budget.

The

threat of the court action was enough to cause the agencies
to act.

The MDE can also be conceived to be a member of

environment because it too had to act.

the

Thus MDE was a

supporter of the suit,

at least as a passive coalition

member and a member of

the environment which was affected.

A more complex diagram is needed to illustrate the chain of
events.
MARC
MDE
Threat

*

Mental
Health
Social
Services
Management
and
Budget

T

_

Commit Money
and Authority

Feedback of Authority to Special {
Education Staff
^
FIGURE

Impact on Handi­
capped Persons

12.--Institutionalized Program for the
Handicapped.

237

By entering a coalition with the parents--especially MARC-the Department of Education eventually acquired more authority
to regulate educational programs in the institutions of
other agencies.

The authority w a s , in effect, already

available through 198; the threat of a suit caused all of
the agencies involved to 'Voluntarily" mobilize both authority
and money.
It is important that, under threat of suit, the MDE
and other agencies established and maintained an active
top-level

(not "high" but " t o p !") communication network for

the duration of the uncertainty.

They constantly measured

each other's plans and included the MARC lawyer in their
negotiations.

This is a very clear example of the use of

two strategies--measuring and predicting--to reduce u n c e r ­
tainty.

The two together might be lumped into a "communica­

ting" or "keeping in touch" category.

The universe may abhor

a vacuum, but the complex organization abhors surprise.
Thus it is necessary to seek advance information about new
action by key members of the environment.
The strategy is simple enough.
^

measure, predict
MARC, Social Services
Mental Health, BMB

MDE

information

{

238

The results of a failure are also simple, in that MDE could
be caught with no chance to help decide what form the action
should take.

If it is clear that one must act, it is

preferable to be involved in deciding what the act will be.
Note that even though the crisis is past, lower-level members
of the involved agencies still keep meeting and measuring and
probably negotiating.
So it is clear that one subsystem (at least) of MDE
has on at least two occasions used a variant of a coalition
strategy which has been labelled the "end run."

The most

common ally of the MDE Special Education staff is the parent
lobby.
The lobby in special ed is the best organized in edu­
cation and it's partly because they have defined
their constituents so well.
Poor Addison Hobbs in
Voc. Ed. doesn't have nearly the help we do.
The other regular coalition member is that group known as
the special education professionals, the teachers and d i ­
rectors from the school districts.
All of this seems to be more relevant for a d is­
cussion of the Special Education subsystem, but the conclu­
sion is not so simple.

All of these activities of the special

education staff serve the purposes of the agency too.

For

one of the central purposes of the agency is to survive and
to reduce uncertainty about resources on a Department-wide
basis.

The Superintendent made it clear that he was aware

of all of the actions of the Special Education unit and

2 39

that from his view, there was no threat to the Michigan
Department of Education.
Well, I d o n ’t see that as a major problem.
We've got
the same thing in voc. ed.
We've got the same thing
in comp. ed.
And the same thing in the library.
In
all three of those services we have the same thing.
I don't see that as a problem, from where I sit.
About 851 of the citizens are directly and indirectly
affected by our services.
Now, to the extent that
special ed is doing what y o u ’re saying, is the extent
to which all of those people out there stay off my
back.
That's very important.
Now, to the extent that
I clip their wings and eliminate them as the ombudsman
for all of those people, is the extent that more and
more complaints come directly into the central agency.
Which means then that I've got to create some central
agency mechanism to deal with it.
So I'm no dummy.
I kinda like what's going on.
You may look at the system and say, 'Boy, are they
ever going around the superintendent’s back, but even
with the tape running, they perform a very valuable
service.
So it begins to become integrated again.

The end

runs and boundary-spanning coalitions and constant meetings
do drain some authority away from MDE.

But all of these

actions also keep the agency tied in an ongoing way to all
of the actions of large environmental groups.
ally,

If MDE is an

it is not uncertain about the future actions of

those groups.

So the riddle is answerable.

is an ombudsman not a threat?

Answer:

Question:

When

When he reduces

uncertainty!
Summary
In two instances,

198 and institutional programs,

MDE has received more authority regarding special education.

240

While this reduced uncertainty about authority, the Legis­
lature has not provided sufficient money to MDE to fully
exploit their legal authority.

In both cases the reduction

of uncertainty/acquisition of resources was accomplished by
"end runs" involving boundary-spanning coalitions.
Chapter 3:

A Pyrrhic Victory

Introduction
This study is concerned with identifying the ways
in which a major educational bureaucracy,
partment of Education,
environment.

the Michigan De­

acts to reduce uncertainty in its

Two case studies have been presented.

In

both of these issues a constitutional issue was involved,
but legislative action either avoided
or supplanted (special education)
source.

In this section,

(higher education)

the uncertainty from that

the examination of Chapter 3 will

focus on the role of the Legislature again.

Chapter 3 is

a compensatory education program which MDE sought to use to
reduce uncertainty about their own resources and about the
behavior of the public schools.
Compensatory education programs have traditionally
been used to compensate for perceived "environmental h a ndi ­
caps" and "cultural deprivations" in low-income school d i s ­
tricts.

Large urban districts have been the major recip­

ients of compensatory education money in Michigan since the
first program in 1965.

241

Since 1965 these programs in Michigan and nationally
have increased emphasis on reading and mathematics and on
measurement of cognitive progress in these areas.

Emphasis

in MDE since 1968-69 on the Accountability model complemented
the above trends.

Just before Chapter 3 became the new

Michigan compensatory education program in 1970, a state­
wide assessment program was implemented.

This enables Chap­

ter 3 to disburse its money according to academic need, dis­
tricts whose scores were lowest were funded first.

Again,

the major urban districts received most of the money.
Crucial to Chapter 3 is its penalty clause.

It

required that districts whose students did not improve
according to a set level be denied funds for future years.
At this point the urban school district lobbies began to
intervene.

The first year the penalty clause was waived.

The next year it was modified to provide for an optional
"change in delivery system."

Eventually the penalty option

was dropped, but districts had to promise a change in deliv­
ery system.
For a brief time, it appeared that MDE was to have
true fiscal control of a large program.

But the Legisla­

ture- -the originators of the authority and of the program-responded to other constituents and decimated the legal
authority of MDE, year by year.
It is argued here that MDE eventually did gain, but
not so much as they lost.

Chapter 3 has provided national

242

visibility for MDE and especially for its superintendent.
One reason for this is that MDE asserts Chapter 3 produces
as much achievement as the federal Title 1 program for about
half the cost.

Thus many people beyond Michigan are justi­

fiably interested in Chapter 3.
The overall result is that, while MDE was not
assured of the legal authority they needed to reduce u n ­
certainty in one part of their environment, they gained
another resource.

That resource is national visibility--

potentially credibility--and it is a useful one to have.
A detailed examination of how this situation arose will
now be presented.
Text
The full name of the program referred to here as
Chapter 3 is "Chapter 3 of the State School Aid Act."
Chapter 3 is the largest of the state’s compensatory educa­
tion programs.

Compensatory education programs typically

serve students whose academic achievement is low, but who
have no genetic or other handicap as in the Special Educa­
tion programs.

These students are usually poor, usually

urban and are often said to be "culturally deprived,"
although that term has lost its earlier popularity.

Thus

such programs attempt to "compensate" for whatever the
student lacked.

This usually means money.

The Michigan Chapter 3 program has an academic fund­
ing base.

That is, Michigan does not give money to school

243

districts having concentrations of low-income people.
Michigan gives money to school districts having concentra­
tions of low-achieving students.

That this amounts to the

same theory is a popular contention and will be discussed
later in the section concerned with ESEA Title 1.
There have been state-funded compensatory edu­
cation programs in Michigan since 1965.*

The first one,

Section 4, provided $4 million per year to meet the needs
of "under-privileged," "culturally and economically depri­
ved" students.

The second program, Section 3, replaced

Section 4 and added several constraints regarding eligibil­
ity.

That these constraints favored larger districts is

unsurprising since the act was in essence that proposed by
the Middle Cities group mentioned earlier, a consortium of
large urban school districts.

More concerning their role

will follow later in this chapter.
In September of 1971, the present Chapter 3 legisla­
tion was signed into law.

It provided $22.5 million per year

to school districts meeting several criteria.

First, all stu­

dents in the state in fourth and seventh grades were tested
by the Michigan Educational Assessment Program in the fall of
1970.

All students in the state who fell below the 15th per­

centile in a combined reading and mathematics score were
^Michigan Department of Education, "Compensatory Edu­
cation-the Michigan Program," (Lansing, Michigan: MDE,
May 13, 1971, multilith), p. 3.

244

identified.

For every school district, the percent of stu­

dents in this category was computed.

For example, 37.5%

of Detroit students were in this category, whereas some
districts had virtually no students with scores that low.
The $22.5 million was then given out at a rate of $200.00
per eligible pupil.
K to 6.

Money could only be spent in grades

The most heavily impacted school district, Highland

Park, had 43.9% of its students below the cut-off line, 15%.
The school district was given $200 per pupil in Chapter 3
money.

The the next lowest district was funded and so on,

until the $22.5 million ran out.

In this way, the 67 d i s ­

tricts with the greatest need as defined above received
some assistance for 112,000 students.

But there were strings

attached.
The 67 districts were to be funded at the level of
$200 per child for three years.
matic.

But refunding was not auto­

In order to receive money for a given student in

year two, a district had to demonstrate that the student
had gained an average of .75 months for each month in the
program.

For students doing less well, the funding would be

pro-rated.
Basically, the Chapter 3 program is a performance con­
tract between the school district and the state.
The
school establishes the performance objectives for
pupils to be served by the program.
For each pupil
achieving 75% of his objectives, a school district will
receive a full per-pupil allocation the following year.
For each pupil achieving less than 75% of his objectives,

245

the district will receive a lesser amount that is pro­
portionate to the gains achieved.*
There is an assumption that students can learn at the 75%
level.
The idea . . . is a belief that nearly all children
can be taught to read and to acquire basic skills in
mathematics and that elementary school delivery systems
can be changed or modified to achieve these ends.2
Thus if a student fails to achieve at the specified level,
the logic goes, it must be the fault of the district, school
or teacher.

Thus they were to be penalized by losing money.

This act was passed at a time when the Office of Economic
Opportunity was in the performance contract business and the
idea appeared to herald a breakthrough.

The fact that the

penalty clause would withdraw money from students whose
academic need was known to be great by both pre-test and
post-test was not addressed at first.

Districts whose stu­

dents did poorly in year one would get less money in year
two.
For the costs of administering, allocating (and
potentially reallocating) the money, the MDE was allowed
to retain one half of one percent of the funds--equal to
$112,500 per year.

MDE was also able to generate rules re­

garding the setting of objectives, all reporting forms,
*MDE, "Operations Manual--Chapter 3," Lansing,
Michigan:
MDE, 1972), p. S.
7

MDE, "Compensatory Education:
The Program in
Michigan," (Lansing: MDE, January 1974), p. 2.

246

instruments for evaluation and similar items.

Beyond that,

there was almost no restriction on how funds were to be
spent.
What happened when the State Department tried to
cut off funds to the school districts who did poorly?
a word:

In

nothing.
Year one was 1971-72.

Some districts, according

to scores, would not be refunded.

So the Legislature en ­

acted a forgiveness clause, saying the funding came too
late (in late fall) for adequate preparation by districts.
The MDE initiated that action.
Year two was 1972-73.
to lose funds.

Some districts were about

The Legislature intervened and enacted 39A,

a section which allowed the districts to retain their fund­
ing level for the third year if only they would change the
delivery system they were using.
Year three was 1973-74.

There were still some dis­

tricts who were about to lose money.

The Legislature r e ­

moved the penalty clause completely, but kept the require­
ment

(?) that, under 39A, districts below minimum should

modify the delivery system they used.
All of this was done with the assent or at least
the acquiesence of Dr. Porter, the Superintendent of Educa­
tion.

During the total 1971-75 time period examined, almost

no funds were withheld from districts.

The legislation

allowed for the removal in most years of millions of dollars,

247

mostly from Detroit.

This raises the question of why the

penalty clause was not enacted.

The answer is lobbying.

We'll kill it. We've killed it for two years, and
we'll do it again, and I have two letters in my pocket
to attest to that.
(Lobbyist from a major urban district)
Porter will never succeed.
Every time (he tries to
recall the money) he runs up against the lobbyists,
he loses.
(Member of the Middle Cities Consortium)
A conversation with a senior staff member from the
Governor's Office further illustrates the political nature
of the issue.
Staff member:
Oh, they've beat up a few school districts.
Not many, but they've beaten up some.
One hundred fifty
thousand out of 22% million actually through the threats,
they said you have to do something different, and the
school districts threw up their hands and said, 'We're
not going to play your silly game, just d o n ’t give us
the money.'
Generally small school districts, but that
is control.
When you say, ’You don't get the money!',
that is control.
Researcher:

When they do that to Detroit, that1s control.

Staff:
Oh, well.
that1s politics!

When they d o n 't do that to Detroit,

In a conversation with the executive director of the Middle
Cities Education Association--a very powerful lobby in itself-the history of the conflict was reiterated.
No penalty has ever been enacted . . . because through
the legislative effort, the lobby of the districts
that participate in the program, it was deferred b e ­
cause they didn't have information, it was deferred by
direction and than last year the provision was taken
right out of the act.
He suggested, however, that more than politics was involved.
The urban lobbies were, perhaps, invincible on this issue-but their cause was

just.

No one could suggest that

248

withdrawing massive amounts of money from the neediest
children would serve any positive goal.
When it came to the time when Detroit would have lost,
oh, I don't know a dollar, say two million dollars,
because they were unable to achieve with certain kids
and those particular schools in the heart of the ghetto
were going to get less money next year because they
couldn't do as much for the lowest level of kids this
year, reality and common sense prevailed.
A powerful member of the legislative staff re it e r ­
ated that point.
children.

Reducing funds to children does not serve

This does not address the question of why the

children in Detroit did not achieve better or whether the
administrators and teachers should be punished by the r e ­
moval of funds.

Only the short term question is asked:

does removal of dollars increase achievement?

The staff

member answers.
They keep shelling out 100% of the funds.
(Why?)
"Well, let's say kids don't succeed.
Then you have
a question of the programs that aren't successful,
the kids lose because you take away the money from
them, so they get less services because they're not
successful.
Now is that really gaining your objective
of helping those kids learn?
Well, probably not, it's
probably wiser to say, 'well, y o u ’ve got to do s o m e ­
thing different then, to keep getting the funds,'
and that's what they're saying now."
A State Board member agreed that the penalty clause
idea failed.

But the assertion that changing delivery s y s ­

tems had an effect remained.
. . . local school districts didn't think there would
be a penalty.
And they were right.
Our bluff was
called.
And we lost the hand.
It has had an effect
though, when in essence you tell a district that in
order to get the funds you have to change your delivery
system to one that works a little better, you are shift­
ing some things, you are doing some good.

249

Whether there is really any impact due to that piece of legis­
lation is in question.

With their staff of one, MDE cannot

monitor projects to assure that promised changes occur.
Murphy and Cohen visited five sites and found that the changes
in delivery systems were at best trivial^

A representative

of the urban schools agreed.
Now, the legislation allows MDE to withhold or recall
money from a 'loser* district if that district refuses
to change its delivery system.
That's a goddamn farce.
I have to be frank about it, you know, you could change
from one book to another, or change something else, I've
yet to have someone tell me, to define for me, what a
delivery system is.
It's what anyone wants to call it.
And I suppose you could shift teachers, you could shift
rooms, books, you could do this or do that, . . .
Some schools found the task of changing delivery systems
to be more trouble than the money was worth, according to a
member of the MDE Chapter 3 staff.
For the last two years we're taken a little.
There is
an escape mechanism; very, very little.
And last year
17 schools decided to give up the money rather than go
through that but in each case, it was a small amount
of money, a small district.
I think 1500 dollars.
I think one district that was large gave some money
back, not because of principle but because of laziness
or ineptness.
Two themes emerge.

First, the MDE has not been

successful in implementing the penalty clause in any major
confrontation to date, because the lobbies of the major urban
districts have too much influence in the Legislature.

No

politician from Detroit is going to support a provision
which could cost his city from one to eleven million dollars!
^ M u r p h y a nd Coh en,

"Accountability

in E d u c a t i o n . "

250

Second, the 39A provision for changing delivery systems has
not resulted in significant change to date, according to
Murphy and to sources interviewed in this study.
So if a district's students score poorly, it d o esn’t
matter.

What if they do very well?

The following comment

from a State Board member was recorded in May of 1975.
You know were getting a handle on that now, the cost
effectiveness study, on the types of things that work.
It doesn't seem right to me that for instance, Battle
Creek works, assuming that results on an achievement
test mean something, Battle Creek is producing 81%
kids who achieve a certain level and other districts
are achieving 40%.
Well, it seems to me that some of
the techniques used in Battle Creek could be used in
other districts.
In June of 1975 the new formula for funding the next phase
of Chapter 3 was released.

At a joint meeting

(Detroit,

Middle Cities and MDE) the MDE staff representative announced
the formula MDE planned to recommend to the Legislature.
Battle Creek had done too well.

It's students had improved

so much they were no longer eligible.

From a 1971 appro­

priation of $269,600, the Battle Creek share of Chapter 3
dropped to z e r o . Who said "Nothing succeeds like success?"
To withdraw funds now from Battle Creek assumes
that their students will continue to succeed with no supple­
mentary funds.

This is a very tenuous position.

The pol i ­

tical viability of Chapter 3 is surely not enhanced by this
out come.
Chapter 3 has not increased the effective legal
power of the MDE to either withhold money or to mandate

251

programs.

There were, however, other influences of the

Chapter 3 program in MDE.

The Chapter 3 program, with its

quantitative, reading and mathematics emphasis, has been
consistent with a similar trend throughout MDE.
MDE requires careful reporting by the schools.
All school districts receiving money must submit objectives
and evaluation plans to MDE before funding.

Evaluation

of pupil progress must be done by schools and the tests
they may use are pre-specified by MDE.

Children must be

tested before and after programs and all results are f o r ­
warded to MDE.

There are, therefore,

large aggregates of

numbers available to MDE for reporting to the Legislature
and public.

The ability to provide quantitative data has

in itself served to enhance the credibility of MDE.
For example, Chapter 3 was discussed by MDE officials
in their October visit with the Commissioner and staff of
the U.S. Office of Education.

USOE staff reemphasized the

need for quantitative data to report--in their case--to
Congress.

Two conversations with staff from the National

Institute of Education supported the assertion that governments--both state and federal--seek quantitative proof of
success.

The reputation of MDE is so great in this area

that two members of the federal General Accounting Office
attended several MDE presentations in order to learn about
Chapter 3 and its methods for evaluating and reporting.

2 52

While this research has not investigated whether the asser­
tion that governments want quantitative data is true, it is
clear that the belief pervades those organizations which
make a living by providing quantitative data.

MDE is one

of these.
The Accountability Model is a venture in that
direction.

One of the virtues of such a rational planning

model is supposed to be its ability to facilitate public
reporting.

During the late 60's and early 70 's MDE was

beginning its advocacy of the six-step Accountability Model.
This was the time of the birth of Chapter 3 with its pro­
visions for rational planning, evaluating and reporting.
The question of where the Chapter 3 idea originated arises,
at MDE or "across the street?”

One MDE staff replies

I think in both places, I think the Legislature . . .
the
temper of the times were such that the Legislature
was
very quick to grab on to this sort of thing . . .
but I think the genesis of the idea came from this side
of the street . . .
In the same vein, a State Board member discusses
the impact of Chapter 3 on the agency.
Oh,
wow.
Christ, that had a huge impact.
I don't know
to what extent it was caused by the Legislature, or
caused by the Department . . . I believe that our De­
partment had a large influence on it, but . . . there
was a general trend toward t h i s ; that is to say toward
accountability and the use of assessment to determine
the expenditure of funds.
Researcher:
Did Chapter 3 change the extent to which
you emphasized that?
Board Member:
Oh yes.
In fact it was the foot in the
door.
Researcher:
More than Title I?

253

Board Member:
Yes, I would say so and here's why.
Prior to the change in that section, we were talking
about assessment and talking about accountability and
asking for some funds.
After the changes, it had been
legislatively mandated!
The above account is somewhat optimistic,

though.

Chapter 3

did mandate careful testing and evaluation of pupil progress.
It did threaten to remove funds from unsuccessful programs.
But it has been argued here that the impact was small.
It is the internal impact-‘the reinforcement of the MDE
trend toward numbers--that has been largest.

If Chapter 3

provides data and supports the general stance of the agency
toward accountability, it can hardly be labelled an internal
failure,

in spite of the political losses.

Another Board

Member made the case for Chapter 3 differently.
I think we might get some more funds for it.
I think
it's a much more salable program to the people who give
money out, to show that there is significant improve­
ment because you use these types of methods and these
methods are working and if you can show that to the
Legislature, I think you're going to get some more funds
for it.
And the MDE is not at all reserved about showing anyone who
will listen that Chapter 3 works.

Murphy and Cohen* refer

to three separate statements by John Porter to Congress in
advocacy of Chapter 3.

In this research he was observed to

make the same assertion to U.S. Office of Education staff
including Commissioner Bell.

In an interview for this

study, Dr. Porter's enthusiasm continued.
* Mu r ph y a n d Cohen,

"Accountability

in E d u c a t i o n . "

2 54

We've demonstrated that vie can make a difference in the
lives of children; we can do a helluva lot better job
in improving their performance in the basic skills than
we've done in the past, on an aggregate basis.
T h ere­
fore, I'm not interested in pressing Chapter 3 any more
than I am Title I, cause we've made the point.
It was
a three year experiment to see whether it works and it
obviously works.
And works better than anything else
in the nation . . . And so what I'm now saying to you
and to the Chapter 3 staff and the Title I staff and
the whole compensatory education unit, is that I'm
convinced we can make a difference, in the lives of
the kids and therefore we can reject outright the Jencks
and all the other fellas that says other kinds of things.
One cannot criticize that goal.

The basis of the assertion

will be of interest.
MDE data on Chapter 3 have been collected since the
inception of the program during the 1971-72 school year.
The most recent piece of evidence was the Cost Effectiveness
Study, a summary of which was presented to the State Board
on February 25 of 1975.

The report guardedly identified

some concomitants of higher reading achievement such as p l a n ­
ning time, in-service time, number of hours of instruction
and overall expenditure.

The report was written and verbally

presented to Dr. Porter and the State Board as a beginning,
a conservative beginning.

There was, for example, no

difference--according to the report--between Chapter and
the federal Title I.

Since Title

I costs almost twice as

much, Dr. Porter was quick--as shown earlier--to conclude
that the Michigan program was more cost effective.
This is how MDE has gained attention at the national
level.

Their data collection is apparently effective and

the numbers say the program is working.

MDE is enthusiastic

about making these facts known nationally.

2S5

A professional from the government ’’side of the
street*' was much more cautious.
Their conclusion on Chapter 3 and the compensatory
education stuff, is that money does make a difference.
. . . but only 111 of the three hundred and some chi
square tests t or whatevery they used . . . turned out
to be significant.
That's a pretty small percentage
right there, I mean by change, just by random selection
you should have six of those or five of them out of
the hundred that'll turn out significant.
So first
of all you're dealing with less than overwhelming
results.
Concerning the apparently equal effectiveness of
Chapter 3 and Title I, a staff member reported
I think it appears that way, but we have a much tighter
evaluation design, we insist that every kid be pre-tested
and post-tested and the scores be sent into us and we
do the computations ourselves and we follow through
on the errors to make them clean up the data so we
have very tight evaluation controls.
Title I does not
have that and the other part of it is no one has really
looked at who are the kids being served by Title I and
who are the kids being served by Chapter 3. Chapter 3
is supposed to serve the lowest achievers, we don't
know that that happens in fact because it would take
one hell of an auditing team . . . 112,000 kids, it
would take a huge auditing team to go in and see did
the districts select their lowest achievers for Chapter
3 or is Title I really doing for those kids.
It is clear that the case is not closed.

Still,

through

all of the disagreement and politics it appears that the
expenditure of Chapter 3 m o n e y - -according to the evaluations
school districts provide--is having a positive effect on
the reading and arithmetic scores of many Michigan students.
MDE is an advocate of Chapter 3 and is very willing to
take credit for its success.

256

Interpretation
The first major issue is the penalty clause.

The

MDH used a conflict strategy against the urban school dis
tricts and their powerful lobbying ability.

MDE lost the

battle and lost authority and power in the process.
conflict
Urban Lobby
no resources
This is because a stronger bond was operating.

The Legis­

lature was the intervening member of the environment and the
urban lobby had something to offer that MDE did not.
urban lobby could,

if angered,

reduce votes.

to influence a legislator, it seems.

The

That is the way

For the Legislature

did respond, for three years in a row, with policy decisions
which favored the cities over MDE.

f

9

exchange:

votes
Legislature

Urban Lobby
favorable policy ^

f

No matter how enthusiastic MDE becomes, it is unable to
truly influence state policy making unless it is politically
effective.

But more of that will follow.

As far as the

Legislature is concerned, they have been observed in the two
earlier cases to prefer a small, efficient, but not too

257

pushy education agency.

That truth remains.

To allocate

$112,500 to MDE to operate Chapter 3 suggests that the
Legislature is not very interested in having MDE exercise
aggressive leadership or monitoring.

One staff member is

not enough.
But the data MDE gets is useable to advance the
general notion of rational planning.

It has given the agency

a national reputation as an aggressive and successful organization.^

Thus the agency is able to parley a small

amount of money into a large amount of data and credibility.
The latter seems to have more currency beyond the borders of
Michigan.
exchange:
information and
minimal monitoring
Legislature

MDE
some authority,
some money
The basic exchange is pictured a b ove .

The MDE monitors the

program at a level designed not to seriously disturb the
major cities and gives the Legislature information assuring
that the money is producing results.

The Legislature

provides enough authority and money to accomplish that much
and no more 1
^ Se e M u r p h y a n d C o h e n ,

"Accountability

in E d u c a t i o n . "

259

Professional Development Center(s)
Introduction
The study seeks to identify ways in which they MDE
acts to reduce uncertainty about resources in its environ­
ment.

In the first three cases, the Legislature has been

a consistent source of resources and consequent uncertainty.
Lobbies have played an increasingly large role in the three
cases already discussed.
The PDC issue is new, it has emerged and become im­
portant in less than two years.

There are two aspects to

this young issue which suggest MDE has, at an institutional
level, learned some politics since its earlier ventures.
First, MDE has focused its efforts on the Legislature as a
source of resources, rather than any less clear constitu­
tional provisions.

Second, MDE has taken pains to gain the

support of the other organizations and interest groups which
are potentially affected by the issue.
A professional development center would be a place
where teachers, other professionals, board members and others
could receive training.

It is assumed that a body of know­

ledge exists which can be transmitted.

MDE and the others--

teacher’s organizations, colleges of education and so on-attempted to negotiate a model center for the Detroit area.
It was assumed that a second pilot center would be established
outstate (out of Detroit) soon after.
wide network of centers was envisioned.

Eventually, a state­

260

Planning by the coalition was proceeding--apparently
successfully--during the spring of 197S.

Information d is­

cussions with some legislators h a d t according to MDE staff,
suggested that a million dollars to implement the pilot
effort are forthcoming.

At that time Wayne State University

made an "end run" to the Legislature, requesting that a
million dollars be given to them directly, to implement a
professional development center.
The reaction of the other coalition-members, including
MDE, and the eventual outcome of the conflict, proved MDE
was wise in adopting a coalition strategy.
Text
The term "teacher center" has been a part of educators'
vocabularies for some years.

The first teacher centers were

British and were simply places--likely empty classrooms-where teachers would share coffee, ideas and facilities such
as science or audio-visual preparation areas.

The U.S. Office

of Education was an advocate of the concept as early as 1971
and has funded several variations of the same theme since.
MDE disburses literally millions of dollars yearly
for in-service education, that is, education of teachers who
are graduated, certified and employed.

An Associate Superin­

tendent reported that realization of this fact was recent.
There we realized finally that we were pumping out about
five million dollars in professional level funds annually
already, in about seven or eight different service areas
and we had never really focused in on the fact that we
were doing that.

261

As far as this case study is concerned,

it appears that the

present definition of teacher centers originated within MDE.
When asked how the idea moved from MDE ’’across the street"
the same Associate Superintendent made clear that the process
was a long and evolving one.
. . . we started out five years ago saying they ought
to take 30 million dollars out of the state aid act for
in-service training and it eventually got whittled down
to a million and finally to 150-200 thousand dollars.
It passed the Legislature, by the way, so the ground­
work had been laid with them and the Governor vetoed it.
So we went back . . . t h a t ’s when we started to talk
seriously about the notion of a teacher center or a
professional development center.
These are three assumptions which are crucial to the
MDE definition of a professional development center.
is that teachers are not at present competent.

One

Two is that

there is a body of knowledge which can be transmitted to them
which will make them competent.

Three is that the colleges

of education in Michigan have not been transmitting this body
of knowledge effectively.

These assumptions are verbalized

by a wide variety of persons, as the following quotes will
demonstrate.
It's daily and glaringly becoming obvious that we--our
teachers --are short on being able to allow our students
to become proficient in reading, writing, and communica­
tion skills.
(Legislative staff)
But I must say, the job of training teachers i s n ’t being
done well enough.
Even more importantly, the follow-up
after a person is certificated and graduated is simply
inexcusably lacking.
(State Board member)
And the universities have really been teaching a lot of
garbage in education, your administration over there isn't
going to say this, but I think John Porter would say that

262

most universities and education programs are just
teaching a lot of garbage.
(Legislative staff)
A lot of people have been 'doing their thing in the
classroom.'
I've been on a lot of faculty curriculum
committees and I know that the people who exert influence
in them aren't necessarily the best people in the depart­
ment . . . And these people doing their things in the
classroom are not really concerning themselves with the
performance of the teachers after they leave the college,
they aren't looking at the product they are turning out
. . . (MDE staff member)
It is apparent that there is agreement in Lansing about the
need for better methods of in-service training.
about the best response is harder to find.

Agreement

To follow that,

the narrative must now return to the politics of professional
development centers.
The Detroit Board of Education attempted in 1973-74
to impose a teacher-evaluation model on its staff.

The

evaluation model was called an accountability model

(but was

not really the same model the MDE had been advocating).
For this and other reasons, a teachers'

strike resulted.

The Governor eventually intervened and asked MDE to commission
a study of the accountability efforts to date.

MDE used the

situation to sell the idea of a "teacher center" for the
Detroit area and drew up suggested legislation.’1

This was

presented to a group of representatives of professional organ­
izations in November of 1974.

That meeting was reported to

This was sent to the State Board of Education as
of November 5, 1974 by the Advisory Council for Teacher
Preparation and Professional Development, with several
suggested revisions which would reduce state control.

263

have been rather lively.

Dr. Porter had called and chaired

the meeting which included representatives from major state
interest groups plus Detroit area groups such as the Detroit
School District, the Wayne (County)

Intermediate School Dis­

trict, and the Wayne State University from Detroit.

The

reception accorded the Porter proposal was reported in meta­
phor by another participant from MDE.
We drew up a statute for a state-wide network of centers.
Now irrespective of the goodness or badness of the
statute, it accomplished a purpose by a trick that he
(Porter) often uses and that's to run up the flagpole
something like that and have everybody start taking
shots at it. And he will usually run it up pretty high
on the flagpole and it'll be a pretty good flag and they
don't just take a shot, they'll get out their cannons
and machine guns and everything else and really go after
it.
In effect, what he did at that point was to take a
catalytic role and absorbed a lot of punishment and abuse
in the process . . .
Nevertheless, the group held
A subcommittee was

together and continued to meet.

formed to submit a design.

was called the Detroit Design Team.

This subgroup

It was given support

by MDE, who also paid for a half-time staff associate to
provide continuity.

The staff associate was a faculty member

from Michigan State University who was granted leave by MSU.
One of the first changes was the name; the powerful adminis­
trator and principal groups wouldn't stand for a name like
"teacher center."

Thus the still-unborn organization was

labelled a professional development center.
Recall that ideally MDE wanted to have a network of
centers throughout the state.

Detroit was to be the pilot

effort, where questions of governance and influence and credit

264

would be settled.

The Detroit Design Team was progressing

well on these tasks in the spring of 1975.
ment seemed in the making.

A peaceful se tt l e ­

The Governor was supportive so

long as the resulting proposal was a joint one, approved by
all participants.

But that was the lull before the storm.

That Detroit effort was proceeding along pretty well and
building some coalitions, when Wayne State did an end run
into the appropriations committee for a million bucks.
Now I find out yesterday that Wayne State will get about
$950 thousand if the Senate appropriations committee
has its way.
(MDE staff)
The move was simple and may prove to be effective.
Wayne State University convinced some elected representatives
that they (WSU) could do the job and they needed the money,
both immediately.

So the bill was introduced.

In effect,

the bill would give Wayne State almost a million dollars to
run a professional development center.

Wayne State would have

full control and the other agencies would be left out.
This could have several effects.
would lose any hope of control.

First, the MDE

Second, a College of E d u c a ­

tion- -the very agency the center was to replace--would carry
out the center's function.

Third, the precedent of college

control would be set and might spread through the state.
so, all of the others--MDE,

If

teachers, principals, administra­

tors, board members, intermediates --would have lost the chance
to have a legally assured voice in deciding what would be
taught to in-service teachers in the professional development
centers.

Response was immediate.

26S

Just prior to the next scheduled meeting of the
Detroit Design Team--and just after the end run by WSU--a
meeting was held in Lansing.

Ten state-wide organizations

were represented by their elected leaders and chief officers.
The Superintendent of Education, Dr.

Porter, presided.

He

made his intent to dispense with all but one agenda item
immediately clear.
", . . major issue is that we move
post haste toward the establishment of a technical plan­
ning team to determine whether a teacher center or a
professional development center can be put together
outstate.
Another executive-leve1 staff member had earlier explained
why the interest groups were anxious to move on the "outstate"
center.
. . . the outstate people are now saying to us, 'Well,
let's get going on something outstate and let Detroit
go its merry way, because we don't want Detroit's model;'
what they're really afraid of is that we'll do something
down there and slap that on everybody else.
During the meeting, an interest-group leader supported
the idea of moving ahead on the outstate center.

But he was

also from Detroit and didn't want to give up on that battle.
"This model puts all the control in the hands of the deans
of the colleges of education!"

That, as stated earlier, was

totally contrary to the intent of the interest groups.

The

leader of another--and very powerful--interest group said,
politely but firmly:
What we object to is Wayne State getting a million dollars
to keep on doing what they're doing.
I think we ought to
get on with killing the Wayne State proposal.
Another voice noted that his "membership is adamant that
work begin on the outstate center."

Still another reported

266

that "the position of the _______

is essentially the same

. . ." and so decisions are made.
Dr. Porter, on the calling of the meeting,
said that he was concerned that everyone get this advance
notice of the conflict.
He feared that if they met
cold "next Thursday in Detroit, everybody'd get so angry
we'd lose a y e a r ’s time."
Thus the possible open and emotional conflict was avoided.
And without notes, minutes or anything so formal as a vote,
two decisions were made.

First, the groups would immediately

begin to design an outstate center.

Second,

the lobbying

abilities of many powerful interest groups would be turned
against the Wayne State plan.
accomplished without action,
Porter.

And the latter was literally
support or verbalization by

He just introduced the facts and watched.
What has been the impact of the issue--so far--on

MDE?

One is that the Department's public relations have

improved.
Now the
the bad
now the
Team in

interesting thing about that is, we're usually
guys when we get together with the universities;
last time we met with the so-called Design
Detroit, Wayne State was the bad guy.
(MDE staff)

And, the bill to give the million dollars to Wayne State is
not yet a certainty.

One MDE staff reported conversing with

a legislator as follows:
Except that they said to us yesterday, 'Well, maybe you
guys ought to have control over the funds; we w o n ’t just
give them to Wayne State . . .
Dr. Porter also
mentioned a conversation with a legislator, which suggested
that the bill giving WSU the million dollars could be

267

written requiring that Wayne (1) have MDE approval for
their proposal, and (2) provide an advance guarantee
that the teachers use the center.
Only then would
funds be released.
The other Colleges of Education do not seem to be
as concerned as Wayne.

A representative of Michigan State

University's College of Education is pleased with the con­
cept in its initial form, because it sets a precedent of
general state funds for in-service education.

He believes

the colleges will be sure to get additional business through
contracted courses and it will thus benefit him.

State con­

trol, however, is rejected.
Interpretation
Initially, the Detroit effort was an attempt to
build a coalition which would create a fundable design.

The

assumption was that, if all interested groups agreed on a
plan of action, the Legislature would fund it and the
Governor would not veto it.

Consequently, the professional

development center would come into existence and MDE would
almost certainly retain some control.

The ideal interaction

would have looked like this.
Interest Groups

1

/
MDE

\

Governor and
Legislature
authority, shared
with interest groups

^

____ /

268

However,

the MDE was thwarted by the Wayne State University

end run.

The WSU lobby convinced some legislators to fund

Wayne State and set up another potential coalition including
WSU and some legislators.

This was met by opposition from

interest groups and set up a conflict for the attention of
the remaining majority in the House and Senate.
MDE

+

Interest
Groups

^

conflict

WSU

What is the overall goal of MDE?

+

Sponsors in
the
Legislature

If one adopts a

broad definition such as "leadership and supervision over
K-12

(at least)

in Michigan," then it is possible to get

another view of the PDC issue.

The attempt by MDE to create

and exert control over the professional development centers
constitutes an attempt at annexation.

Teachers are a source

of uncertainty for MDE, since they do not always support
MDE policy.

If MDE were to set up a network of PD Centers,

it could increase its control over the information teachers
receive.

This would, according to MDE staff,

lead to i n ­

creased use by teachers of the methods MDE staff believe are
effective.

MDE already regulates teacher training and cer­

tification, to gain similar control over in-service education
would be a coup.
total control;

At best

(from the MDE view)

they would have

they would annex that source of uncertainty.

At least, and this is more likely, they will share membership
in an ongoing coalition of policy makers.

269

Either way, MDE will be closer to teachers than is
the case now.

To gain any degree of control of in-service

programs would help MDE to reduce uncertainty about the
teachers and other professionals.

But even to have a chance

to communicate and to advocate is a significant opportunity,
for these are also means of reducing uncertainty.
One final note is appropriate.

The Legislature did

not provide any funds to MDE for planning.

What little

money was used for the staff associate position was federal
money from ESEA Title V.

This serves to introduce the three

case studies that make up the rest of this chapter, ESEA
Titles I , I I I , and V.
Summary
A coalition of MDE and several interest groups
sought

(1) compromise and (2) funding from the Legislature.

One member, Wayne State University, left the coalition and
sought to acquire a million dollars from the Legislature.
The coalition,

including MDE, held and prepared to oppose

the WSU end run.

Thus by entering a coalition, MDE reduced

uncertainty concerning the support of the other members-with one dramatic exception.
Post Script
In state politics, events can change very quickly.
In the case of the professional development centers, another
major event has impacted since research was completed.

The

270

PDC bill which is now in the Legislature--and which MDE
staff expect to p a s s --reflects the result of compromise
among the members of the original coalition.
In the most recent arrangement, Wayne State University
will be the fiscal agent for the million dollars.

The

effect of this is that WSU does not have direct control, but
must share authority with the Detroit schools, the inter­
mediate district,

the teachers'

union and others.

Further,

the money is flowed through MDE and so that agency has a veto
over expenditures.

Continuous negotiation between all parties

will undoubtedly be necessary.

It is also likely that the

plans worked on by the Detroit Design Team will resurface,
since a plan for shared governance will be required.
Thus MDE has managed to occupy a crucial position in
a coalition which will manage the PDC in the Detroit area.
This ongoing membership will serve to reduce uncertainty
about the other members regarding the .center and perhaps
other issues too.
Federal Programs and the Michigan
Department of Education
It has been suggested in this study that the federal
government is a major environmental element from which the
Michigan Department of Education acquires resources.

Eleven

of the 13 major service areas of the MDE receive federal
money from the U.S. Office of Education.

Other federal

agencies also provide resources, for example,

the federal

271

lunch and nutrition program and the vocational rehabilitation
program both originate beyond U.S.O.E.*

Of the federal fund­

ing programs, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
(ESEA) has been the largest single source of federal funds
for education since its inception in 1965.

In the 1974-75

school year the Michigan Department of Education will disburse
or retain over $200 million of federal money and almost half
will be ESEA funds.

At one point, the Superintendent said

that, "801 of our budget is federal money.

We could probably

give up the state money and not change what we do here very
much."

In fact, state education agencies are in some r e ­

spects, extensions of the federal U.S. Office of Education
(among others), since the state agencies such as MDE are the
intermediaries in the flow of federal money.
role can vary.

The specific

In some programs the state agencies simply

disburse money according to a predetermined federal formula.
In ESEA Title I, for example, recipients are determined in
Washington, in Congress--not in Lansing.

There are other

programs over which MDE has some discretion.

Operationally,

discretion is the ability to decide how to spend money.
In Title I, almost all regulations are written in Washington
*John W. Porter, "An Exploration of State and Federal
Relationships; the Possibilities and Complications," Lansing,
Michigan:
MDE, October, 1974.
^MDE Fact Sheet, February,
Office,

1975.

3As of April 6, 19 75, according to the MDE Budget
64% of filled positions were federally funded.

272

and MDE has no apparent discretion.

In ESEA Title III,

MDE can add requirements to the money before it is disbursed
to schools on a competitive basis.

At the other end of the

continuum, MDE has almost total discretion over how Title V
funds are spent.
The varying discretion is related to the purposes
of the three titles.

Title I is the federal compensatory

education program and it is the intent of Congress that
Title I money goes to school districts impacted by poverty.
No means of interfering with those highly political dollars
is provided.

Title III is intended to develop, demonstrate

and disseminate new ideas for programs.

It is deemed reason­

able by Congress to grant the state agencies some control
over this experimental fund.
strengthen state agencies.

Title V is intended to
It was the assumption in 1965

that such money should be highly discretionary,
agencies knew their own needs.

that state

Each of these three federal

titles is the subject of a case study here.
It is useful at this stage to review the magnitude
of these federal Titles.

The following are estimated MDE

allocations for 1975-76.
Title I, flow-through to local
Title II,retained by MDE
Title III
Title V
Other ESEA Titles
TOTAL
Total for all federal programs
*From MDE Fact Sheet.

districts

$ 80,000,000
4,000,000
6,454,000
1,175,000
7,371,000
$ 99 ,000 ,000.
$207,327,000

273

It is necessary to ask in advance what the effects of
these funds on MDE might be.

One can conceive of the

federal government as a source of uncertainty, with MDE
acting to acquire resources or power.

It has been shown

that the amount of discretion varies and it is suggested that
discretion is a resource worth seeking.
Alternatively,

it is possible to conceive of MDE

using these funds to reduce uncertainty regarding other
sources of energy in its environment.

Since the majority

of federal money flows to s c h o o l s , it is worth asking whether
MDE is able to use federal funds to reduce uncertainty from
-- to exercise control over--the school districts and p r o ­
fessionals.

The present research has shown this to be the

case and has discovered several means by which this occurs.
In review, MDE receives varying amounts of money and
discretion from the three federal titles:
V.

ESEA I, III, and

It has been asserted that since MDE occupys an intermediate

position between the federal government and the schools that
these funds

(and discretion)

serve two functions.

First,

they are a source of uncertainty in the environment of MDE.
Second,

it is argued that they are used by MDE to reduce

uncertainty from other elements in its environment.

That

these two roles are compatible is demonstrated throughout
the balance of this chapter.

In order to provide more c o n ­

text for that effort, some of the history of ESEA will now
be presented.

274

It was noted earlier in this study that ESEA passed
because of a coalition effort.

One MDE staff member con­

ducted an on-site study of ESEA "as it grew," before he came
to Michigan.

In that study, Dr. Kearney (who is now an

Associate Superintendent with MDE) focused on the role of a
small task force that was selected by Commissioner of Educa­
tion Keppel and appointed by President Johnson.
Johnson appointed his task force in July of 1964.
They
reported to him in November of 1964.
They introduced
the bill actually shortly after the first of the year, .
. . . the thing actually got through the Congress . . .
and he did it in 90 days.
And he just fashioned a lot
of different coalitions.
From the beginning, ESEA was designed to serve a
variety of political masters so it could get enough support
to pass.

That is why ESEA is an amalgam of categoricals

rather than a simple general aid bill.

Granted, the variety

of titles does reflect the variety of needs in education
and Kearney believes that the task force was in part re­
sponsible .
And supposedly, that brain trust was concerned not so
much with politics and putting the whole thing together
in terms of coalitions, but with the substance and the
guts of really what education needed.
The largest component of the Act, Title I, was
concerned with providing aid, by way of an impact formula,
to areas with concentrations of poverty.

This was u n ­

doubtedly a result of the Johnson Administration's concern
with the "War on Poverty."

Since Title I forms such a large

part of the act (and of federal funding), that title does

275

typically receive the majority of attention.

That will c o n ­

tinue to be true here, although the very significant roles
played by the other titles will not be slighted.

It was

impossible for many respondents to separate the impact of
Title I from the general effects of ESEA; this fact also
contributed to the decision to emphasize Title I here.
Title I of ESEA
Introduction
This study is concerned with the means by which MDE
reduces uncertainty in its environment.

It will be shown

in this case study that Title I plays two roles in this re ­
gard.

First, Title I is a resource--and not a totally cer­

tain one.

Thus, from the point of view of MDE, Title I

is an uncertain energy source.

Second, MDE uses Title I

money to reduce uncertainty about other parts of its environ­
ment.
Title I is a compensatory education program whose
funding base depends on poverty.

It gives money to counties

in the U.S. where poverty is concentrated.
are urban areas.

Title I was passed in 1965 by a Democratic

Congress under a Democratic President
urban areas,

Most of these

(Johnson)

to serve

typical locations of Democratic voters.

Massive funding led to massive reporting.

Since

1965, the federal Congress and the U.S. Office of Education
have been increasingly concerned with quantitative

276

evaluations to justify the infusion of federal money.

This

trend has complemented a similar concern within MDE and has
accelerated the MDE tendency to emphasize quantitative data.
MDE regulates Title I in the state but has very
little discretion; the federal regulations and guidelines
exclude major MDE modifications.

A It

administrative allow­

ance is retained by MDE for the reporting and compiling
functions.

One part of the Title, Title I-B, allows MDE

to set guidelines and to use the money more effectively as
it attempts to reduce uncertainty in its environment.
Text
The Title I1 program was established to meet the
needs of students in areas impacted by poverty.

In Michigan,

496 of the 530 school districts received some money from
Title I in 1972-73.

These funds served about 130,000 chil-

dren, almost half of whom were from Detroit.

2

During that

year, about $347.00 per child was disbursed by MDE on behalf
3
of the federal government.
What is it that MDE does with all this money?

MDE

gives it to school districts, according to formulae and
"^Unless otherwise indicated, "Title I” refers to
Title I-A, the basic section.
Migrant is run differently,
for example,and will not be a source of major concern.
^ ______, "MEA Evaluation of the MDE Compensatory
and Experimental Programs,'* (East Lansing, Michigan, Octo­
ber, 1974).
John W. Porter, Memorandum to the State Board of
Education, Lansing, November 5, 1974.

in
guidelines developed in Washington.
funding formula

Congress creates the

which decides who gets how much.

The U.S.

Office of Education adds rules and guidelines which MDE
enforces.

Some form of evaluation is required and reports

to the U.S. Office are also required.
work of the program.

This is the frame­

Attention will now turn to the impact

on MDE of Title I since 1965.
The most obvious impact of Title I--and of ESEA in
general--was the growth of the agency.

The sudden almost

"dumping” of millions of dollars was a source of confusion
at first and it was almost all Title I money.

One Associate

Superintendent described the effects in the early days.
It really had a tremendous influence on the agency, in
terms of size, in terms of posture, in terms of throw­
ing on them a whole new set of roles which they didn't
really know how to handle, at least at that point,
nobody had really started to think out what all that
meant.
One Associate Superintendent, Dr. Ferris Crawford,
has been with MDE since the late 4 0 's.

He recalls that

before ESEA, the Department was more concerned with advo­
cacy, with cooperation and with a consultant role.

His

description of the early days of ESEA tells how the changes
began.
Some of us old timers just did what had to be done.
Job descriptions didn't mean a thing.
I just went
right out of mine and looked after compensatory ed. . .
Meanwhile A1 Kloster was hiring people and 'guys would
come in and say, Mr. Kloster told me to report to
Ferris Crawford' . . . it was like the A 5 P store.
I ’d have to sit down and figure out what this guy
could do.

278

A different Associate Superintendent used different
terms to describe the same level of initial upset.
They were still faced with the mental persuasion of
never having enough money and all of a sudden the
chickens had come home to roost.
Educators had said
’all we need to solve our problems is more money’ and
all of a sudden they had buckets of money and G o d t
they d i d n ’t know what to do with it and t h a t ’s what
happened to this agency, I think.
But the growth was handled it seems.

The agency in

1975 is certainly not in turmoil, at least not in the sense
that it was ten years earlier.

MDE has learned how to be

large, as the balance of this whole chapter will attest.
One change was

in the recruitment of staff, a process that

has become not only more formal, but more intentionally
concerned with diversity.

The same Associate Superintendent

described the transaction.
The other thing; Ira started it and John carried it
out, was the giving of real attention to who you were
hiring for those positions, now they began to get a
little bit of turnover, not a lot, they began-- instead
of running out to rural Michigan--they started going and
getting blacks and guys or gals that had been working
in the large urban areas and with poor kids and with
black kids and with--quote--educationally deprived
kids ;
"Ira" refers to the previous Superintendent, Dr.
Ira Polley and "John" is the present Superintendent, Dr.
John Porter.

The change in staffing patterns is important

in itself, but also in what it reflects.

Title I focused

the attention of a previously rurally oriented agency on
the cities where most of the Title I funds were spent.
Thus the emphasis on diverse staffing and especially the

279

recruitment of minorities, paralleled the changing focus of
MDE, changing to take new notice of the cities and their
diverse people and problems.
That was long before the affirmative action phenomenon
began to have legal impact on agencies receiving federal
funds.

So not only was the agency made larger, but its

make-up was altered.

The rural became often urban, the pre­

dominantly white, male agency added at least some blacks and
women.

All of this was accomplished in the case of Title I

by a 1% administrative allowance.

If changing the face of

MDE had been a goal of ESEA, the money would have been
demonstrably well spent.
The changes went well beyond si2e and demography.
It is clear that the role of MDE has changed also.

To a

large extent, the regulation of federal money has become a
primary MDE function.
ferently than pre-1965.

This has required that MDE act dif­
For example, MDE must provide more

than just money to the school districts.

The Director of

Title I identified the following major tasks.
. With the money goes responsibilities.
We have a re­
sponsibility to provide technical assistance to local
districts, to conduct programs in accordance with
federal regulations and state board policy . . .
There's a matter of working with local districts to
develop P Os, to get a design that will measure the
progress, which means pre-tests, post-tests, there's
a matter of assembling all this in a report' there's
a matter of identifying successful delivery systems
so that they can be disseminated to districts that
are in need of them.

280

It is important to note that questions of evaluation,
measuring and reporting are recurring issues.

These are

huge sums of public money and must be accounted for.

To

Congress and the federal agencies which act for them, solid
information that money given was well spent is politically
very valuable.

Representatives and Senators want to get r e ­

elected and proof that they spend public money effectively
is likely to be useful.

What is the impact of this dual

task, of disbursing money and seeking positive evaluations.
Title I helped to push the Michigan Department of
Education into a regulatory role. No matter how you
slice it, T-I has regulations and if programs are not
conducted in accordance with the regulations, you're
subject to audit exceptions.
And therefore the staff,
much as they would like to be strictly curriculum
people, have to be concerned with regulations.
While the speaker is the Title I director, the complaint
was heard in many other places.

While some old-timers

bemoaned the loss of collegial relations with the field,
others welcomed the chance to have legal authority, to
exert power.

Title I made it necessary that many people

be involved in the latter task.

The director continues:

Secondly, I think that T-I is probably the major
program that has influenced the rise of the research,
evaluation and assessment organization.
This refers to Research, Evaluation and Assessment Services,
one of the larger service areas within MDE.

The size of

that subsystem--36 people, $1,691,400 last year--documents
the commitment of the agency to those tasks.

There is not

likely to be a reversal of that trend, at least so far as
Title I is concerned, according to its director.

281

I think we 're going to be more involved in program
decisions based on the evaluations and I think its
going to get down to the building level soon.
We may­
be making program evaluations at the building level.
Building-level evaluations have already been proposed to the
State Board and are under study.

If MDE were able to fund

by building and collect data by building, the potential
for regulation would be enhanced.

This would be consistent

with the trend of MDE and Title I toward increasingly more
careful measurement of cognitive growth.
It is not only Title I programs which are subject
to evaluation.

Evaluation has become an institutionalized

concern, according to another senior staff member.
. . . it's also led to the point where now we do a lot
of evaluation in compensatory e d . , we're going some in
general e d . , there’s a real push on to do it in special
ed and there's a push to do more on voc. e d . , in other
w o r d s , that whole notion of finding out who gets what
dollars for what and what happened has kind of started
to permeate not only this whole agency, but all of
education . . .
The emphasis on evaluation seems to have been either initiated
or enhanced by ESEA money,

especially Title I.

When the

Michigan Compensatory Program followed and later became
Chapter 3, stringent reporting requirements were imposed.
The sum of these two programs is a compensatory education
capability with large potential impact.

One Associate

Superintendent summarizes as follows;
What you've got now, partly as a result of Title I,
is more of an agency concern with the whole area of
compensatory education and you certainly have much
more potential for the agency to do things, since
there's $60 million there, plus another $22-23 million

282

in the state program (a-1 since T-I, the $60 million is
T-I money).
You're talking there of $70-80 million
over which the agency has considerable control in terms
of getting it out into the districts . . .
These are large changes in the agency, especially since
all MDE gets is a 1% administrative allowance.

But that is

not the only part of Title I available to MDE.
There is another section of Title I which gives
MDE a resource as valuable as money:

discretion.

Title

I-B goes only to districts that survive three qualifying
cuts.

The first is effort and the second is intensity of

poverty level.
to add.

The third appears to be whatever MDE wants

Last year, according to the director of Title I,

we did set some criteria that were approved by the
State Board of Education.
It was that districts would
use this money for management systems for individual­
izing instruction, e.g., It would be a system that uses
performance objectives, that has an individualized
approach, has a method of keeping track of students*
progress . . .
In summary,

the MDE required applicants to adopt its Account­

ability Model and to do so using a diagnosis-prescription
type of system.

This subsection was worth $2.8 million

in 1973-74 and slightly less in 1974-75.

The funds allowed

MDE to run some valuable and expensive experiments and to
advocate their Accountability Model, both at federal expense.
Thus MDE in fact manages to retain more than the simple 1$
administrative allotment.

It is interesting and not surpris­

ing that the Title I-B money was spent in a way that com­
pensated the directions and themes already present and e n ­
couraged by the major section, Title I-A.

283

MDE does not have to extend itself to be certain
of these funds.

Title I money, whether I-A or I-B, is at

least as certain as state funds.

Only an action by Congress

could create a major change and the MDE keeps track of C o n ­
gress in several ways.
liaison (translation:
week in Washington.

First, the MDE employs a full-time
lobbyist) who spends three days a

Second, the Council of Chief State

School Officers maintains via computer and telephone links,
almost instantaneous communication with their memberships.
Third, MDE staff and Superintendent Porter most of all are
regularly in D.C. and in touch with representatives and
senators who regularly influence education.

Thus MDE has

several intelligence-gathering strategies to reduce what
little uncertainty about Title I might exist.
While there is little uncertainty about actual
funding of Title I, there is uncertainty about the extent of
MDE control and discretion over the money.
the funding base--is entwined here.

A second issue--

When Title I was

created, it was created as an anti-poverty program as part
of the War on Poverty of the Johnson Administration.

The

allocation formula is a type of impact aid*, that is, counties
having heavy concentrations of poverty are given funds.

But

that isn't all, according to the MDE director of Title I.
Title I is very restrictive about who can be served.
. . . First they have to establish target areas.
They
have to have documented their target a r eas. . . . then
when you go within the schools that are eligible, there
has to be a needs assessment.
This will determine which

284

children are the low achievers . , . the lowest achievers.
These are the ones who can be served.
. . . when we
know their needs, it is quite flexible as to how we
meet their needs.
Thus Title I serves students who are poor and academically
unsuccessful.

The Director continues:

Many times I've smiled about the push to put money where
the low achieving kids are; were already there.
This disagrees with the advocates of a switch to an academic
funding base, like that of Chapter 3.

Chapter 3 funds only

on the basis of low academic achievement.

But a concentra­

tion of low achievement is needed and this is why the re­
sult is often the same, "because the concentrations of low
achieving students are in the areas where there are high con­
centrations of low-income children."

(MDE Title I director)

This issue is relevant to the problem of communicat­
ing with the federal government.

The Republicans in the U.S.

Senate are interested in changing Title I to an academic fund­
ing base.

Senator Qwee

in that move.

(R. Minn.) has been the largest voice

Logic has it that such a change would move

at least some Title I money into the suburbs because many
students there achieve poorly.

The fact that Title I was

passed by a Democratic majority and serves urban centers
where Democratic support is strong is not lost on the Repub­
licans .
One of the professional staff who works for the
Senate Minority (Republican) Committee is Chris Cross.

Cross

visited Michigan late in 1974 to exchange ideas with MDE staff.

285

In a day-long visit, Cross met with several MDE personnel
whose interests were in assessment and compensatory programs.
He was told of the Michigan experience and the benefits of
an academic funding base.

He was also told of the success

of Chapter 3 and the fact that MDE agreed Title I should
move to an academic funding base.

It was also noted that

the Title-I-Migrant program is subject to extensive state
control.

This was viewed by all present as a good thing,

which is not surprising in light of this case study to date.
Cross was not hopeful of legislative changes in the
near future which would enhance the role of MDE.

"There is

a strong anti-state bias among the Democrats," he said,
"they just don't trust the states."
In general, Cross was assured that MDE supported
the intent of the minority proposal and in turn MDE received
a lot of news of present and pending events in the Congress.
The interchange was thus mutually beneficial.
Earlier in the year, a much larger exchange occurred.
The U.S. Office of Education invited two states to come to
D.C. and tell O.E. about their programs.

Texas and Michigan

were chosen as the two innovative and potentially interesting
state agencies.

There were two days of presentations and

a private administrative seminar with Commissioner Bell and
his deputies.

Only the MDE Executive Council plus the MDE

lobbyist attended that invitational session.
three days one theme recurred:

Throughout the

the U.S. Office should

286

increase the power of MDE with respect to the locals in order
to improve education.

The following several examples will

illustrate and document the theme.
Dr. Porter presented a summary of MDE-federal inter­
action to the USOE members at the administrative seminar.
Under "What the Office of Education Can Do for Us to Help
Improve Our Program," the following ideas appeared.
1.

There should be active involvement of depa r t ­

ment staff in developing the new rules for ESEA Title I.
2.

There should be greater emphasis on educational

disadvantagement rather than socio-economic status for
identifying target groups
3.

(for Title I)

. . .

Section 731 of PL 93-380 requires

uation of programs funded under the act.

We

. . . eval­
. . . support

. . . and advise the Commission not to bypass state e d u c a ­
tion agencies in this activity . . . make available to
state education agencies funds and appropriate guidelines
for conducting the required evaluations.*
In fairness, it must be noted that the MDE document
included several ideas as to how the state agencies could
help themselves also.

The emphasis, though, was on the role

of USOE--that was the purpose of the meeting!

It is evident

that MDE views OE as a potential source of both power and
legal authority.

A large number of the MDE suggestions had

*John W. Porter, "An Exploration of State and Federal
Relationships."

287

to do with increased input and requests that USOE enhance
the authority and discretion of the states.

Money was in

fact a secondary issue according to the items MDE staff
submitted.
In another session in D.C. concerning compensatory
education, an Associate Superintendent from MDE said he
would like to be able to have a sign-off on Title I appli­
cations before they are sent to D.C.

At present, the state

agencies may require an evaluation design, but have little
control over locals beyond that.

The money in effect passes

by them.
In the Administrative Seminar, Superintendent Porter
complained about the present lack of control (by MDE) over
Title I and other federal programs.

He said that every­

thing "the feds" do to enhance local control hurts the state
agencies.
Porter showed the audience in that Seminar a diagram
showing the elements which interferred with MDE efforts to
influence children, in his view.

His assertion was that all

of the interest groups and established professionals form a
chain, a barrier (which is similar to that suggested by
Iannacone1) to his attempts to innovate.

"The chain must

be loosened so we can get down to classrooms and down to
^Iannacone, Politics of Education, especially the
contention that established persons and systems in education
tend to function as closed systems.

288

children and youth."

The idea that a richer, more powerful

MDE could be more successful was made very clear.
One of the federal staff suggested that Congress
was the source of anti-state feeling.

It is there the

laws which by-pass the state agency originate, he said,
because some "don't trust the states as far as they can
throw them!"
In his concluding remarks, Superintendent Porter
said, "We need your help to do what you agree with, cause
a lot of people are against us."

And with that, Michigan

Education Week concluded also.
The summary from this point of view is that MDE
took advantage of a chance to advocate their methods and to
advertise their needs.

Short-term rewards included about

a hundred thousand dollars "captured" by an associate as
a result of his presence in D.C. and several new or improved
communication links.

The long-term benefits can only be

inferred at this stage.

Certainly, improved information

and communication must be regarded as desirable outcomes by
themselves.

The meeting served to reassure both agencies

that they had common goals and methods and that there were
still untried means of mutual support which could be inves­
tigated.
Interpretation
There is little uncertainty about the continuation
of Title I.

It is also likely that MDE will continue to

269

receive its I t

allotment to administer and evaluate.

Even

though this money does not add to the discretion of MDE,
the emphasis on evaluation matches that of MDE and thus
argues and extends

its cause.

All MDE need provide in re­

turn is credible information concerning money well-spent.
»

—

/

excha nge:

information

MDE

U.S. Office,
Congress

\

limited funds and
focus on evaluation

The strategy is one of simple exchange, then.
Title I-B is less simple.

MDE is given a lot of

discretion to use federal money to further its own ends
and hopefully,

those of children.

(The focus on "What's

in it for MDE?" is not intended to imply any lack of concern
on their part for the cognitive growth of students.)

MDE

can use Title I-B to experiment, to get local districts to
try the MDE model and to create demonstration projects which
can later be advocated and disseminated.
exchange:

money
School Districts

MDE
\

compliance, expertise,

information

^

/

So the model is still one of exchange, but it is slightly
more complex.

Generally,

the outcome for MDE is that it

290

gets to spread the word about programs
the Accountability Model in general.

it advocates, about
Having school d i s ­

tricts try out these ideas may reduce the chance that they
will oppose MDE, at least to some degree.
In both of the above cases there has been little
uncertainty about the behavior of the U.S. Congress or U.S.
Office of Education,

that certain money is used, in the case

of Title I-B, to reduce uncertainty concerning local d i s ­
tricts.

But not all aspects of the federal scene are so

consistent.

The interactions with Cross and with the U.S.

Office were both in pursuit of other less certain goals;
increased federal dollars and increased power for MDE and
for increased support of MDE from the point of view of
the o t h e r s .
There is all sorts of potential.

The Republicans

could get their bill through and Title I would move to an
academic base.

In the eyes of MDE, this would be a victory

and might also increase their power.

Whether MDE would in

the end have more power would depend on the language of the
bill.

Certainly the MDE argument would get a hearing.

In

the case of the U.S. Office, the MDE is offering the same
bargain.

MDE wants control and would like to align with

USOE on goals.

The mutual support would strengthen the

ability of both to regulate local districts.
there is a potential exchange.

In both cases

291

exchange:

lobbying support,
information
Republicans

favorable policy,

legal authority

<•

But only potential.
These can hardly be labelled as true exchanges since
there was no exchange beyond that of promise, of suggested
future contracts.

Yet MDB did advocate and advertise and

gathered much information in return.

Both interactions

contained a negotiating component; they were actions prer e q ­
uisite to exchange or other cooperative strategies involving
firm organizational commitment.

-- >
-- f

MDE

— -♦

This is illustrated below.

advocate

f

communicate v —

Environment

negotiate

There will be no attempt to integrate this at this
stage, because additional examples occur later in this study.
This will serve notice, though, that some modification of
the list of 13 strategies seems to be needed.
Summary
MDE exchanges information for federal money.
is little uncertainty about that arrangement.

There

The Title I

emphasis on evaluation has been complementary to MDB p r e ­
dispositions.

MDE expertise gained by administering both

292

Title I and Chapter 3 has made MDE a valued ally of the U.S.
Senate Republicans.

Discretion available in Title I-B has

allowed MDE to develop and advocate their own rational
planning "Accountability" model.

This

increases the ability

of MDE to reduce uncertainty about the schools and their
support for MDE programs.
Title III
Introduction
This research is concerned with learning how MDE
reduces uncertainty in its environment.

In the case of

Title III, it is discretion which is the resource provided
to MDE that achieves this goal, in part.
Title III is the part of ESEA which is designed to
develop new methods of educating children.

Title III funds

may be expended for identifying or developing new "delivery
systems."

Funds are also used for evaluating and validating

these delivery systems and for dissemination and adoption.
The role of the state agency is one of an informed advocate.
In the case of MDE

(at least)

this "informed" def­

inition is based on highly quantifiable data.

Projects are

evaluated by two sets of outsiders before validated status
is granted.

Then, selected validated delivery systems are

advocated and disseminated.

The measurement emphasis exists

in the U.S. Office and matches the predispositions of MDE.
MDE loyally passes on to the participating

(i.e. funded)

293

school districts both the general emphasis on quantifica­
tion and their own Accountability Model version of planning
and evaluating.

MDE. h a s , because of the federal regulations,

considerable opportunity to add state-level priorities to
requirements for funding.

This discretion is used to re­

duce uncertainty in several ways.
Text
In 1965, when ESEA was passed, its major concern was
with compensatory education for children living in poverty
conditions.

Consequently the bulk of the money which was

appropriated went to school districts which were impacted
by poverty-level families.

Beyond this, there were several

supplementary titles of which Title III was one.
Title III was intended to help districts develop
"innovative and exemplary" methods for helping children
learn.

The emphasis here was not so restricted to low-

income students, although they were a major audience.

An

MDE staff member who was with MDE at the time offered the
following retroactive rendition of the motives of the 1965
Congress.
Now they said, I don't think school districts know much
about this; they haven't dealt with compensatory pro­
grams before.
The idea's good, but who knows a damn
about it, what strategies work and what don't work;
we'll have an experimental program going on here . . .
if we know some things work, we ought to replicate them
around the country . . . so we produced an E and D
act, and that's Title III.

294

However folksy, the description does match the outcome as
will be shown here.

The federal Congress provided for a

"research and development" component in education with
particular concern for finding new methods in compensatory
education.
In order to carry out this function in Michigan,
*

MDE has created an administrative subsystem called the
Experimental and Demonstration Centers

(E and D) Program.

In theory, this unit has goals similar to ESEA Title III
but can receive funding from various sources,
state sources.

including

In fact, as of May 1975, almost all support

for the E and D program was from Title III.

Since in terms

of funding the E and D program is really the Title III
program, the two can be considered as one for purposes of
this discussion.

We are interested in what Title III does

and what it does is fund the E and D program.

The outcome

is the same.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed
on April 1 1 , 1965.

The speed with which the bill moved was

mentioned earlier in connection with Title I.

The U.S. Office

of Education did not have much time to write their guidelines
before they were

suddenly

millions of dollars.

This

on the spot, ready to disburse
lack of time to look ahead may

have contributed to some of the problems that arose later,
particularly with Title III.

295

Title III was written in unrestrictive language to
encourage experimentation, not federal direction.
agencies had two choices.

The state

They could pass the money on

virtually untouched in terms of restrictions.
impose further control at the state level.

Or, they could

One Associate

Superintendent who was with MDE in the 6 0 's advocated that
state controls be added then.
. . . and I proposed to the Board that it ought to take
some strong positions as to what it would fund.
It
ought to decide where the major weaknesses were, it ought
to decide in accordance with an assessment of major
problems and weaknesses within our system and it ought
to put some money into some experimental and demonstra­
tion projects in those areas, in order to beef them up.
One member of the State Board intervened vehemently in favor
of an unrestricted pure-grant format that the proposal to
control was defeated.
This state of Michigan has had a long history in the
minds of people that they control their own local educa­
tion system and they wanted to be free to spend the
money like they wanted to spend it, as if it were put
on a stump and t h e y ’ve had a long-standing belief that
th a t ’s inherent in their right.
And, of course, I don't
think other states quite believe that, except maybe for
Indiana.
Given that, it's not surprising that we were
maybe a little more loose than others at the first.
Some years later, however, the State Board had changed enough
that a new policy was implemented.

MDE could determine

major state priorities each year and could restrict most
funding to those categories.

For example, a single year

could be dedicated to reading, to mathematics, to affective
projects, or to evaluation models.
program operates in this way.

As of 1975, the E and D

296

In the meantime, the Title III program continued
as a grant program without any systematic control by the
State Department.

Projects were chosen for funding by an

advisory group of educators and lay persons from beyond MDE.
State Board approval was then required.

While the agency

did have some discretion, there was not a lot of direction
given.

Advocates of a directed program have called the early

Title III program a "pork barrel," and accused it of rampant
cronyism.

An Associate Superintendent who came to MDE in

the late 60's reported attending a Title III conference
where project directors and MDE staff were present.
was like old home week!" he said.

"It

He was very critical of

these early programs and was enthused about the fact that
"that’s all cleaned up now."
It is not possible to know whether these charges
are accurate.

It is interesting nevertheless to observe

the attitude of newer members of MDE about that earlier,
less formal and less quantified period.

Whether or not

there was abuse, the hint of it helped to make the case
for control of project goals and for increasingly rigorous
evaluation.
Even if funds were mismanaged, control of the goals,
the major topics of the projects would not be a necessary
solution.

Control and monitoring of financial responsibil­

ity and requirements that money really got to the projects
would have been more appropriate.

But the hints of abuse

297

combined with the general growth--as described here--of
evaluation, assessment, testing and a general cognitive
emphasis won out.

The discretion which had earlier been

passed on to schools was now assimilated by MDE.

The

state began to restrict goals year by year and the emphasis
on evaluation increased.
Dr. Crawford, who was with MDE before and after
1965, reported that the school districts did not seriously
object to their loss of discretion.
Oh, they'd had the first blush.
And some of our school
boards were sick of projects that they weren't sure of
and then getting challenged at the end, for having no
defensible results.
I think there was a general change
in attitude of the applicants, knowing that it was time
to get out and hoe corn.
Those first years, I think
everyone had their hand stuck out for money and they
were hiring people right and left and in my opinion
being very irresponsible in using the money.
Apparently there was no effective opposition to the
increased control MDE exerted.

The implications of that

legal ability to control Title III funding will now be
examined.
An executive-level staff members from MDE reported
that
Well . . . we don't look too seriously at applications
unless they follow the prescribed six-step accounta­
bility model program.
It has introduced the concept
of accountability to local school districts.
This gives MDE some general control in that they can use
Title III to advocate and require adoption of their planning
model.

There are, though, more specific ways in which

power can be "skimmed off" Title III dollars.

298

When asked how, specifically, a state agency adds
its own priorities as a filter, on top of Title III, the
director of the E and D Program replied as follows.
Well, you see under the federal regulations, we can
establish our own priorities . . . each year we do a
needs assessment throughout the state, getting the
perceived needs of superintendents; one year it might
be fine arts, another year it might be math . . . so
that we establish our own state priorities for funding
and we're allowed to do that for Title III, so that we
can in essence cut down the competitive nature of it
by limiting the categories of funding.
...This year
we were talking about delivery systems analysis, we
were asking school districts to, in terms of whatever
grant they were interested in, reading or math, or
social studies, what have you, to analyse for us their
procedures for deciding what alternative systems they
want; the analytical procedures they went through and
how they evaluated that procedure.
So we're still
getting all kinds of projects . . . but we're asking
each one of them to document for us the analytical
procedure they used in terms of the six-step model.
This clarifies the general method of operation.

MDE can

focus the six million dollar annual share of Title III as
they wish.

From these general guidelines,

the advisory

council chooses projects which are, in turn, subject to
Board approval.
How else does Title III help to advance the MDE
model?

One group of converts is called the 6/5 (pronounced

six-five) schools.
In fact, we have a Title III consortium this year, made
up of the 6/5 schools and we're funding them and we've
hired a consortium manager who's going to document the
procedure and package the instruments and everything
else, just using the six-step model, not telling them
what material to use, or what PO's to use or anything
else, just documenting how a local school can use the
system to improve instruction.

299

It's going to be housed in Waterford, because the con­
sortium manager is going to be there . . . and that's
Marilyn . . .
. . . and Waterford is going K-12 Accountability and
we're funding three other school districts --Sault Ste.
Marie, Grand Rapids and Wayne Westland, to work into
the system at Waterford and use Marilyn as a consultant.
And Marilyn is going to try to coordinate the activities.
And those three school districts are only going to do
it at the elementary level.
Then there are eight other
school districts that we are funding at a very minimal
level, sort of on the periphery of the circle and they're
going to observe and contribute what they have done
with the packages and the bank of materials and this
kind of thing.
These eight other districts are mostly large and influential
urban school districts, so this opportunity to influence them
is significant.

And it was done with Title III money.

Thus

Title III gave MDE a chance to play its advocate role and
a chance to involve some major clients with its model.

This

may help to reduce uncertainty associated with those school
districts.
There are still other nuances to the Title III story.
While the uses of Title III above are relatively controlled
by the agency, there are even more controlled methods of
applying money.

One is contracted research and development.

The director described how this is done.
We have discretionary monies under our administrative
monies that we can contract for special kinds of activ­
ities.
For example, we contracted for the development
of a document called "Accountability,
a Management
Tool for Teachers;" we're contracting with Bloomfield
Hills and Westwood School District to do a comparative
study on the implementation of the six-step Accountabil­
ity Model.
That's a contract, it's not a competitive
grant, it's a contract between us and those school
districts.
We've also contracted with Batelle,Incorpor­
ated to do a process model for the generating of affect­
ive objectives.

300

In cases like this, the MDE can determine exactly what project
Title III money will be applied to.

In the examples listed

above, MDE contracted for services which would support their
advocacy of the Accountability Model.

Title III money,

especially this latter very discretionary section, thus
served to support the general goals of the agency and to in­
crease their competence in those areas.
The concept of an Experimental and Demonstration
Center implies that someone--or some agency--has determined
that something is worth demonstrating.

In the case of the

E and D program of the Department of Education, the agency
assumes it knows what should be demonstrated and uses Title
III money to do so.
For example, the E and D concept requires a multi­
stage filtering process.
be validated.

After being funded, projects must

This entails essentially an audit of a project's

evaluation data by an independent person or agency.

Then

an MDE classification committee finally decides which projects
shall become demonstration sites.
The good data plus the impact for implementation is what
we're really looking for.
And when we get that validated
data, we can nominate some as demonstration sites, staff
nominates them, that doesn't come from the field.
This point is crucial--it is the MDE staff who decide what
shall be "demonstrated."

And only demonstration-level

projects can be eligible for adapter/adopter grants.

This

simple means that if a school district likes an idea, it can
apply for some Title III funds to implement the idea.

But

301

this only applies to ideas which MDE staff have
approved.
On this same.topic,

the Superintendent responded

to a challenge from a colleague who had said that the E
and D Centers were "the same as the old Resource Centers
we had 30 years ago."
Dr. Porter replied that the E and D Centers are to
be "new, significantly different

...

in a resource center

you're responsible to what the people out there want to
demonstrate

. . . we can demonstrate out of this office

what makes a difference."
One of the things that the MDE regularly demonstrates
is its preference for cognitive projects.

Three years ago

an ad hoc committee of MDE staff and field personnel success­
fully pressured the agency to fund some projects dealing
with the affective domain according to a former director of
the E and D program. ".

. . we literally went back to the

files and searched for projects to fund.

B

had been

high on the list before, so it was chosen."
When an executive-level staff member was asked why
most Title III projects have cognitive goals, he replied,
"You know why?

Because they're easier to measure!"

He also

mentioned other sources of criticism.
The MEA has said that for some time, "all you're doing
is testing the cognitive.
How about the affective
domain?"
That was a good way of attacking accountabil­
ity .

302

It appears that MDE has regularly used Title III
funds to reduce uncertainty in their environment.
cally,

Specifi­

they have used this money to advance and advocate

their view of how educational planning should occur--the
Accountability Model.
year,

Title III money has bought MDE, each

almost six million dollars worth of focus on cognitive

goals, a large collection of materials and a lot of exposure
for the MDE Accountability Model.

What has this done to

the structure and priorities of the agency in the years
since 1965?
The effect of Title III has been similar to that of
Title I.

The agency has had to regulate the federal money

it has disbursed.

It has had to provide increasingly more

rigorous reports to the federal government via the U.S.
Office of Education.

Consequently, measurement and evaluation

have become priorities of the agency.

Perhaps the emphasis

on measurement and rational planning is a result of federal
requirements of that type.

Or on the other hand, perhaps

MDE uses the necessary regulating and measuring activities
which accompany federal money to retroactively justify its
own predisposition in that direction.

It is simply too

late to sort out the direction of influence.
possible to describe the results of the union.
federal money, has changed.

It is, however,
MDE, using

The outcomes are described by

four MDE staff, three of whom are executive-level staff,
the other is the director of the Title III program.

303

The MDE staff do agree that the agency has taken a
more regulatory stance.
Any time that you invest in an agency power through
control approval, funding approval, any of these things,
you enhance the regulatory aspect of it, and the agency
gets to thinking along that line.
I separate the word
"service*1 from " r e g u l a t i n g a n y time you're regulating
somebody y o u ’re not providing him a service.
So I think
we have gone from a service agency largely, except for
certain laws we had to enforce, to one of control.
Money, and the controls that went with it, brought
regulatory powers and we just lapped it up.
And I think
our Department as a whole . . . sees itself as regulatory.
An Associate Superintendent perceived that Title III had
been influential in that change.
I think Title I caused this agency really, eventually,
to get serious about the whole question of evaluation,
as did Title III.
While we d o n ’t do an ideal or perfect
job yet, I think the evaluation work that's now being
done is far superior to where we were not long ago and
for a good example of that, read the latest Title III
evaluation . . .
The Director of E and D Program suggested how Title III was
continuing to impact on the agency.
Well, if it hadn't been for Title III this whole move
toward identifying successful practices would not have
occurred.
Title III itself is unique in that t h a t ’s
its objective; finding promising educational practices.
So I think that the whole direction that the State D e ­
partment's taking right now is because of the impact of
Title III.
This refers especially to the demonstration concept, whereby
the agency would take an advocate--rather than a regulatory-role.

But the methods of thorough measurement of p r e ­

specified objectives would remain, because the gauntlet
projects must run to achieve demonstration status is highly
quantitative.

Evaluation is still the key activity.

304

Concerning the level of ability of the districts
and their projects, the Deputy Superintendent was quite
supportive.
They're becoming more sophisticated than they were.
But they a r e n ’t to the point where all of us are really
happy with them yet.
They will be.
I think if you
give us another year or two years, they'll all have
rather sophisticated means of measuring the progress,
to really determine whether or not the program is worth
a damn, whether the program really did what it was in­
tended to do.
Now as a local school superintendent, I
would have to sell these projects to my constituency
or to my board of education.
Now, unless . . . you can
show me that what you did in that particular program,
a way of measuring progress, I ’d have a heck of a time
selling my board of education, on using that program,
on spending money . . .
These are not the idle reflections of dissatisfied staff.
These are the perceptions of the a g e n c y ’s roles according
to the people who act for M D E , the people who decide how
its human and financial resources will be spent.

Title 1

and Title III will bring over $86 million to (and through)
the Department next school year.
ing.

That is a lot of regulat­

No matter what is the origin of the desire to be reg­

ulatory,

the disbursement and monitoring of $86 million

requires the agency to behave in that fashion.

It has been

shown here that senior MDE staff perceive that the whole
agency is more regulatory now than before ESEA, perhaps
because of ESEA.
Interpretation
Title III money,

like all federal funds, comes from

the U.S. taxpayers via action by the Congress.

As far as

*

305

the Congress is concerned, money well spent may mean public
support, votes, and fulfillment of whatever expectations
they held for the program.

Thus the minimal role that

Congress requires the U.S. Office and the state agencies to
play is regulatory.

Someone has to monitor the money and

report to Congress that it was spent according to the intent
of Congress and hopefully that it had some impact.

Thus the

basic relationship between MDE and the federal government
is a rather simple exchange, money for reports.
exchange:

information,
reports

MDE

Congress and
U.S. Office
__

money plus discretion

«____ /

Barring some flagrant abuse, there is no real uncertainty
about the continuation of this resource.
The state agencies have more discretion over Title
III than Title I and are also able to use some Title III
money for contracted services.

This is an even stronger role

than that mentioned earlier regarding Title I-B.

The two

are complementary in that both advocate structured planning
and evaluation models.
The discretion and money that MDE retains from Title
III are used to increase the options MDE has, to engage in
activities it otherwise couldn't afford.

In the cases above

MDE exercised some control over all Title III project goals

306

and methods.

Thus, for the projects funded by MDE with

Title III money this year, the analysis of delivery systems
is no longer a source of uncertainty.

It will be done.

The decision about control of that phase of the projects
was simply removed by MDE.

The discretion of local dis­

tricts in this regard approaches zero.
contracted services.

The same is true with

There is no discretion about the out­

come, it is pre-specified and paid for.*

The interaction

could be illustrated as follows.

f

P

exchange:

money
School Districts

MDE
compliance, expertise,

information

The impact of Title III can be summarized differently.
Two other strategies are suggested, one of which is
new.

First, Title III can be viewed as having increased

the capacity to respond of MDE; it has allowed MDE to in­
crease its options.

The agency has gained a significant

amount of information and expertise and has become more
complex.
It is not accurate to consider this a form of annexation since no one is forced to comply--the districts can
simple choose not to apply for Title III funds.
Conse­
quently the exchange category was emphasized.

307
1*

resources

>

MDE
~

"*

-

This is similar to the process of anabolism, mentioned
earlier, or to the concept of creating organizational slack
as described by Cyert and March.1
Second, the agency has used the Title III money
to advocate specific methods of operation.

To date, little

of this has been done, but the whole demonstration center
concept revolves around an advocate stance.

It is the same

as advertising and (hopefully) creating a demand for one's
product.

By funding the 6/5 consortium, the Department has

added to its own resources in that staff can refer to the
support of the 6/5 schools.

In one of the six regional

workshops MDE held to explain and advocate its Accountability
Planning Model, staff did exactly that, the support of the
6/5 school was proclaimed very clearly by MDE personnel.
It is the hope of MDE that more districts will be convinced
by this advocacy to support the policies of MDE and perhaps
to."try them on."

The ideal, from the point of view of

MDE, is illustrated.
advocacy
MDE

\

^
" c h o o l Districts

^

experimentation, compliance, support
1Cyert and March, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm.

308

Also, the schools

themselves are more likely to

become advocates of the process they have been involved
in developing.

While this is not truly co-optation, since

MDE does not give up any of its own decision making ability,
there are similarities of form.

MDE does fund the consor­

tium, but on the other hand cannot totally regulate the
way in which the schools interpret and adapt the MDE model.
So MDE loses some control but gains some support, potentially.
quasi-co-optation
MDE

6/5 Schools
support, compliance, experimentation
The uncertainty about the reaction of these schools

to MDE

has been, at least for the moment, reduced.
There is little uncertainty about the continued

flow of federal Title III money to MDE.

Title III helps

MDE reduce uncertainty about the school districts,
it provides

(1) regulatory power over applicants,

in that
(2) funds

to maintain MDE, and (3) discretion about how some of the
money may be spent.

MDE assumes a regulatory role and an

advocacy role with respect to schools as a result of Title
III .
Title III has been shown to be important to MDE,
and it

has been argued that the reason is discretion.

The

ultimate case of discretionary money, however, it not Title
III, but the next
V.

(and last) case within this chapter, Title

309

Summary
MDE has used its legal powers regarding discretion
in Title III funding.

That legal authority has restricted

the use schools may make of Title III funds.

This has the

effect of reducing uncertainty about those schools and dis­
tricts.

MDE also enhances its own expertise and increases

its options via Title III* since some money and much in­
formation is retained by MDE each year.

Title III has

contributed to the advocacy role of MDE and also to the
general tendency toward quantification.
Title V:

The Contingency Fund

Introduction
This is the last of seven case studies which were
investigated in order to determine how the Michigan Depart­
ment of Education reduces uncertainty in its environment.
To this point it has been shown that the federal govern­
ment provides two things to MDE.
the other is discretion.

One is simply money and

In Title I, the money was relatively

certain, but MDE had little discretion over the spending of
it, with the exception of Title I-B.

Title III provided

an opportunity for MDE to exercise more discretion and to
impose institutional priorities on over six million dollars
of federal money.

Title V provides even more discretion to

the state agencies who receive it.

310

An Associate Superintendent at MDE described the
effect of Title V from its origin to the present.
Plus once again, a million bucks coming in, which
the superintendent says, 'I'll spend just about any
way I want to spend it.'
It was just about a flat
grant--still is--and a helluva lot of people were
hired with Title V money . . .
While the style is different, the formal description of
Title V provided by Meranto* agrees that there were few
restrictions and that this situation was intentional.
Policy:
To establish a program for making grants to
stimulate and assist states in strengthening the
leadership resources of their state educational
agencies and to assist those agencies in the estab­
lishment and improvement of programs to identify and
meet the educational needs of the state.
Title V money is to be used to strengthen state education
agencies.

The way this occurs is at the discretion of the

agency.
There are two general ways in which Title V is used
One, agencies can use it to grow, to become more complex,
to increase their own options.

Second, the money can be

spent externally to advocate, to control or to engage in
proactive strategies.

In either case the money can help

the agency to reduce undertainty in its environment.
The major critical works regarding Title V have
been provided by Jerome T. Murphy.
about Title V.

He made two conclusions

One was that Title V money was spent in the

same places other money was, no new patterns or activities
^Meranto, The Politics of Federal Aid to Education
in 1965.

311

resulted.

The second conclusion was that agencies avoided

new and uncertain behaviors by spending the money in r e ­
active ways,

in a response to crisis pattern.

It will be

shown here that there is some basis in Michigan for adopt­
ing both assertions here, but that they are insufficient to
explain the range of Title V expenditures.
Text
Title V was intended to strengthen state education
agencies.

The Johnson Task Force described earlier said,

concerning the role of the state, that
The role of the state is strategic--it enjoys a certain
leadership potential--not always achieved but always
there.
The Task Force is convinced that state education
agencies must be given new strength and vitality...1
The result of that opinion was the creation of ESEA Title V.
We will now turn to an examination of the way Title V was
spent in Michigan in order to determine what the impact has
been.

It is important to recall the two contentions of the

Murphy study,

that Title V money was spent in familiar

ways, "more of the same," and that it was spent in a reactive
crisis-by-crisis fashion.

Both contentions will be evalu­

ated here.
While not all years are alike, it will be instruc­
tive to examine the way MDE spent its Title V allotment of
$1,178,968 for fiscal 1974.

The descriptions are paraphrases

*The Task Force, in Murphy, State Education A g e n ­
cies and Discretionary F u n d s , p. 1.
^Murphy, State Education Agencies and Discretionary
Funds , and "Title V of ESEA."----- —
--------------------

312

of the MDE report to the USOE as of December 5, 1974.

The

dollar figures are from that same report.
1.
’’Other general management," $192,019, 161, used
for:
expanding assessment, advocating the Accounta­
bility program, internal planning, federal liaison,
Indian and Latino education.
2.
’’Personnel management,” $877,1S3, 7%, training
sessions, liaison with Civil Service, recruiting,
grievances and related clerical-technical.
3.
"Information Services," $92,442, 8%, news releases,
newsletter, media liaison, other P.R. document p r e p a r ­
ation .
4.
"Legislative," $66,176, 6%, analysis of proposals,
support of Legislative Advisory Council and lobbying/
liaison with state Legislature.
5.
"Machine data processing," $314,364, 26%, increasing
amount of computer use for data processing.
6 . "Fiscal management," $112,017, 10%, implementing
new accounting and reporting systems.
7.
"School management," $13,141, 1%, safety, trans­
portation and cooperative programs.
8 . "Research ," $15 ,209 , II, Accountability study, c o n ­
tracted to Market Opinion Research firm.
9.
"Other consultative," $39,739, 3%, writing p e r f o r ­
mance objectives, reviewing E and D project applications.
10.

"Teacher certification," $89,553,

8%, all phases.

.11.
Carry-over, $167,164, 14%.
The USOE did not approve
this money until spring of 1974.
Rather than be forced
to make a hasty decision, MDE carried the money over into
the next fiscal year, 1975.
There is a great variety in the type of expense.
It is argued here that there are four recurring types of
expenditures.

First, in some cases the simple "more of the

same" criticism is justified.

Second, there are cases in

313

which capacity is increased and the agency is truly strength­
ened.

Third, in some instances Title V money was spent

reactively to protect the agency from threats.
there were

Fourth,

some new and proactive uses of Title V funds.

Several examples of Title V expenses follow; these will be
categorized after they are presented.
The Research, Evaluation and Assessment service
area was an early recipient of a large amount of Title V
money.

The director of that service area recalled that

As this research division came into operation, some
Title V monies were put in by Ira Polley to get it
started.
There came a time when other monies became
available, and Title V monies were withdrawn and
later if the other monies left, Title V monies were put
back here; it was used just to plug a hole here.
Now
I think that Dr. Porter has made a conscious effort in
the last year to 18 months to change that.
He has said
that he would like to see Title V money used increasingly
for research and development activities.
Two points emerge.

The first is that Title V has

been a "finger in the dyke," in the past.

The second is

that there appears to be an attempt now (at least in the
perception of the above respondent)

to use Title V money

for endeavors beyond the minimum operating levels.
Another use was demonstrated in the PDC issue.

The

history of the MDE attempt to create a professional develop­
ment center has been presented above.

When the Detroit

Design Team (a subset of the 19 "interested" parties having
influence in the Detroit area) needed staff assistance,
Title V money provided it, enhancing the proactive ability
of MDE.

314

As shown above in the "Research" element of the 1974
uses of Title V, MDE had to "run a survey on Accountability
last year--we had no choice,
Governor says,
money?"

it's one of those things the

’Do it!* and where are you going to get the

Title V.

This is an instance where some sort of

reactive strategy was the only option.

The Governor's r e ­

quest resulted from the Detroit teachers*

strike and that

was beyond the range of any proactive strategies MDE could
use.

It was Title V that defended MDE from that source of

uncertainty, because the extra funds had increased the o p ­
tions available to MDE.
In the case study of higher education, the staff
of MDE was reduced after a confrontation with a powerful
senator.

An executive-level staff member described the

present State Board office
The rest of the office around here operates almost e x ­
clusively on Title V money, because P o r t e r ’s insistent
that this office be as self sufficient from state funds
as possible.
What is the point of insulating the State Board's support
services from the Legislature?

The same respondent c o n ­

tinued.
But you know, there are days when the Legislature is
mad at us and at any given moment they can just chop
you to shreds; they can allow you $3,000 to operate
with--they wouldn't go that far,--but even if they
short-changed us, let's say at a 751 level, w e ’d be
hurting.
See, right now we can juggle accounts .. .
(and use
Title V to o p e r a t e ) .
When the
local districts get mad at us and run tothe
Legislature and say, 'Kill the State Board!' there's

315

no easier way of killing anybody than through money.
You just shrink their operation and t hat’s it.
MDE uses Title V to protect the support office of the State
Board from possible legislative cuts.

Thus the Board and

MDE generally, can--according to that logic--have more
freedom to be aggressive,

to occasionally confront the more

powerful Legislature and/or Governor.
In a similar case, the state-wide Spanish-American
organization,

la Raza, pressured the MDE and Legislature last

fall to appoint a high-ranking Latino to interact with that
constituency.

The pressure was strong enough and so poli­

tically delicate that members from MDE and state government
met with the la Raza executive.

The MDE was able to create

a staff position for ’’Latino Education" in their office of
School and Community Affairs.

The position and support ser­

vices were funded for the first year by Title V.

The Governor

agreed to move the position to the state budget the following
fiscal year.
MDE use of a subsection of Title V provides another
example of Title V expenditures.

Almost all of the Title V

funds are intended for use by the state education agencies.
This study has restricted its focus so far to that main part
of Title V which accounts for 95% of all the allocation.
This is officially section 503 of Title V and is referred
to also as V-A.

This serves to differentiate that section

from the other of interest here, Title V-C.

316

State agencies have some control over whether V-C
money is retained or is flowed through to school districts.
In 1974, the MDE received its first allotment from Title
V-C.
We flowed through to local school districts something
like $150,000 . . . on a competitive basis. . . we
developed a request for proposal . . . with staff from
all across the agency and people from outside--Frank
Bertallay from University of Michigan--and made six
awards of about $25,000-130,000.
Those six districts
are developing models for planning and evaluation pur­
poses at the local school district level.
They have,
as part of their proposal, committed themselves to build­
ing a planning and evaluation office within the district
. . , initial planning toward that, documentation for
their local board to substantiate the need.
We funded
three different kinds of districts, districts that had
no planning and evaluation capability, a couple that
did and there was one instance, Marquette County Inter­
mediate. . . most of the local school districts were so
small that they could never support independent planning
and evaluation activities, so we got those going.
This is consistent with the planning orientation of Title V.
The MDE here did the same thing as with Title I-B and Title
III.

That is, federal money was used and given out to locals,

but was given with many

’strings attached.*

When the strings

are woven together, a lot of districts find themselves
thoroughly tied to the MDE Accountability Model.
The total allocation in the V-C case referred to
immediately above was about $400,000.
local districts, some was retained.

Some was given to
While MDE legally had

the option in this regard, the local districts can be very
forceful in their criticism if they think they've been e x ­
cluded from money they could have had.
potential

confrontation in two ways.

MDE avoided that

317

First, MDE used their retained money for an internal
task that was unassailable:

reducing the amount of data-

collection MDE required locals to do.

The fact that this

was previously done with V-A money which MDE could now free
may have influenced their choice.
Second, MDE used a co-optive strategy to assure that
the schools would not object.

They explained their plan

(to give some money to locals and some to MDE) to represen­
tatives of the school districts.

MDE sought advice regarding

the latter task, as was the intent of the federal legisla­
tion .
We were expected to involve outside advisors, and did. . .
we put together an ad hoc group, Stu Rankin from Detroit,
Bob Muth from Middle Cities, Norm Weinheimer from the
School Boards Association and Don Currey from MASA.
(Michigan Association of School Administrators) . . ,
They gave us some very specific advice, we met with
them two or three times; we made the case to them, that,
the state agency, by using that money (internally) could
have a much broader impact than if we flowed the money
into grants, and they agreed with that. They reviewed
the proposal; they had a couple of minor questions on
our proposal, they didn*t have any predetermined . . .
it was intended to strengthen the planning and evaluation
abilities at both the state and local level.
We sought
advice from them as to how we could best do that. As
I remember the first time we met, we had drafted out a
very general plan . . . one of the very specific areas
we were looking for advice; in flowing money through to
the local school districts, we had to establish some
criteria, so we bounced some criteria off of them . . .
we felt as I remember, we should put some parameters
around it; the districts should at least be of adequate
size, to support that kind of office in the long term
. . . the district should have some sort of commitment
to support the office in the long term.

318

The MDE used an honest and successful attempt at co-optation
to legitimize their plans,

to retain some funds, to reduce

chances of opposition and to advance their own rational
planning

(Accountability) model.

This was an example of

co-optation in the classical sense defined by Selznick.
MDE was assured that the constituents of these representa­
tives would not object to the MDE plan.

But once strong

outside influences are invited into the decision making
process, some control is lost.

MDE staff could not ignore

the advice they had requested.

Co-optation does cost and

the cost is in freedom of decision.
It was suggested in the third chapter of this dis­
sertation that federal funds generally and Title V particu­
larly helped state agencies recruit and retain more talented
people.

One Associate Superintendent at MDE agreed.

. . . I think that a lot of good came out of that; it
gave a guy like Polley (former State Superintendent of
Education), for instance, a relative blank check to go
out and recruit and pull in kinds of people that he
never would have been able to pull in under other cir­
cumstances .
To increase the variety and level of expertise of the
staff of an organization is to increase its capacity to
respond to uncertainty in a complex environment.
has done this for MDE.

Title V

While the acquisition of talented

people does not assure they will do anything productive, it
is certainly the first step!
be considered a legitimate

This aspect of Title V must

(according to the intent) case

of simple strengthening and increasing the options of the
agency.

319

Interpretation
There is more to Title V than "more of the same."
It would seem,

in retrospect at least, that the

strengthening of the state agencies would be a good policy
for the federal Congress.

Stronger state education agencies

could be expected to act more aggressively in pursuit of
the goals which accompanied the federal dollars.

Good re­

porting is also politically valuable to elected officials.
In addition to these, it was suggested by Murphy1 that the
Council of Chief State School Officers was rewarded by Title
V for lobbying in support of ESEA.
exchange:

support

CCSSO
State Agencies

Congress

money, discretion
But how was the money used in the states?

According to

Murphy, money was used reactively, and for the same shortrange behaviors as were evident before ESEA.

Since the

present Michigan agency was created just prior to ESEA, it
may not have accumulated such a store of precedent to
follow.

In fact, the present study of MDE shows that, with

regard to Michigan, Murphy was both right and wrong.
V money has been used here in four different w a y s .

Title

320

First, there are some uses of Title V that, in the
absence of some new justification, have to be categorized
as "more of the same."
of S07 applications

In this category are "processing

(for e m p l o y m e n t ) " h o l d i n g 45 grievance

hearings," "processing approximately 4,000 personnel insur­
ance claims," and the processing of "16,000 provisional
teacher certificates," and so on.

While the categorization

is subjective, these do match the type of activity referred
to by Murphy and observed by him in other states .

These

activities do not contribute to planning and proactive b e ­
haviors.

Congress did not allocate a million dollars a year

to MDE to certify teachers.
The second type of expense is subtly different.
The increased computer capacity and fiscal management capa­
city are not totally new or proactive activities.

But they

do increase the capacity of the agency; they increase its
options.

While these activities are old directions, they

represent very new levels of ability and service, at least
to the federal government in terms of reporting.
districts received limited benefit.

Local

The overall ability of

MDE to employ higher caliber staff is another example of
the increased options afforded by Title V money.

While not

qualitatively different, the agency is stronger.
increased options
money
discretion

MDE

Environment
control, support

321

The above diagram illustrates this effect of Title V money.
Since much of the money has brought undifferentiated capacity
i

(like "organization slack ), it is not possible to describe
all resources that may be affected by this capacity now or
in the future.

It is reasonable to expect that this strength­

ening will be useful to an agency operating in a complex
environment, which MDE is doing.
The third use of Title V money is the one that the
Murphy studies have not made explicit.
the "plugging holes" function?

What is the use of

Title V protects the State

Board from the whims of the state government.

It allowed

MDE to employ staff on short notice to support the profes­
sional development center concept.

It allowed quick re­

sponse to the Governor's demand for the "Accountability
study."

It enabled the MDE to respond to the powerful

Spanish-American lobby.

All of these are, as Murphy accused,

short term and reactive behaviors, on the surface.

But the

fact is that the increased options created by Title V have
prevented serious threats to MDE functioning.

The State

Board can be proactive because it has the ability to react
to a threat by the Legislature.

The PD Center can be p ur­

sued on the spur of the moment without draining money from
some other critical task.

The study was completed without

short-changing some other objective.

And the threat of a

conflict with la Raza was avoided.
*See Cyert and March, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm.

322

maintain options
money

I MDE

Environment

discretion

\

thre a t » uncertainty

Without constant input from Title V, some MDE functions
would succumb to the continued uncertainty of that very
complex environment.
Title V is in this instance a slush fund, a contingency fund.

It allows MDE to maintain its options,

ted from environmental uncertainty.

insula­

Title V is often applied

to reactive needs to assure that other more complex p r o ­
active processes are not threatened by diminished resources.
This use of Title V seems reactive on the surface, but it
has been shown that there are secondary benefits which
are less evident.

This illustrates a benefit of studying

a total institution as is the case here.

Murphy criticized

Title V expenditures as being reactive.

He studied only

Title V in a variety of state agencies.

If he had observed

Title V in context in an agency, he might have found that
they--like MDE--apply Title V reactively in one place to
protect other aspects of the agency.
Fourth,

there are cases in which MDE used Title V

money in proactive manner and for purposes matching closely
the intent of the legislation.

These include planning and

general leadership, as shown by MDE in their constant advo­
cacy of their Accountability Model.

323

The MDE planning office specifically and the process
of internal planning generally have received Title V money
in recent years.

The funding of six districts to develop

planning capacity belongs in this category also.

The use

of Title V money to create performance objectives, for state
and federal "liaison," and for public relations publications
is similar in that these are proactive uses of money.

In

each case, the goals of MDE are advanced in a premeditated
way.

Thus, at least in the case of Michigan,

it is possible

for a state education agency to use significant amounts of
ESEA Title V money in a proactive manner.
Thus it seems that the assertions made by Murphy
are true but are not sufficient to describe events in M ich­
igan.

There is a tendency here to follow a "more of the

same” orientation, but that is not the only use of Title V
here.

Further,

it has been shown that such expenditures

may truly strengthen the agency by increasing its complexity,
its options, as in the case of the increased computer
capacity.
While it was shown here that Title V was indeed
used reactively,
defensive,
threat.

it was argued that such expenditures were

that they served to protect the agency from real

It was also shown that in the case of MDE, some

proactive uses of Title V were made.

These two assertions

refute the Murphy conclusion that Title V dollars were spent
only reactively and that this did not serve the intent of

324

Title V.

So at least in Michigan, the Murphy observations

are true but not sufficient.
Summary
Title V has been used by MDE in several ways.

First,

some was absorbed by pre-existing activities which appear
to be totally state responsibilities.

Second, Title V in­

creased the options of MDE, increasing its capacity to re­
duce uncertainty.

Third, defensive use of Title V money

enabled MDE to maintain options in the face of threats to
its resources.

Fourth, some Title V money has been used

for proactive behaviors such as planning and advocacy.

All

except the first have helped MDE to reduce uncertainty about
its environment.
Other Cases
Introduction
It has been the intent of this study to determine
how MDE acts to reduce uncertainty in its environment.

It

has been concerned with showing how MDE uses a range of
strategies to acquire resources from elements of its environ­
ment.

Most of the environmental elements are other organiza­

tions with which MDE interacts.

Seven case studies were

conducted to accomplish this task.

They have been presented

here; four deal with state-level issues and three with
federal programs.

325

There are, however, other MDE behaviors which were
observed in the nine months of research that are not ade­
quately illustrated by the seven cases.

This section attempts

to rectify that omission by dealing with six special recur­
ring strategies.

The first is the end run which has already

been introduced.

The second is co-optation through hiring

of critics.

The third is use of advisory organizations.

The fourth is communication involving shared memberships.
The fifth involves inter-agency meetings and the sixth is
concerned with extra-agency interactions.
The End Run
"End run" is a football term.

It refers to a play

in which any back runs literally around the end of his
and the opposition’s lines to the goal.

The term has been

adopted by politicians to describe a case in which any per­
son or group by-passes the opposition and runs directly to
the source, usually the Legislature or Congress.

The b e ­

havior is typically used when formal channels are either
very slow or obviously in opposition.

Such was the case

in several instances in the present study.
The Special Education service area is one example.
As described earlier, the Special Education staff of MDE
was accused of entering a coalition with the parent lobbies
in special education.

The parent lobbying groups, especially

Michigan Association for Retarded Citizens
of this support.

(MARC) made use

The Legislature was so intimidated by the

326

threat of a MARC-run petition that the Mandatory Special
Education Act (198) was passed.

Also, MARC initiated a

suit to force MDE and others to serve children in staterun institutions.

In both cases, the MDE Special Education

staff were believed to have encouraged and assisted MARC.
This allowed the Special Education staff to by-pass the
internal goal-setting procedures of MDE and get their own
goals mandated.

This shows how a subsystem can in fact set

an organizational goal via a boundary-spanning coalition.
It is also a clear instance of response to an external con­
stituency, in this case the clients --both retardees and
parents, and other professionals in the schools.
Wayne State University (WSU) was in need of funds,
but was uncertain of the outcome of the negotiations r e ­
garding the Detroit area professional development center.
Consequently they went directly to the Legislature in search
of a million dollars, hoping to avoid control by either MDE
or client groups.

The end run was around the other members

involved with MDE in planning that center.

Wayne State

failed, in part, but the million dollars will come and WSU
will surely receive most it, even if they lost much of the
control.

(This end run was external to MDE, but still

affected MDE operations.)
A Latino member of the MDE staff has been described
as a common user of the political clout of la Raza.

Accord­

ing to several other MDE staff, he asked la Raza to intercede

327

on his behalf regarding a promotion.

Apparently MDE was

likely to comply, although that is less certain.

When

MDE staff and state government representatives met with
la Raza, however,

that group was interested only in estab­

lishing the Latino Education liaison position described
earlier.

The first MDE staff member was "jilted” and

no

one who was interviewed knew why.

This is another case

of

a subsystem dealing directly with an external constitu­

ency, even though success was limited in this case.
The Food Service section of MDE was the initiation
of

another apparent end run.

A bill was introduced in the

Legislature in April to provide $20 million to schools for
help with lunch programs.

The chances of getting the money

to schools and having it spent intelligently before the end
of the school year were small.

The bill was well backed

by a lobby in Dearborn interested in school food service.
An MDE associate was concerned that internal MDE staff were
supporting the bill.

The associate told his suspect a lie

about the bill and "within one hour!

Within one hour two

legislators had calls down here on that very point--from
this guy in Dearborn!”

The bill did not pass.

But even so,

the alliance is clear.

An MDE subsystem is responsive to

a constituency and entered into a coalition to by-pass the
MDE power structure and influence the Legislature directly.
The MDE Office of School and Community Affairs was
accused of initiating a complaint regarding a job description

328

which had inadvertently shown preference for women over
minorities.

The School and Community Affairs Office functions

as the desegregation office, complaint department and i n ­
ternal advocate for minority interests.

It is agreed in

the agency that their loyalty to NAACP is often greater than
to MDE.

Yet the Superintendent was not concerned and he

expressed a guarded approval of the operation "because for
Chicanos and Latinos, for blacks, and the rest of the people
that have all kinds of problems, that group tends to kind of
mollify those issues before they hit me pell mell.
perform a very valuable service."

. . they

The office serves as a

buffer and as a communication link for very powerful in­
terests.

This MDE subsystem is also responsive to its own

constituents, sometimes at the expense of the ability of
the MDE to exert control over it.
The Wayne State University end run occurred beyond
MDE and was a potential

(though short-lived)

threat.

The

la Raza group apparently deserted one previous confidant,
but now interacts with the Latino Education specialist.
In the other cases, the MDE subsystems who initiated the
end runs provided MDE with a communication link to their
constituents as a continuous side-effect of their actions.
This occurred because in most of the above cases, the end
run involved a boundary-spanning coalition.

In each case

there were at least two members, one of which was a s u b ­
system of MDE.

The others included the special education

329

parent lobby, la Raza, the food service professional lobby
and the black community.^

The communications which accompany

these end runs allow.MDE to constantly measure and predict
the actions of some members of its environment, thus re­
ducing uncertainty.
The MDE is affected by many elements in its environ­
ment.

The constant end runs are a way in which particular

MDE subunits maintain communication and coalitions with
members of that environment.

In order to reduce uncertainty

about these environmental groups, parts of MDE share both
information and common tasks.

Thus there are strategies to

reduce uncertainty operating at several levels.
Co-opting by Hiring
Co-optation was shown earlier to be a major proactive
strategy for reducing uncertainty.
regularly.

MDE uses a special type

In several instances the MDE has hired some of

its strongest critics.

This cannot be regarded as a total

annexation of the criticism.

First, the person hired still

maintains ties with the organization which spawned him or
her.

Second, the organization the person hired represents

continues.

What MDE does gain is a permanent sort of co­

optation and an institutionalized communications link with
an organization which is a source of uncertainty.
^Since the Wayne State strategy did not involve a
boundary-spanning coalition, it is not reiterated here.

330

Again, Special Education provides the first example.
The various special education lobbies were criticizing the
Department of Education long before Act 198 was passed.
One leader emerged.
There was only one man they all trusted and that was
Marv Beekman.
The Department tried to hire Marv and
he kept saying 'not unless you meet this condition'
and they kept meeting whatever conditions he set.
He'd be sitting at home and would find John Porter show­
ing up at the door with a new offer.
Finally he couldn't
do anything else but come and he came in 1970.
The recruitment procedure may be metaphorical, but the
hiring is fact.

Beekman served as director of Special Educa­

tion Services at MDE until his recent retirement.

While

with the Department he was known as an advocate of his
client groups and was a communication link with them.

As

a member of MDE he influenced the actions of that agency.
That is the cost of co-optation.
The assistant to the Superintendent for School and
Community Affairs is a highly political black.
former secondary principal from Detroit.

He is a

He is the MDE

communication link with the Detroit school administrators,
especially the black administrators.

He also interacts

with black citizen groups, especially but not exclusively
in Detroit.

The previous occupant of that position was

also a black, though he has a less strong urban background.
1 had occasion to ask John Dobbs,

the present occupant, to

help me avoid the formal Detroit schools hierarchy and put
me in informal touch with three Detroit educators.

In half

an hour my appointments were set up, after a brief series
of chatty, first-name phone calls.
know Detroit and he does.
that constituency.

Dobbs is supposed to

He also advocates the needs of

So while his hiring serves to enhance

communication with that constituency,

it also introduces

a new element to the decision making processes of MDE.
The Michigan Association of School Administrators
(MASA)

is a long-standing critic of MDE, especially of the

Accountability Model and the unilateral way its implementa­
tion was begun.

When the post of Deputy Superintendent b e ­

came vacant, MDE hired a former MASA president to fill it.
Thus another lobby had an insider to relate to.

But MDE

also had another new voice to contend with, another element
in the decision making process.
The story of la Raza has already been told.

One

of their members filled the position of Latino Education
specialist.

The position was created in response to the

lobbying of la Raza, the organization which MDE recognizes
as the "official" voice of the Spanish-American power groups.
According to one MDE staff, the Lation power structure is
typically disunited.

"Every city is a mafia unto itself and

every mafia has its don."

The opportunity to maintain con­

tact with the one Latino organization that seems to exert
broad influence in the state was accepted.

Another new c o m ­

munication link was created, but another voice came along

332

Early in the discussions concerning the professional
development centers (PDC) tempers were very short.

MDE

tactfully retreated from a leadership role and let the 19
interested parties decide how to proceed.

When the smaller

Detroit Design Team was created as a subunit, MDE accomp­
lished a truly Bismarkian political coup, serving two goals
at once.
First, MDE subsidized a staff position to assure
their own communications

(and good image!) with the group.

Second, the person they chose was a faculty member at Mich­
igan State University, whose support would be critical to
long range success.

The influence MDE would have to allow

the newcomer to exert was judged to be an acceptable cost
for an opportunity to strengthen the coalition.
In all of these cases, MDE has hired persons whose
loyalty would always be divided.

The pay-off for this risk

is ongoing communication and consequent reduced uncertainty.
There was no case during the time of this research that
persons in these positions created any serious disruptions
for MDE by their actions.

Perhaps it is possible, after

all, to serve two masters.
In each case the new member served as a communication
link between the two agencies to whom loyalty was owed.
Both gained information but both lost some independence in
decision making as a result of the commitment.

Co-optation

is a strong, but costly strategy for reducing uncertainty.

333

Councils and Commissions and
Boards and Co-optation
Some of the communication links discussed in this
section occurred as a result of co-optive hiring.

They are

thus fairly recent and were established in response to
threat.

They are reactive, even though co-optation in the

long term is a potentially proactive strategy for reducing
uncertainty.
The end runs were mostly situational,
to a specific need.

in response

The communication links that facilita­

ted the end runs had been in existence earlier.

Communica­

tion in general is an ongoing problem, not something that
can always be dealt with reactively.

This section investi­

gates one means by which MDE stays in continuous touch with
several sources of potential environmental uncertainty.
MDE interacts with a large number of groups.
are advisory groups which are set up by MDE.

There

There are

semi-autonomous boards who report to MDE or to the Legisla­
ture.

Some are ad hoc,

stitutional.

some are legislated, some are c o n ­

The State Board of Education refers items to

these groups as a Legislature uses its own committee system.
At one Executive Council meeting, MDE staff discussed the
fact that the system of councils allowed them "to sidestep
a very controversial

issue,” to let it cool.

On the other

hand, the Superintendent noted, "if we want to do something,
it's gonna take a helluva lot longer for us to do something,
so it cuts both ways."

334

Another MDE staff noted that the major groups are
composed primarily of professionals, of representatives of
the major interest groups.
We have what we call the administrative procedures, I
don't know where the name came from, but . . . we refer
a lot of items out to these groups until we take final
action.
We developed all these advisory committees in
which the bulk of the advisory committees are really the
education (lobbying) groups, you know, each one of them
has eight to ten to twelve members.
The citizens are
minor segments of that.
I think they have their input
on things like that too.
While it is not possible to describe all of these interactions,
the point is easily made.

What follows is a list of organ­

izations represented at one meeting of the Council on E l e ­
mentary and Secondary Education.
advisory group.

This is a major, active

Note that other, more specialized advisory

groups are also represented here.
Governor's Office (one person)
Legislature (Two House, Two Senate)
Michigan Association of School Boards (one)
Michigan Association of School Administrators (one)
Michigan Education Association (one)
Michigan Federation of Teachers (one)
Michigan Association of Elementary School Principals
(one)
Michigan Association of Intermediate Superintendents
(one)
Michigan Teacher Training Institutions (one)
Michigan Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development (one)
Vocational Education Advisory Council (one)
Special Education Advisory Council (one)
Compensatory Education Services Advisory Council (one)
General Education Services Advisory Council (one)
Research Evaluation and Assessment Services Advisory
Council (one)
School Management Services Advisory Council (one)
Teacher Preparation . . . Council (one)
Citizens-at-large (six)

335

Whatever is on the agenda, this Council serves as a general
communications device.

In an environment which is uncer­

tain, all communications, information, measurement and
prediction are helpful.

In reference to the meeting I

attended, the Superintendent noted that if he had business
with Senator Gilbert Bursley, it would get done there.

He

mentioned other meetings coming up where he would, by chance,
be able to talk to the Governor and to the president of
Michigan State University,

all off the record and without

the need to formalize an appointment.
In addition to the groups included in the above
list,

each of the major ESEA Titles has an advisory body.

While their influence is ubiquitous,

two quotes will illus­

trate the range of impact which is possible.
The federal government requires the chairman of every
one of the advisory groups for federal projects to sign
a statement that they have been involved . . . not
necessarily obeyed, but involved.
The State Board of
Education does the same thing for state projects.
(Associate Superintendent)
Unintended consequences?
The one positive thing I see
is the effort that has gone into parent involvement
which has resulted in a much greater awareness in the
parents of these children, that there are things that
they can do, that they can have an influence on the
educational establishment; this has been a big plus and
I think it has been a factor in the program's success.
On the state level, parents are involved.
Two were
sent to D.C. last week to review some new language.
I would guess involvement in Detroit would be in the
hundreds, on advisory councils, every building has an
advisory council . . . and they don't make many moves
down there without checking with the parents, whereas
five years ago, they wouldn't have listened to the
parents.
(Title I director)

336

It is interesting to note that Titles

III and V have, as of

July 1, 1975, been combined under a new Title, ESEA IV.
While there are few substantive changes, Title V will now
be subject to the scrutiny of an advisory council as Title
III was before.

This may have the effect of carrying out

a suggestion Murphy'*' had, that Title V could benefit from
a little scrutiny and even hostility.

He felt public e x ­

amination would prevent pure absorbtion of the money and
would require more thoughtful, proactive expenditures.

It

is likely that the system of committees and councils has
this effect generally on MDE.

This network facilitates

communication with and input from the MDE environment.
Once the

uncertainty has been reduced, MDE still must respond

if it is

to benefit from the information it has gained.

Thus, while such networks provide information they also
exert influence on the decisions the MDE can make.
The groups do not, in most cases, have legal a u thor­
ity over MDE actions.

They do provide MDE with constant

information about its environment.

On any given issue,

MDE could likely ignore the information and survive.

But

once MDE accepts and acts on the input these groups offer,
it has engaged in co-optation.
share information.

To share information is to

To share authority is to be co-opted.

Thus the

network of advisory groups serves as a means to

tell MDE

and others when co-optation
^Murphy, T i t l e V of ESEA.

(or coalition or

337

whatever!)

is necessary.

The groups and ensuing meetings

and referrals serve to inform prior to adopting a stronger
strategy.

After a while it is not enough to only "know"

that the MEA opposes your plan, eventually you have to act.
But the fact that MEA comes to the meetings gives both
organizations lots of notice as to what the possible actions
and outcomes are.
Shared Memberships
The groups discussed in the preceding section exist
because of M D E , for the most part.

Their purpose is to advise

and they are essentially satellites of MDE, communication
devices for the primary--but not exclusive--benefit of MDE.
There are other groups to which MDE devotes attention that
are more equal, in which MDE is one of many equal members.
Two groups of this type will be examined here.
One such group is the Education Commission of the
States.

Most of the 50 states have a membership in this o r ­

ganization.

According to the Michigan enabling legislation,

"It is the purpose of this compact to establish and m a i n ­
tain close cooperating and understanding among executive,
legislative, professional educational and lay leadership
on a nation-wide basis at the state and local levels."^
Michigan appoints a delegation which includes the Governor
^Public Act 359, State of Michigan, Approved by
the Governor, January 9, 19 73.

338

(or representative),
members.

two legislators and four at-large

One of the four at-large members must be the

head of the state education agency.

In Michigan the others

include a representative from higher education, one from
the Michigan Education Association and one from the Michigan
Congress of Parents, Teachers and Students.

The MDE federal

lobbyist also meets with the group and reports on pending
legislation.
The Council of Chief State School Officers has been
mentioned earlier.

The group has a Washington-based office

and is known as a powerful lobbying force on behalf of the
state education agencies.

The Council attempts to keep

all members informed of pending legislation to the point
that a teletype service is used by some of the states.

The

Chiefs are thus "never more than 15 seconds away from Wash­
ington ."
Both of these organizations are potentially co­
alitions.

On a day-to-day and meeting to meeting basis

they may generate little more than memoranda and resolutions.
But when the need arises support for an issue can be mobil­
ized.

And in the meantime, all members have up-to-date

information.

The information-sharing aspect itself is a

useful means of reducing uncertainty.*

It serves as a base,

*The meeting of the Education Commission of the
States provided an excellent and humorous example of the
dual function of these meetings.
Superintendent Porter
arrived early and immediately entered a private (and intense)

339

as a prerequisite,

to deciding whether more powerful stra­

tegies for coping with the uncertainty should be employed.
These shared memberships provide that prerequisite infor­
mation and constitute potential coalitions in and of them­
selves .
Inter-Agency Meetings
MDE does not share memberships with all elements
in its environment.

Nor can it count on serendipity to

arrange communications.

Thus there are many cases in which

MDE participates in meetings or projects with others.
interactions discussed here were initiated by MDE.
are ad hoc, some more formal;
unique.

The

Some

some recurring and some

The common theme is that MDE plus one or more

other agencies interact.
The first is a recurring meeting of educational
leaders.
We spend a lot of time with the local people . . . for
example, every three months John Porter has a luncheon
which is called an educational leadership luncheon . . .
to that one we invite the president and executive sec­
retary of every major educational group in this state.
The State Board comes to it.
It's an open luncheon,
he opens it up and says, "now what are your views?"
and they go around and each one gives his pet gripe
or caution or reaction to something.
I t ’s a good
meeting.
One meeting of this was observed.

In that case,

the group

solidified around one issue, and the passive communication
conversation with the MEA representative.
They pursued
their negotiations with such fervor that both were late for
lunch more than half an hour later.

340

network galvanized into a coalition of ominous power.

They

were successful in the legislative goal which brought them
together at that time.
The State Board has committed itself to formal
meetings with a variety of powerful groups during 1975.
With one exception (the C o u n c i l ) , the meetings are with in­
dependent organizations from the environment of MDE.

For

the first half of 1975, the following were scheduled.
-The Council on Elementary and Secondary Education
-Michigan Association of School Boards
-Michigan Association of School Administrators
-Michigan Education Association
-Michigan Federation of Teachers
-Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals
-Michigan Association of Elementary School Principals
The mutual value of such meetings is attested to by the
fact that all invited organizations did respond.

This is in

addition to an unknown number of breakfast meetings between
Superintendent Porter and the leaders of these other organiza
t i o n s , and the other contacts already described.

The above

suggests that the communication function is so important
that in addition to all of the other interactions, MDE felt
the need to formalize and institutionalize the State Boards
contact.
Another example of communication with an external
group--in this case a coalition--is provided by the Committee
of 23.

341

The Committee of 23 is an organization of superin­
tendents of Intermediate School Districts.

They meet on a

regular basis with an Associate Superintendent from MDE to
discuss matters of mutual concern.

The Associate is expected

to carry their concerns to MDE and according to observations
in this study, he did so accurately and faithfully.

On

the other hand, at the meeting of the Committee of 23, he
explained and usually supported the positions of MDE.
The Michigan Council of Teachers of Math have created
a book of objectives,

test data and prescriptions.

The MDE

encouraged this effort because it supported their Accounta­
bility Model.

This is the same group that shared the task

of writing the controversial performance objectives several
years earlier.
In another attempt to communicate, six "workshops"
on accountability were held by MDE this year.

These meetings

were to respond to one of the recommendations of the Accounta
bility Study to assure that professionals "understood the
MDE model."

Superintendent Porter was quoted as being

concerned that "the message gets out."

In addition to the

basic advocacy function, some co-optation was accomplished,
in that known critics of the Accountability Model were asked
to comment after the presentation.

The fact that half of

the MDE staff left before that part of the program in the
Grand Rapids workshop diminished the agency's credibility,
however.

342

On two occasions in the Executive Council, references
were made to planned cocktail parties for the Congressmen
in one case, aides in another.

For one of these, Dr. Porter

said, "I want to give them some feelings about what we are
doing" and asked staff to prepare "a checklist of federal
concerns that we have for this year."

Whether this is

called communicating, advocating or lobbying, it is a val­
uable function.

Dr. Porter discussed this role, saying

that he kept in regular touch with a small but strategically
placed number of federal representatives and senators.

He

made it clear that his role was strictly to provide informa­
tion.

"I don't go with my hand out.

I leave that to our

lobbyist."
During Michigan Week at the U.S. Office of Educa­
tion, one presentation concerned the MDE assessment pr o ­
gram, a crucial and unpopular part of their Accountability
Model.

MDE asked two vociferous critics--an urban superin­

tendent and the executive-secretary of the Michigan Education
Association--to accompany them and comment on the assessment
program.

The criticism was strong but civilized and USOE

staff praised MDE for their open behavior.
In all of the above examples, MDE interacted with
some other group or agency.

The variety of the interactions

is part of the message--the environment of MDE is diverse
and, for the most part, composed of other organizations.
is necessary that MDE maintain contact with all of these,

It

343

because they are all sources of uncertainty.

This section

has described some examples of how MDE did this during the
time of this study.

.

Extra-Agency Interactions
Not all of the educational groups
Michigan seek to have MDE as a member.
asking for MDE

input

only on demand.

(or meetings)

in

Some are selective,
Three such coalitions

will now be examined.
The first of the three external coalitions is the
Congress, whose full name is the Michigan Congress of School
Administrator Associations.

Eight organizations are repre­

sented :
Michigan Association of Administrators of Special
Education
Michigan Association of Intermediate School A d m i n i s ­
trators
Michigan Association of Professors of Educational
Administration
Michigan Association for Public Adult and Community
Education
Michigan Association of School Administrators
Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals
Michigan Community School Education Association
Michigan Council of Vocational Administrators
The Congress has adopted a very comprehensive legislative
program which is predictably supportive of higher funding
levels for education and of other programs favoring adminis­
tration.

344

The Congress is not a priori either for or against
MDE, it seeks only the advancement of legislation favored
by its members.

Only one MDE-Congress interaction was noted

in the study and that was briefly reported to have been very
hostile on the part of the Congress.

That report was from

the executive-level MDE staff member who represented MDE
at a meeting at the request of the C o n g r e s s .
The Middle Cities Education Association (MCEA) has
appeared at various times in this study.

The executive

director of MCEA is also half-time appointed as assistant
to the Dean of Education at Michigan State University.
This tie was sought by the MCEA to help add research and inservice capability to their already powerful lobbying
ability.

MCEA operates several administrative-level task

forces which invite MDE participation selectively.

Several

points are worth noting.
First, the executive-director of MCEA sits on two
MDE Councils, the legislative and compensatory education
groups.
Second, the MCEA has a contract with the MDE to de­
sign a management information system.

The chances that such

a system will be disadvantageous to the urban districts are
small.
Third, the two recently co-sponsored an Education
Fair and a Career Opportunities Program conference,
latter in concert with Detroit schools.

the

345

Fourth, the MCEA is winding up a two-year Title III
grant from MDE to develop curricula and criterion-referenced
tests for elementary mathematics and reading.
Fifth, MCEA has begun a development project in v o c a ­
tional education planning.

The top MDE vocational education

staff has been asked to serve as a member of the project's
advisory board.
Sixth, as this is written,

the 13 MCEA superinten­

dents plan to meet with Superintendent Porter for half a day
next week to discuss "matters of mutual concern."
While the Middle Cities is a powerful coalition in
its own right, a policy of peaceful co-optation seems to be
followed by them.

Certainly they are in touch with MDE

often enough that neither one faces much uncertainty about
the others intentions.

Each organization uses these several

opportunities to communicate and to give and seek information.
The most diverse of the external coalitions is surely
the Education Forum.

Included in the nine members groups

are:
American Association of University Women
League of Women Voters of Michigan
Michigan Association
Michigan Association
Michigan Association
Development
Michigan Congress of
Michigan Congress of

of School Boards
of Elementary School Principals
of Supervision and Curriculum
Parents, Teachers and Students
School Administrator Associations

Michigan Education Association
Michigan Federation of Teachers

346

The organization exists as a communication channel,
as a way to keep informed on a wide variety of issues.
Items discussed at the one meeting attended included the
following:

juvenile code revision, an information system

concerned with youth offenders, career education, the teacher
negotiation bill, a bill dealing with substitute teachers,
"teacher centers" and a general legislative briefing.
Their most ambitious undertaking to date was the
production of a comprehensive position paper concerning
educational accountability.

The paper was critical of MDE

efforts to date and advocated more local involvement in
accountability versus the state model.
The Forum has intentionally been saved for last,
because it is the only agency observed which consciously
examined its function as a communication channel.
members verbalized this purpose in my presence.

Forum
There was

a concern with having "advance, rather than reactive input."
A member was concerned with "the nature of input at a point
where its more likely to make a difference."

More likely

than what?
The context of that comment is illustrative.

The

Forum members had heard about a proposal for the Michigan
Youth Services Information System (MYSIS) too late.

That is,

the agency proposing the system was committed to it by the
time Forum members learned of it.

Consequently the Forum

could only oppose, they had missed the time at which c o m­
promise would have been possible.

347

Thus we were placed in a position of "challenging"
somebody elses* "pet*" rather than being in a position
to contribute--in initial stages--to the clarification
of a problem and the development of possible solutions.
There was a wish to avoid these conflicts in the future,
to know about events early enough to have constructuve in ­
put.

In other words, there was a desire to reduce u n c e r ­

tainty about the environment.
The memo quoted above alerted the Forum membership
to the desirability of systematic ongoing communication
links such as the Forum itself represents.

Some questions

from the memo will serve to illustrate the range of the
concern and the extent to which the issues have been defined.
ARE THESE THE QUESTIONS?
1.

In what ways are inter-agency channels now open and
being used? (and in what ways?)

2.

In what ways are professional associations now in
systematic contact?

4.

To what extent are representatives of youth-serving
groups interacting together with legislators/coun­
ci lmen/supervisors in the development of laws/de­
cisions/actions pertaining to youth?

5.

Are we providing sufficient input to representatives
of education in any advisory groups related to youthserving agencies?
The members of the Forum do regularly communicate

with MDE.

Department of Education staff are regularly in­

vited to present MDE programs to Forum meetings.

Thus,

^Memo to Forum members, from the MASCO representative,
Lansing, Michigan, March 19, 1975.

348

while the Forum does not include MDE in its membership,
MDE can benefit from the existence of the F o r u m ’s communica­
tion channels too.

The existence of the Forum validates

the assertion that the problem of reducing uncertainty is
not one that is of interest only to MDE.

The existence of

the Forum and the other external coalitions, also validates
the assertion that organizations in a complex environment
will use ongoing communications strategies--be they councils,
boards, clients, conferences, workshops, associations,
coalitions--to reduce uncertainty about their environments.
Interpretation
While this section has intentionally been a pot
pourri of events, it is nevertheless possible to make c o ­
hesive summary statements.
First, when the end run strategy is used by a sub­
unit of MDE,
alition.

it usually constitutes a boundary-spanning c o ­

These enable MDE to maintain contact with the

external coalition members.

This reduces uncertainty about

the behavior of the external member that does not exact a price
in control of internal goals.
Second,

to co-opt an external group by hiring its

representative is to intentionally create a boundary span­
ning coalition.

This enhances communication and thus r e ­

duces uncertainty.

On the other hand, it is less easy to

control a member whose loyalties are divided.

349

Third, there are several advisory bodies whose sole
purpose is to advise MDE.

Most relevant members of the

environment of MDE are represented.

These bodies serve to

tie MDE to those elements of its environment and to keep
both sides informed prior to the need for stronger stra­
tegies .
Fourth, the two groups

(observed)

in which MDE

shares membership serve as communication links also.

They

are also potential coalitions if issues arise--the very
existence of these groups assures that some common interests
exist.
Fifth, MDE interacts with many other organizations.
In the section on ’’Inter-Agency" meetings,

situations were

described in which MDE initiated an interaction or was o t h e r ­
wise the focus of interaction.

All organizational members

of the environment of MDE take this role at one time or
another:

state government,

federal government and interest

groups representing professionals and public.

Communication

which reduces uncertainty is inevitably one product of
these interactions.
Sixth, several coalitions of members of the MDE e n ­
vironment exist.

These regularly communicate with MDE to

reduce uncertainty also, but do so on theiT own terms and
at their own request.

One group verbalized the reduction

of unanticipated conflict as a purpose of its existence.

350

The only general statement which is appropriate at
this stage is that MDE is involved in many, many interactions
in which communication to reduce uncertainty is one product.
The implication of this behavior will be considered in the
next chapter.

C H A P T E R SIX

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The purpose of this study was to describe and ex­
plain how the Michigan Department of Education attempts
to reduce uncertainty in its environment.

The descriptive

aspect of that purpose has been accomplished in chapter five.
A summary of those findings will follow, in the first sec­
tion of this

(sixth) chapter.

The balance of this chapter

will be devoted to a consideration of the implications of
the findings.

It is here that the "explain" part of the

original purpose will come into play.
Summary
A four-part model was used throughout to describe
attempts by MDE to reduce uncertainty in its environment.
In order to distinguish it from a separate model which
follows later in this chapter, that model will be referred
to here as "the descriptive model."

That descriptive

model follows.
/
System:

*

strategy enacted
Environment

MDE
resource acquired
351

4

352

In each case examined here, MDE is the system of concern,
the consistent part of the model.
are,

(1) the strategy,

source.

The other three parts

(2) the environment, and (3) the r e ­

What follows immediately is a summary--in terms

of this model--of the major attempts by MDE to reduce u n ­
certainty as reported in this study.

Next, these will be

reanalysed according to the other three components of the
descriptive model in order to identify patterns and p r e f ­
erences .
The Case in Review
In Higher Education, MDE avoided short-term d e pen­
dence on the constitution in the courts in its attempt to
seek legal authority over universities.

Instead, MDE

entered into an exchange with the Legislature, wherein
MDE would provide

(quantitative)

information in return for

minimal funding.

It is important to recall that there

was consensus between the subsystem and the government that
the higher education function could profitably be totally
removed from MDE.
In Special Education, the MDE subsystem was thought
to have engaged in a boundary-spanning coalition with the
parent lobbies, especially MARC, to seek legal authority
from (1) the Legislature, and (2) the courts.

This associ­

ation with MARC and others served as an ongoing communica­
tion link, a means of reducing uncertainty.

The state

agencies affected by the institutional issue maintained a

353

similar ongoing communications link to help measure and
predict each others behavior,

thus reducing uncertainty.

In Chapter 3, MDE attempted to exchange information
with the Legislature for authority.

The urban lobby had

more power and offered the Legislature votes in return for
favorable policy.

Thus MDE lost the conflict with the u r ­

ban lobby and had to settle for a different exchange with
the Legislature, one of quantitative information for m i n ­
imal funding.

But MDE also gained much expertise and thus

increased its own options.
In the professional development centers issue, MDE
joined interest groups and universities in a coalition to
seek funds and authority from the Legislature.

When Wayne

State University (WSU) made an end run past the coalition
members to the Legislature, conflict resulted.

The rest

of the coalition, including MDE, held and modified the
WSU attempt.

In the end, MDE was given some legal authority

by the Legislature, but operational control of the center
will be shared by the coalition members including WSU.
In Title I, MDE faces little uncertainty.
as the USOE and Congress are given supportive

So long

(quantitative)

evaluations, money will flow and MDE will retain some ad ­
ministrative dollars and some discretion regarding Title I-B.
MDE in turn uses this to advocate its rational Accountability
Model and to contract with some school districts to implement
or develop that model.

Michigan Education Week and the visit

354

of Chris Cross exemplify attempts at communication in
search of new types of mutual support.
In Title III, the actual flow of money from the
USOE

(and Congress)

is relatively certain, requiring only

quantitative evaluations in exchange.

The extra discretion

which accompanies Title III money is used by MDE to increase
its own options.

For example, MDE contracts in that d i s ­

tricts must implement the MDE Accountability Model in p r o ­
jects to obtain funds.

MDE thus plays an advocacy role.

Some of these--e.g., the 6/5 schools--become almost co-optive
because the schools have some ability to interpret that
rational model and potentially modify it.
Title V comes to MDE from Washington,

from the USOE

and Congress, to strengthen MDE and requires only continu­
ous quantitative information in return.

It does so not

only by allowing MDE to increase its options generally,
but also to maintain options in case of threat.

Some Title

V money was spent proactively on planning and some was c o n ­
tracted- - like Title I-B and III--to enhance the advocacy
role of MDE.

In a case of contracting with Title V-C

money, co-optation of four powerful interest groups was
required.
Several other small cases were presented.

Several

examples of end-Tuns as boundary-spanning coalitions were
presented.

These were observed to depend on ongoing c o m ­

munication links with environmental elements.

This

35S

communication was facilitated by the MDE tendency to
co-opt powerful interest groups by hiring one of their
leading members.
each strategy.

A cost in terms of control accompanies
Three other examples of recurring communi­

cations involving MDE were described.

These included a d ­

visory b o d i e s , shared memberships and interagency meetings.
It was also observed that extra-agency coalitions exist and
that these also serve as communication devices.

These

extra-agency coalitions communicate with MDE according to
need.

Any of these communication networks can be viewed as

a potential coalition.
It is a characteristic of scientific research in
all fields that data and theory do not exist independently,
but impact upon each other.

In this study, the data gathered

have demonstrated that the descriptive model is inadequate.
There are strategies which were observed that do not fit
the model.

Consequently, before the model can achieve its

maximum potential as a conceptual tool it must be modified.
What follows is an examination of the adequacy of the
three parts of the model

(MDE is the fourth) and a summary

of MDE activity according to the revised model.

The most

abstract component, the list of strategies, will be exam­
ined first.
The Strategies
There were 13 strategies for reducing uncertainty
which were proposed in chapter one.

These fell into three

356

categories:

passive, reactive and proactive.

The immediate

task is to evaluate whether the three types do in fact
describe the range of strategies observed.
The three types were initially defined as follows.
Passive strategies were those in which a system exerted
no energy to reduce uncertainty, to acquire resources.
Either due to ignorance or to conscious decision, the s y s ­
tem ignores or absorbs any threat or stress.
type listed in chapter one was reactive.
strategy,

The second

In a reactive

the system responds to a known problem or short­

age by modifying itself.

That system may change either

the structure or its behavior.

In the third type of stra­

tegy* the system acts proactively.

That is, the system

attempts to intervene, to exercise control over its e n v iron­
ment.

The system attempts to act upon its environment to

make that environment more hospitable or supportive.
It was discovered in this research that a new cat­
egory was needed to describe the range of strategies o b ­
served.

The new type is preactive.

Systems appear to e n ­

gage in a body of activities which are not really reactive
(as thought earlier) but in fact precede any of the others,
in many cases:

passive,

reactive or proactive.

ple, to gather information,
to communicate;

For e xam­

to measure, to acquire data,

all are means of obtaining intelligence

about the environment.

Consequently they reduce uncertainty

about the environment and equip a system to decide which

357

type of strategy to use next:
active.

passive, reactive or p r o ­

They are strategies which precede action,

cases and thus are labelled preactive.

in many

It will be argued

in the second half of this chapter that MDE uses preactive
strategies not only to gather information about the environ
m e n t , but also to filter that information according to
input MDE can react to.
Two other strategies discussed before can be moved
to this category.

These are first, maintain options, and

second, increase options.

Both can be conceived of as

ways an organization might prepare for future action.
reduce uncertainty because they increase

They

Cot hold constant)

the number of situations with which a system can cope.

In

fact, the options available to a system help to define the
type of environment within which it can survive.
No changes were made in the passive category.

A

system can ignore a change or threat or shortage--a source
of uncertainty--or it can knowingly absorb the uncertainty.
Such a strategy may be the result of a conscious choice
and may therefore follow the use of a preactive strategy.
For example,

the Board of Control of a utility could be

well-informed concerning opposition to a rate increase.
Preactive strategies would produce such information.

Then,

the Board could consciously decide to ignore the wishes of
its constituents and impose the increase.

Without knowing

the consequence, the decision was made that the utility

358

could absorb whatever uncertainty or threat the clients
could bring to bear.

Such action would, however, be risky

even for a powerful organization.
The set of reactive strategies needed substantial
modification.

With the creation of the preactive category,

several strategies which were previously considered r e ­
active were moved to the new category.

It was recognized

that the end run is in fact a means of avoiding uncertainty,
so that behavior would be categorized as a reactive s t r a ­
tegy, in p a r t .1

The way that MDE uses co-optive hiring is

a reactive strategy for two reasons.

First, in all exam­

ples here the hiring was a response to pressure from some
element of the environment.

(e.g., la Raza, M A S A ) .

Second,

the effect was to change the nature of MDE and that is the
essence of the definition of a reactive strategy.

Thus

co-optation can be proactive or reactive, by situation.
Other strategies could sometimes also be reactive--e.g.,
when exchange is forced on a system, it is a reactive e x ­
change.

In general,

the adoption of a reactive strategy

constitutes an admission of failure of the present mode of
operation.
The proactive category was enlarged.

It was decided

that to advertise or to advocate was to attempt to change
the environment,

and therefore these should be considered

*If an end run includes a coalition,
classified as proactive.

that may be

359

proactive means of reducing uncertainty.

While planning

in itself does not create an impact on the environment,
it was felt that conceptually, planning would fit better
here than in the preactive category.
The modified categories and the strategies they in­
clude are shown in Table 7.

The lessons of this research

require that the reader be cautioned that many more stra­
tegies surely exist.

But the four types, preactive, p a s ­

sive, reactive, and proactive probably exhaust the concep­
tual range.
Also shown in the same figure are the choices of
strategies made by MDE, by case study.
are warranted.

Several conclusions

First, no passive strategies were observed.

This may be a methodological problem, that is it may be
that when such decisions are made

(or not made!) there is

no public utterance for the field researcher to observe.
In most cases a system would adopt a passive strategy in
response to a trivial threat--not the sort of thing to r e ­
quire a vote.

Alternatively,

it is rare that a complex

organization would consciously choose to not act in the
face of uncertainty.

The risks are too large.

Thus it

is reasonable to conclude that trivial instances will be
missed by the methodology and significant instances are
likely to be rare.
federal money,

MDE simply cannot choose to give back

ignore legislation or stamp its mail from

the MEA "Return to Sender."
complex environment must act.

A complex organization in a

360

Some reactive strategies were observed.

The end

runs were most common and even these can be conceived of
as resulting from proactive coalitions entered into by s u b ­
systems of MDE.

The co-optive hirings of outside critics

as a response to stress can also be conceived to be a r e ­
active- -not a proactive-- response to uncertainty.

The fact

that a general influence of ESEA, especially Title I was
to change the character of MDE personnel is recorded as a
post facto response.

The tendency to quantification is a

different behavior for MDE since 1965 and is partly a r e ­
sult of the federal programs.

This trend also can be c a t ­

egorized as a post facto response to all ESEA Titles and to
Chapter 3 also.

A more complete discussion of that trend

will occur later in this chapter.
Numerically, proactive strategies dominated.
most common strategy was exchange.

The

This included formal

contracts, grants, non-formal agreements of support and
similar exchanges.

Coalitions, especially the boundary-

spanning type associated with the end run, were also o b ­
served, as were some attempts at co-optation in the truly
proactive sense (e.g., Title V - C ) .

Federal funds were

used differently in that only with federal money was MDE
able to engage in specific advocacy and planning behaviors
related to (and restricted to) the seven cases.

The only

cases of conflict observed were associated with two state
programs, Chapter 3 and PD Centers.

361

The preactive category is the new one and has
proved to be quite valuable.

Two of the strategies, in­

crease options and maintain options, are only associated
with federal programs.

This matches reality since only

federal money carries enough discretion to allow an agency
to enhance its capacity to an extent in excess of that
needed for minimal maintenance.
All other preactive strategies observed are re­
lated to communicating:

measuring, predicting, collecting

information and similar endeavors.

Most of these instances

were observed in the "Other Cases" category.

This occurs

because when an issue has formed, has taken on an identity
sufficient for a researcher to recognize it as a case, it
is past the preactive stage.

For the most part, the com­

munication links which were observed exist to tell members
what will happen next.

Thus in Title I, the only preactive

communication that was noted was with regard to the possible
change in funding base.

In Special Education, there was

active communication associated with the threatened court
suit.

The communication networks are at work all of the

time, but in mature cases they are less evident, becoming
obvious only when a new source of uncertainty is identified.
The Environment
MDE has, in the cases presented earlier, dealt with
a diversity of environmental elements.

A review of these

362

TABLE 7.--The Dominant Strategy Exercised by MDE in Each
of the Case S t u d i e s .

Strategies

no
w
10)
W
•H
a:

TO
W
t—4

at

ro
M
<D

a>

4-i

u
0)
C l,

CO

oa*
42

<u

u
Q

>
aH
>
i—
■M
•rl
H

U
a>

43

PREACTIVE
Communications,
Measure, Predict

XX

XXX
XXX

XX

Maintain Options

X

Increase Options

X

PASSIVE
Ignore
Absorb
REACTIVE
Post Facto Response

XX

Post Facto C o ­
optation

X

Avoid, End Run

X

PROACTIVE
Conflict

X

Exchange

XX

Co-opt
Coalesce

XX

XX

X

X

X

XX

Annex
Advertise ,
Advocate

X

Planning

X

363

interactions is available

in Table 8.

A discussion of

these will serve to emphasize some points needed later in
this chapter.
The case studies were intentionally chosen to r e ­
flect the range of major environmental influences.

Con­

sequently it should not be surprising to notice that accord­
ing to Table 8, the cases reflect a wide range of major
environmental influences.

There are, however, some more

helpful observations.
The 1963 constitution proved, in two cases, to be
an unuseable source of legal authority.

The Legislature

was the most common source of resources, followed closely
by the U.S. Office.

This is an accurate reflection of the

energy output of MDE even though federal funds dominate the
agency.

The Legislature is a less certain source than the

federal programs, and so requires a disproportionately
large amount of attention.

There is one major reason for

this competition for the attention of the State Legislature.
Specifically,

the interest group activity that directly im­

pacts on MDE occurs at the state level.
In all four state-level cases, plus the "other cases"
section, interest groups exerted influence.

In no case did

MDE manage to implement a major activity which disagreed
with the prevailing interest group's position.

It appeared,

according to the cases studied here, that because of their
political clout, the interest groups have a virtual veto

364

TABLE 8 .--Elements of the Environment of MDE Which Were
Accessed by MDE During the Study.
TJ

(U
H
<U

K!
r-H

rt

M«

- H

X

CO

1963 Constitution

X

X

Legislature

X

X

Courts

X

■H

(State)

Other State Agencies
Interest Groups

U
<D

P.

V

4>
&

W

- M

rt

J3

U

<D

CJ

Q

P.

X

X

X

X

*—(
-i-t

t-«

X

X
X

X

School Districts

X

General Public

X

X

X

X

Federal Government

X

USOE

X

Courts

X

X

(Federal)

X
X

X

X

power over the activities of MDE.

The implications of this

and of the generally diverse and powerful environment of
MDE will receive more attention later in this chapter.
The Resources
There were two types of resources which were
typically sought and sometimes acquired by MDE in the cases
studied.

The first was money.

ceived some money.

In all seven cases MDE r e ­

This is meaningless in itself until the

extent of control over the money--the discretion--is known.

365

MDE was more successful in obtaining discretion with
federal dollars and interest group opposition was less
strong there.
The other resource sought in all cases and less
often achieved was favorable policy.

That concept in­

cludes legal authority, which is what MDE wanted from
the Legislature in the four state level cases.

Discretion

over money can also be described as an outcome of favor­
able policy.
Some specific programs helped to build the MDE
store of information and expertise.

This occurred with

Chapter 3 most obviously and that expertise was put to use
by MDE in discussions with the USOE and the representative
of the federal- level Republicans.

MDE information was the

commodity advanced by that agency regarding higher educa­
tion.

The Legislature "bought" only a little.

To the ex­

tent that MDE has control over money it disburses, this
is also an important resource and was regularly used in
exchanges and contracts when the money was federal and was
accompanied by some discretion.
In summary, MDE typically seeks favorable policy
(especially legal authority) and money, in that order of
intensity.

The commodity MDE has to offer is often exper­

tise or information.

When that information is quantita­

tive data supporting wise expenditure of money, then that
information is in demand by both state and federal levels

366

of government.

This fact has helped to make MDE very

conscious of their ability to gather quantitative eval­
uative data.

This tendency is discussed more fully in

the next section of this chapter to which we will now
turn.
Implications of the Research
It has been shown that MDE does reduce uncertainty
about its environment.

The methods by which this is a c c o m ­

plished have been subsumed under four general types of stra­
tegies:

preactive, passive,

reactive, and proactive.

In

the seven case studies, proactive strategies predominated.
The observations of other cases showed that an ongoing n e t ­
work of preactive strategies was used to inform the agency
about emerging issues.
In spite of the continuing application of a variety
of strategies to reduce uncertainty, MDE does not appear
to be an organization which dominates its environment.

The

MDE Accountability Model is omnipresent, but has not, a c ­
cording to the cases studied here, been implemented widely.
The MDE has used a variety of strategies to encourage use
of the model and has invested resources in that effort.
Still, rational planning has definitely not taken Michigan
by storm.

If MDE can successfully reduce uncertainty,

and concurrently advocates use of a rational planning model,
one can reasonably ask why the influence and power of the
agency are not larger than they have been shown to be here.

367

What are the factors which limit the influence, the power,
and the rationality of MDE?
MDE allocates resources to a diverse clientele.
The diversity of clientele is mirrored by the physical
spread of the agency among several buildings.

It is not

the physical nature of the agency which weakens it, how­
ever, it is the concomitantly diffuse control of resources
throughout different levels of MDE.

There is not an effec­

tive means to set priorities and allocate resources cen­
trally- -and it may be that this condition cannot be changed.
A second limitation of MDE is the relative politi­
cal power of the elements in its environment.

MDE is not

viewed as a legitimate policy maker by members of its e n ­
vironment and is in fact prohibited from activity in that
regard.

At the same time that the real influence of MDE

is thus challenged, the tendency toward quantification and
rationality is encouraged.

The federal government especially

rewards MDE for quantification.

The State Legislature is a

less regular advocate, but at times encourages

MDE in its

role as a rational planner and quantifier.
The immediate result of these influences is the
emphasis by MDE on rationality as a method of operation, as
a system goal.
behavior.

On the one hand, MDE is rewarded for such

It is prohibited from more substantive involve­

ment in policy making on the other, by the diversity and
the political power of the elements in its environment.

368

Thus MDE is required to supply resources to a diversity of
environmental elements without really disturbing the power­
ful members there.

The MDE emphasis on rationality p r o ­

vides a means of walking this tightrope.
The MDE has generated an additional means of rein­
forcing its own behavior.

The network of preactive stra­

tegies is in fact a filter which is used to redefine inputs
from the environment in rational terms.
creates its own enacted,

This way MDE

rational environment where the

closed-system logic of the Accountability Model is opera­
tive.

Having created this enacted rational environment,

MDE behaves as if it were real--by quantifying, planning,
and acting according to its own rational model.

This b e ­

havior has two outcomes.

it is r e ­

warded in some cases.

First, as shown above,

Second, MDE is allowed by powerful

environmental elements to impose rationality within limits-until such behaviors constitute attempts at influencing e d u ­
cational policy.

MDE is viewed by members of its environ­

ment as a technical agency, and technical subsystems are
not typically policy makers.
political system.

That is the role of the

Thus in order to influence education--

rather than simply quantify it--MDE must succeed in the
political arena.

But since MDE has almost zero control

over the basic political commodoty--votes--such efforts
are likely to have limited success.

369

This introduces the final, exploratory phase of
this study.

It seeks to deal with the causes of MDE b e ­

havior and to eventually introduce a series of p r o p osi­
tions which could have more general applicability for
studies of similar organizations.

In pursuit of that goal

attention will now be given to a discussion of MDE behaviors
as outlined above.
Environmental Diversity
The legitimate clientele of MDE are determined by
the 1963 consitution and later by the Legislature, for the
most part.
erate.

The agency has been described here as a conglom­

It must serve general education, compensatory edu­

cation, special education, vocational education, higher edu­
cation, post-secondary students, teachers, community co l ­
leges, rehabilitation cases, state employees, governors,
bureaucrats and politicians.

Responding to such diversity

has the effect of destroying the integration, the cohesion
of the agency.
For example, MDE has in the recent past hired rep­
resentatives of school administrators, special education
parents, Black administrators and parents, and the Latino
community.

Yet these are potentially competitive consti­

tuencies which are elements of a coalition involved with a
diverse set of interest groups.

The strategy was success­

ful, but the amount of control which remains with MDE
with any other single member)

is small.

(or

Titles I-B, III

370

and V-C were all used to contract with school districts
for projects in support of the MDE Accountability model.
In each case some legitimation would result, but also in
each case the imprint of the contracting district would
have subtly altered the model.

Title I has a huge impact

on MDE in that it brought in a lot of money--but it also
changed the character of the agency and enlarged its fo ­
cus on urban and minority issues.

In each case the e l e ­

ments in the environment of MDE altered the nature of the
agency and not all in one direction.

The diversity of e l e ­

ments to which MDE must respond makes it impossible for the
agency to be cohesive,

integrated.

In one instance MDE sought to control funds in Chap­
ter 3, in another it tried to create and control profession­
al development centers.

But the diversity of members con­

cerned with the latter assures that the outcome will serve
the needs of the lowest ^^mmon denominator.

The power of

the urban lobbies will inevitably force MDE to recognize
that Chapter 3 is politically motivated general aid to u r ­
ban schools.

The fact that these conflict with other d e ­

mands such as special education is important.

The same d o l ­

lars cannot serve both the mentally handicapped and the ur­
ban poor.

The attention of MDE is

(legitimately!)

divided

among several consitutents, most of whom have an internal
advocate.

The agency is necessarily "torn" in its efforts

to deal with such diverse constituents.

Yet, on an issue-

371

by-issue basis MDE is successful in reducing uncertainty
about these elements, often via proactive means.
This points out a contradiction in the research so
far.

It was suggested that organizations in complex e n ­

vironments will necessarily prefer proactive strategies.
It has been shown that proactive strategies comprise a
large portion of the activities of MDE.

One would there­

fore expect that an organization with such investment in
proactive behaviors would dominate its environment.

Yet

such is not the case with MDE, as the examples above illus­
trate.

The reason for this is disarmingly simple, and is

consistent with previous findings.

Proactive strategies

applied over a diverse group of strong environmental forces
tend to cancel each other out.
MDE deals with a large group of environmental i n ­
fluences.

It uses many proactive strategies to deal with

these groups.

Often,

it is successful in reducing u n cer ­

tainty which originates with these diverse environmental
elements.

But the elements are highly diverse and that

causes the breakdown.

There is nothing that MDE can offer

or impose which could have meaning or purpose across such
a diverse environment.

The Accountability Model is general

enough, but in being so general it loses the ability to
have dramatic impact across such diversity.
The parents of the retarded children do not want a
planning model,

they want guaranteed funded service.

La

372

Raza did not seek "Accountability,11 it sought an insider
in MDE.

The urban districts reject "Accountability" and

lobby for Chapter 3 money.

The interest groups and Wayne

State did not do battle for Accountability in the profes­
sional development center--they wanted a million dollars
and a share of the governance.

There are two lessons here.

First, many of the cases presented in this study show that
the goals of the constituents MDE must serve are not able
to be subsumed under the MDE's best effort at a general way
of behaving, the MDE Accountability Model.

Second, it is

doubtful that any other general scheme could encompass this
range of activity.
In sum, it has been argued that the environment of
MDE is diverse and organizationally irrational.

MDE attempts

to reduce uncertainty regarding a wide range of environmen­
tal elements.

The responses of MDE are as diverse as the

demands which the environment creates.

Attempts to respond

to these diverse demands tend to be self-defeating.
Control of Resources
A three-part model describing the MDE
organization) will be used.

(or any other

The first premise is that o r ­

ganizations have been shown to interact with their environ­
ments.

It is not news that a system interacts with its en ­

vironment.

The question here is which parts of a system

interact with the environment?

373

A model of system behavior exists which can be
adapted to answer that question.

It is taken from James

D. Thompson's interpretation of the work of Talcott P a r ­
s o n s .1

Parsons' original model suggested that organizations

"exhibit three distinct levels of responsibility and control--technical, managerial and institutional."

2

Parsons

and Thompson agree that there is a qualitative break b e ­
tween the three.

The model will be referred to from here

on as the Thompson-Parsons model.
Organizations are said to possess a technical core;
a set of recurring rather predictable tasks such as assem­
bling cars, ringing cash registers, or processing teaching
certificates.

There is typically very little control of

the resources of the organization at this level.

Closed-

system assumptions can (ideally) be made about the technical
core.

According to Thompson, "the logical model for achiev­

ing complete technical rationality uses a closed system of
3
logic--closed by the elimination of uncertainty."
For the moment we will bypass the managerial level
and discuss
tence.

This

the institutional level of organizational e x i s ­
is the level at which, in the Thompson-Parsons

version--the organization is open to the environment.
1Thomspon, Organizations in A c t i o n , particularly
chapters one through five, pp. 3-100.
2 I b i d . , p. 1 0 .
3 Ibid.,

p.

11.

374

Constant interchanges occur.

These are the executive and

board of directors of the organization, those who commit
its resources and seek certainty on its behalf.

Use of

strategies requires a control of resources that usually
exists only at this level.
According to Thompson, "a significant function of
the managerial level is to mediate between the two extremes
. .

Since "managerial” has a business connotation and

the need here is for a more general model, the term "admin­
istrative level" will be substituted.
do not change.

The characteristics

The administrators in this model exist in

the middle of the organization, "ironing out some irregular­
ities stemming from external sources, but also pressing the
technical core for modifications as conditions alter."
In the ideal case, this level would have limited control of
organizational resources.
At the three levels, different types of tasks dom­
inate.

In the technical core, rational, technical tasks

should occur.

At the administrative level, mediating tasks,

the realm of the administrator, would be in the majority.
At the institutional level the organization is open to its
environment.

Here the resources of the organization are

sought, acquired and disbursed.

This is the interface with

the other organizations which compose the environment.
1I b i d . , p.

12.

2 I b i d . , p.

13.

375

The assertion is this:

MDE is not integrated on a

system level, it is a collection of subsystems over which
the institutional level exercises barely nominal control.
This occurs because many subsystems must respond to uncer­
tain environmental influences.
verse.

These influences are d i ­

The system--MDE--is unable to achieve integration

of its subsystems because control of resources

is exerted

at the administrative level.
The end-run examples are useful here.

On two

occasions the Special Education subsystem was accused of
entering coalitions with outsiders which resulted in c o m ­
mitments of MDE resources that were not made at the insti­
tutional level.

The original confidant of la Raza was

said to have often used that group to pressure MDE to for­
mally comply with his own goals--at least those goals which
la Raza supported.

A member of the MDE food services staff

was said to have formed a coalition with the professional
association to exert influence of the Legislature to in­
crease his budget--without using the institutional channels.
The Office of School and Community Affairs is irregularly
accused of similar alliances, alliances which inevitably
commit resources of MDE without approval at the institu­
tional level.
The MDE habit of hiring to co-opt an external critic
supports this tendency toward diffusion of control of r e ­
sources.

The former director of Special Education was

376

hired to deal with the increasingly vociferous parent lobby.
The effect was to reduce uncertainty about that environmen­
tal element and also to give up some control of resources
to the administrative level--that is where the Director
was placed.

In addition to its ties with the black parents

and professionals, the Office of School and Community A f ­
fairs is the administrative home of the new Latino Educa­
tion specialist*

His hiring, and the hiring of the Black

who is in charge of the Office, was a response to a p a r ­
ticular constituency.

The result was to allow influence

from the Black and Latino constituencies to be heard and
to have control of some of the resources of MDE.

For the

two positions are of a "staff” nature, not really a part
of the institutional level of MDE.
The resources of the agency are limited.

Yet the

institutional level has been shown not to have total con­
trol of how resources are allocated.

In this way the di ­

verse elements of the environment of MDE reduce the abil­
ity of the agency to maintain integrated behavior at the
system level.

Rather, MDE is a conglomerate of subsystems.

Each subsystem may be successfully reducing uncertainty
about its particular constituency by using preactive and
even proactive strategies.

But the same degree of certainty

does not exist in a general sense of the agency as a whole.
MDE adapts and survives and even prospers, but it does so
in a dozen directions.

377

The fact that MDE emits responses to these consti­
tuents from both administrative and instutional levels in ­
creases the effect of the environmental diversity.

The two

elements --diffuse control and diverse demands --support each
other to create an agency which is unable to achieve inte­
gration.
Policy Making and Measurement
MDE suffers from a lack of integration.

One reason

is the simple diversity of environmental elements and their
demands.

Another is the fact that MDE responses are emit­

ted at various and uncontrolled levels.

These facts have

secondary effects because the agency has been frustrated
in attempts to act at a policy level, MDE emphasizes the
technical, quantitative aspects of education.
There are limits to the influence MDE is able to
exert.

It was shown in the study of higher education that

the ability of MDE to influence higher education was lim­
ited.

In one instance it was limited by the University

lobbies.

Chapter 3 was removed from MDE monetary control

because the urban school districts were threatened.

The

Michigan Association for Retarded Citizens seems to have a
much stronger voice than MDE in determining policy for
special education.

In the professional development center

issue, MDE could only succeed in concert with the interest
groups--and they were disunited.

When MDE regulates

378

accounting procedures or the color of bus fenders on the
tests which one can use to evaluate Chapter 3, the consti­
tuents will comply.

These are technical items which do not

threaten others; they are recognized as the legitimate do ­
main of MDE.

But whenever MDE has ventured into the policy

level--as in the cases above--the interest groups have suc­
cessfully opposed the Department.
MDE "rules11 with the consent of the governed.

With­

in the range of behaviors which are not viewed as threaten­
ing to the interest groups or other constituents, MDE is
not opposed.
opposed.

But attempts to create policy are universally

Because almost all of the interest groups are

more politically powerful in the Legislature than MDE, the
Department’s activities are proscribed.
The general trend toward regulation and toward quan­
tification has been mentioned in several places earlier.
To demonstrate that MDE is consistently rewarded for its
quantitative emphasis,

the following review is presented.

First, MDE was funded at a minimal level to provide quan­
titative information about need.

In Chapter 3, the abil­

ity to measure results and demonstrate--according to MDE-that the state program was cost effective was the saving
grace.

That was all the Legislature funded MDE to do, in

the long run, and the experience was used by MDE to gain
credibility at a national level.

In most federal p r o ­

grams , all MDE has to do to receive money is to provide

379

documented numbers.
ently by Congress.

This is required by USOE and a p par­
Since a majority of MDE staff are fed­

erally funded (64$), and federal emphasis is on numbers,
the quantitative emphasis of MDE is predictable.

Efforts

by MDE to influence educational policy have been met with
opposition.
dollars.

Efforts to extract numbers have been met with

The result should not be surprising.*

The Rational World of MDE
Because the environment of MDE is diverse MDE must
act in such a variety of ways that no integrated action
occurs.

One means of dealing with the diverse demands has

been the diffusion of control of resources to the adminis­
trative level.

This enhances the trend toward lack of

integration.
Concurrently MDE is prohibited by the power of the
elements in its environment from being an effective policy
maker.

On the other hand MDE is rewarded by both state and

federal governments for the production of quantitative
information.
The net effect of this collection of influences
is the emphasis within MDE on rational planning, an empha­
sis which is made explicit in the Accountability Model and
*This is similar to, but not the same as, the a rgu­
ment by James D. Thompson that organizations which cannot
justify qualitative outcomes tend to revert to quantitative,
technical-level evaluations.

380

in the general trend toward quantification of education.

A

rational technical world is more predictable, contains
less uncertainty than a more political world.

In a ration­

al world, output is measurable and efficiency can be sought
and achieved.

It is a closed system.

The emphasis on rational planning amount to reduc­
ing the tasks of the agency to measurable, quantifiable
ones.

This is similar to eliminating a source of uncer­

tainty by enclosing it in the technical core where all
things are known and rational, where closed-system assump­
tions are operative.*

Similar conclusions are arrived at

by conceiving the MDE trend to rational planning as a sys- 2
tern goal.
The Accountability Model is not a goal, i t ’s a safe
way of operating, a method of operating which has been re ­
warded in past, whereas forays into the policy making arena
have not.

This condition of being dedicated to a method of

operation is referred to as a system goal.

This is a state

in which the organization's resources are devoted to survi­
val and to a particular way of behaving while surviving.
There is thus no product goal, no particular outcome which
*See Thompson, Organizations in Action, especially
chapters 1 and 7, for a complete discussion of this ten­
dency .
2

See Charles Perrow, Organizational Analysis:
A
Sociological V i e w , (Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1970),
Chapter 5 and Amitai Etzioni, Modern Organizations (Engle­
wood Cliffs:
Prentice Hall, 1964), Chapter 2.

381

is desired.

The point is to behave in such-and-such a way

while continuing to survive.

All organizations have some

system goals, such as low overhead, efficiency, high divi­
dends, worker satisfaction or a particular management
style.

Such goals are a problem only when they supplant

product goals, when more attention is paid to how the or­
ganization operates than whether it operates effectively.
By default, MDB has come to be in this state.
Since attempts to act on its environment in a significant
and integrated way have so regularly been frustrated.

MDE

has retreated from the policy level to an entrenched d e ­
fense of rationality, quantification and "Accountability.”
Preactive Filtering
In addition to the causes of this trend already
mentioned, there is another MDE behavior which perpetuates
this trend to rationality.

This is the whole realm of

preactive communication strategies.

By using preactive

communication links as filters, MDE creates a rational
environment.

That is, whatever the condition of the en ­

vironment (and it has been shown to be diverse, irrational,
political and uncertain) MDE translates its perceptions
into rational ones.

The real environment is filtered

through the MDE communication links and is transformed.
MDE creates an artificial, enacted, rational environment-and then responds to it in a rational manner.

382

For example,

in the environment of MDE there are

children who c a n ’t read.
have not changed this.

Millions of dollars and hours
MDE translates that problem into

one which can be dealt with in a rational manner.

MDE

asserts that "new delivery systems will improve reading"
(Title III).

MDE asserts that the problem is the teachers

and the districts, both of whom should be punished by with­
drawal of money

(Chapter 3).

MDE asserts that the problem

is the teachers and retraining them will solve it (PDC).
Or,

in the higher education arena, MDE perceives

that output should reflect need and that both can be quanti­
fied to assist in planning and coordinating.

Title I has

been unsuccessful in eliminating the effects of poverty,
so MDE advocates a change to a "more rational" academic
funding base.
None of this is unreasonable,
their environments to some extent.

all systems enact

It is the consistent

pattern of MDE behavior that is interesting and the fact
that this enacted environment is part of a self-perpetuating
feedback loop whose center is rational behavior.

To ob­

serve that visually, attention is directed to the summary
model in Figure 13.
A Model of MDE Behavior
The summative argument developed in this chapter
is shown in Figure 13.

383

Item (1) shows the real environment of MDE.

It is

a complex and diverse environment, definitely not rational
or ordered.

It contains powerful elements which can affect

MDE.
From the environment, diverse demands (2) impact
on MDE.

These are dealt with by MDE via strategies which

are successful on a one-at-a-time basis, but which are also
as diverse as the demands

(3).

Consequently the agency

does not behave in an integrated fashion.
phenomenon contributes:

A concurrent

MDE responds to its diverse con­

stituents at both administrative and institutional levels.
This lack of structural cohesion (4) allows resources to
be allocated from a variety of levels
dency to diverse responses

(5).

Thus the ten­

(3) and the disintegrated struc­

ture are thought to be mutually supportive.
An agency responding to diversity in such an inco­
herent manner is not able to exert major influence on edu­
cational policy (6).

For that reason, MDE avoids such

product goals and adopts rational behavior as a system
goal

(7).

Not only is MDE unable to exert influence at a

policy level because of the diversity of its environment
and responses, but on those occasions when MDE has v e n ­
tured into the policy arena, political prohibition (8) has
resulted.

This supports the tendency away from policy ma k ­

ing goals toward rational system goals.

384

Concurrently,

federal

(especially) and state gov­

ernments reward (9) the production of quantitative data
(10) and thus encourage rationality.
mation about the real environment

Internally,

infor­

(11) is transformed

into rational terms by the use of preactive communication
strategies

(12).

acted environment

This amounts to the creation of an e n ­
(13) .

MDE then treats the enacted en­

vironment as if it were real and responds via rational
planning and quantification.

This tendency toward ration­

ality is limited in turn by the political system.
It is the w r i t e r ’s judgement that this situation
represents a condition of equilibrium.

MDE meets enough

of the needs of its various energy sources to continue the
same level of existence.

The agency can pursue its formal

system goal of rational operation without disrupting the
business of serving la Raza, MARC, Middle Cities, Detroit
and the Legislature.

An environmental change could upset

the equilibrium, as could a major change in the organiza­
tion's structure, a change affecting its ability to meet
environmental needs.
Until then, MDE will continue as it is, very effec­
tive in reducing uncertainty--through use of strategies and
rational planning--but will have difficulty producing change
or impact on education at a policy level.
It is possible to conceive of the behavior of MDE
as the result of the dynamic interaction of two sets of

385

forces.

There is a rational subsystem, a set of forces

encouraging MDE to behave in a rational, quantitative m a n ­
ner.

But there is also a political subsystem,

limiting

the extent to which MDE can be effective in imposing its
rational will on its real non-rational environment.

The

extent to which MDE acts rationally or politically with
regard to a given issue is dependent on the interplay of
these two subsystems.
This is why reduction of uncertainty is not in it­
self sufficient to assure dominance of an environment.

MDE

does well in reducing environmental uncertainty--and should
apparently be able to make closed system assumptions as a
result.

But uncertainty is typically reduced on an issue

by issue basis at various levels in diverse directions, b e ­
cause of the diverse environmental demands.

These are in­

fluences from the political subsystem, and they limit the
ability of MDE to act rationally.
is the other limit.

The simple lack of power

As far as information goes, MDE does

well in reducing uncertainty but this does not by itself
create a closed system.

The missing element is control,

and this is the commodoty which is allocated by the politi­
cal subsystem,

thus limiting the ability of MDE to act out

its rational model and make its enacted environment real.
Researchable Propositions
Field studies are often justified as being useful
for generating hypotheses.

The explanatory model presented

386

in Figure 14 facilitates that task in this instance.

Rather

than formal hypotheses, however, a set of propositional
statements is presented here.

The task of translating

these into testable, measureable hypotheses is a task
beyond the domain of this study.
1.

As the diversity of elements in its environ­

ment increases, MDE devotes increasingly more time to ap­
plying strategies to reduce uncertainty regarding those
elements.
2.

As environmental complexity increases, the abil­

ity of MDE to enact strategies in an integrated manner d e ­
creases .
3.

As environmental complexity increases, the or­

ganizational locations through which resources are d is­
bursed will become more diffuse.
4.

As ability to maintain integrated behavior de ­

creases, ability to act on a policy level decreases.
5.

As ability to affect policy decreases, empha­

sis on the system goal of rationality increases.
6.

As powerful environmental elements increase op­

position to MDE policy level behavior, MDE increasingly em­
phasizes rationality of operation.
7.

As powerful environmental elements reward MDE

for rational behavior, emphasis on rationality increases.
8.

As its emphasis on rationality increases, MDE

increasingly uses preactive communication filters to enact
a rational environment.

Diverse Deeands
13.
Structural Organization

Diffuse Control of Resources

Enacted
Rational
Environment

Diverse Responses;Resources
Closed

an

System

Open
System

Inability to Shape
Policy in an Inte­
grated Manner

Adoption of Rational
Rehavior/Systen Goal

387

8. Prohibition free Policy
Control

Reward for Quantification

10.

Quantitative Information

11.

Information about Environ*
ment

FIGURE 11.--How MDE is encouraged to behave in a rational manner.

11 .

Use of Preactive Filter

388

9.

As emphasis on rationality increases, MDE in

creasingly responds to its rational, enacted environment.
10.

As emphasis on rationality increases, MDE

will increase attempts to impose rational planning on
its constituents, the public schools.
11.

As MDE preoccupation with rationality de ­

creases services to powerful environmental elements, MDE
will be prohibited from further expansion of its rational
model.
12.

As the environment remains constant and the

structure of MDE remains constant, this system of behavior
will constitute a self-regulating system in equilibrium.
And why should it be otherwise?

The environment

of MDE is complex and the elements therein have diverse
needs.

Some response must be given and the present

arrangement seems to work.
and political one.

The judgement is a philosophical

If one believes a state agency should

dominate its environment, this arrangement is a failure.
But if one believes in "a policy of benign neglect," the
MDE might be considered too aggressive as it is.

The answer,

like the environment of the MDE, is not rational--i t 's
political.

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