1. Riley Responses to Panels' Recommendations on History Standards
2. Restructuring of NEH
3. Archivist Announces Appointment of A New General Counsel
4. Government Publishes Implementing Directive for Declassification
1. Riley Responses to Panels' Recommendations on History Standards --
On October 11 Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley issued a
statement on the recommendations of the Council for Basic Education's
two panels that reviewed the National Standards in United States and
World History. Riley stated that the panels' recommendations "are an
important step forward in the resolution of controversy regarding
proposed voluntary national history standards." The two panels
recommended some refinement but endorsed much of the work undertaken
by The National Center for History in the Schools at UCLA. The panels
did call for the elimination of the teaching examples, which have been
the target of most of the criticism. "The recommendations are
concrete, specific and should form the basis," Riley said, "for
developing a new consensus regarding what our young people need to
know regarding America's proud history."
2. Restructuring of NEH --
On October 16 Sheldon Hackney, the Chairman of NEH, announced a
restructuring plan that will go into effect in December. He stated
that the Endowment will be focusing on four areas: supporting
original scholarship, preserving the American cultural heritage,
providing learning opportunities for the nation's teachers, and
engaging the American public in the humanities." The leaner structure
has three divisions, down from six a year ago, and seven programs,
down from the current number of thirty-one programs.
The Division of Preservation will have one program that will
include preservation and access projects, stabilization of material
culture collections, and the United States Newspaper initiative.
The Division of Public Programs and Enterprise will have two
programs -- public programs and enterprise. Enterprise is defined as
"special initiatives, partnerships with other agencies and the private
sector, trans-divisional projects, and other activities."
The third division, the Division of Research and Education, will
include four programs: fellowships and stipends, collaborative
research, education development and demonstration, seminars and
institutes. The Office of Federal State Partnerships, which focuses
on the state humanities councils, is also being restructured and will
play less of a regulatory role and more of a service role.
3. Archivist Announces the Appointment of a New General Counsel --
Archivist John Carlin has announced that Elizabeth Pugh will be the
new General Counsel for the National Archives. Elizabeth A. Pugh, who
began her duties at the National Archives on October 2, had been with
the Department of Justice since 1983. She served first as a trial
attorney and since 1988 as Assistant Branch Director for Federal
Programs in the Civil Division. She has been responsible for overall
supervision of all civil cases involving government information
issues, including Freedom of Information Act cases. Pugh has been
associated in the past with Justice Department positions that appear
to some observers as overly deferential to the President's right to
control access and to the intelligence agencies' desire to withhold
records.
4. Government Publishes Implementing Directive for Declassification --
On October 13 the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO)
published in the Federal Register, pages 53492- 53502, the
implementing directive for Executive Order 12958, relating to
classified national security information. This executive order
provides federal agencies with a grace period of five years to
declassify all their material over 25 years old, with provisions that
during this period agency heads may use nine criteria, given in the
order, to exempt specific information. To exempt information from
automatic declassification, agencies must prepare a written
justification explaining why this information must remain classified
for a longer period.
There are two major concerns about the language of the implementing
directive. First, the use of vague and imprecise language may well
impede the declassification process. And second, the implementing
directive states that "Classified information in records that have not
been scheduled for disposal or retention by the National Archives and
Records Administration is not subject to section 3.4 ( the automatic
declassification section) of this order." Not only does this offer a
loop hole for some agencies with large quantities of older classified,
but unscheduled, records; but this policy also may serve as an
incentive in the future for agencies to postpone scheduling records,
which will complicate the work of the National Archives.
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