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WASHINGTON, DC -- The Department of Education has paid education advocacy groups to produce newspaper opinion pieces, advertisements, and other public materials that reached audiences all over the country without revealing that the government paid for their production and distribution, according to a report issued late last week by the Department’s Inspector General that concluded that such practices were improper.
Representative George Miller (D-CA), the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, requested the report in January. Miller said the report raises two key concerns: first, that it describes the consistent use of covert propaganda by the Department of Education over a period of years; and second, that it shows a disturbing pattern of neglect on the part of the Department when it comes to properly overseeing its grants and contracts.
For example, opinion articles appearing in an untold number of newspapers all over the country were written and placed by authors paid by the federal government who failed to disclose this relationship in their columns. These writers offered opinions – sometimes strident ones – about controversial areas of federal education policy.
The IG report names the Dallas Morning News, Sacramento Bee, Mobile Register, Grand Island (NE) Independent, Al Dia, and En USA as publications that published government-funded op-eds whose authors failed to disclose the government’s financial sponsorship. Separately, Miller’s office also determined that additional opinion articles ran in the Charleston Gazette.
Out of 11 relevant grants made by the Department to different groups and reviewed by the Inspector General, only one of them was made to a grantee that identified the federal government as its funding source on all materials it developed and disseminated. The other ten either always failed to disclose the government’s role or only did so inconsistently.
Miller disagreed with the Inspector General’s conclusion that these failures do not constitute covert propaganda. The Inspector General said that the Department would have to intend for these organizations and individuals to mislead the public for its actions to constitute covert propaganda.
“The Department is trying to define itself out of trouble by setting the bar very high for what constitutes covert propaganda,” said Miller. “But on multiple occasions, education groups used taxpayer money – unbeknownst to taxpayers – to promote controversial federal policies.
“The Department allowed this egregious use of taxpayer dollars to continue with such consistency that it cannot now claim that it was ignorant of the practice. Either the Department is grossly incompetent when it comes to awarding grants and contracts, or it is misleading investigators and engaging in a cover up,” Miller said.
The Inspector General did conclude that it was improper for organizations to use Department of Education grant money to produce and disseminate public materials without including a disclaimer about funding, and said that the appropriate course of action is to recover grant monies paid to the organizations.
Miller also said that the Department has displayed near-total incompetence when it comes to managing its grants and contracts. The Department was unable to produce a number of the deliverables that it was promised under two grants and four contracts. At best, Miller said, this means that the Department has taken no care to see that it got what it paid for; at the worst, Miller said, it raises the possibility that the Department is trying to hide information.
“This was an irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars, and the taxpayers ought to be made whole again,” said Miller. “But that’s only part of the story. People looking at advertisements or reading their local newspapers would have had no idea that what they were reading was bought and paid for with their tax dollars. No matter which way you slice it, that is propaganda.”
In response, Miller plans to demand the Department recoup tax dollars unlawfully spent by venders; insist the Department of Education provide to Congress the information it refused to provide to the Inspector General’s office; and demand that the Department report to Congress on how it is revamping its shoddy contracting and grant-making processes.
Miller asked for the report in January 2005 after it was revealed that the Department of Education had paid $240,000 to Armstrong Williams, a media commentator, to promote the No Child Left Behind Act on his and other television programs without indicating that he was being paid by the government to do so.
This press release has been modified from its original.
Visit http://www.house.gov/georgemiller/propaganda.html for more information on the Bush Administration’s use of covert propaganda.
Visit http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/aireports/i13f0012.doc for a copy of the Inspector General’s report.
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