Two more top Education Department officials will vacate their posts this month, but neither plans to leave Washington.
Chester E. Finn Jr., assistant secretary for educational research and improvement, this summer announced his intention to leave office on Oct. 1. The department’s deputy undersecretary for planning, budget, and evaluation, Bruce M. Carnes, said recently that he will depart on Sept. 20, the same day as Secretary of Education William J. Bennett.
Mr. Finn plans to rejoin the faculty of Vanderbilt University as professor of education and public policy and to serve as director of the Educa4tional Excellence Network, which will be housed in the university’s enlarged Washington office.
The research network was founded in 1982 by Mr. Finn and Diane Ravitch, an adjunct professor of history and education at Columbia University who collaborated with him last year on the book What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know? Ms. Ravitch will serve as the network’s chairman.
Mr. Finn’s plans for the network include issuing a regular “national report card” on the state of American education, according to a Vanderbilt spokesman.
Mr. Carnes, a close adviser to Sec8retary Bennett and a key defender of the Administration’s budget proposals as head of the department’s budget branch, will become the senior vice president for planning, operation, and development for University Support Systems Inc. The nonprofit corporation, which assists students in obtaining financial aid, is sponsored by a consortium of Washington-area colleges and universities.
