Tangled in Politics, Statistics Position Remains in Limbo

By Joetta L. Sack

Washington

The job, in theory at least, is supposed to be above politics. The basic data of education, the thinking goes, are too important to be subject to partisan pressure and whims.

But politics by most accounts resulted in the forced departure in 1999 of the last permanent U.S. commissioner of education statistics, and have been no small factor in the job, which has remained in the hands of an interim commissioner since then.

Now, some researchers are wondering why the Bush White House, in its 13th month in power, still has not named a new head for the National...