Gore Scolded on Test Score Meeting

WASHINGTON —  Vice President Al Gore’s recent efforts to turn routine agency announcements into upbeat, campaign-style events are provoking amusement from the politically savvy. Now, at least one incident has prompted complaints that Gore is bringing politics to the bureaucracy.

In recent weeks, as he begins his campaign for president, Gore has billed himself as the defender of harried air travelers and the promoter of a new commuter benefit: a three-digit telephone number for the latest news on traffic jams. The Transportation Department, in a release that does not quite rival Gore’s claim to helping create the Internet, credited him for inspiring a research program to improve concrete pavement.

But when the Education Department brought Gore in to announce new reading test scores, the response was a scolding from the nonpartisan board that sets policy for national educational testing.

In a letter to the department, National Assessment Governing Board Chairman Mark Musick objected that Gore essentially had turned the Feb. 10 announcement into a political rally, which featured a friendly crowd primed to applaud a punchy message and downplayed worrisome parts of the test results.

An Awkward Shift to Mini-Government

Campaign-style government “can cloud the confidence people might have in the independence of the data,” said Education Statistics Commissioner Pascal Forgione, agreeing with critics who complained to him that “this should not happen again.”

Gore’s focus on mini-government represents an awkward shift for the vice president, who built a political career by tackling issues like global warming and technological literacy.

Republicans have zinged Gore because of some of his claims, but experts said that the era of small initiatives has replaced that of big government.

“The presidency has become a microbrewery of policy,” said Paul Light, a Brookings Institution scholar who has followed Gore’s campaign to “reinvent” government through streamlining and better communication. “There isn’t much in this administration to claim credit for and, on most of the big issues, credit has already been claimed by others. If Gore is going to claim credit for something, it’s going to be small beer.”

How Gore’s approach will play with voters is an open question. His early opponent for the Democratic nomination, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, is campaigning on more traditional liberal themes, such as concern for the poor. Republicans, riven by divisions among economic and social conservatives, are hitting hard on foreign policy, where they think the Clinton administration is vulnerable.

Gore’s office said that there is nothing new or particularly political about his announcements. “For six years, the vice president has been working on all sorts of different policy issues,” spokesman Chris Lehane said. “These are the types of things he does on a daily basis, because these are the kinds of issues he’s involved with.”

But lately, he seems to be doing more of them.

One day recently, the vice president announced an Internet site for senior citizens. Another day he endorsed clearer labels for over-the-counter drugs. He backed grants to make sure the year 2000 computer bug does not bedevil state unemployment benefit programs.

Agency spokespersons insisted that there is no organized effort to engage in overt politicking on behalf of Gore. It is routine, they said, for Cabinet departments to give credit to people in the White House, even for things not directly involving the president and vice president--like improving concrete pavement.

But some see Gore’s office as siphoning off announcements that belong in the sphere of Cabinet secretaries, agency heads--or even mayors. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, for example, was set to unveil the proposed national traffic information line at a safety conference in early March. The day of the expected announcement, aides said the White House had laid claim to it.

The incident involving the Education Department’s release of reading scores was anything but routine. It provides a glimpse at how agencies and Gore’s office work to generate publicity.

Like the release of unemployment statistics and economic indicators, the announcement of national student scores is supposed to be insulated from politics.

The latest results showed that reading scores improved from 1994 to 1998 among students in grades 4, 8 and 12. However, for 4th- and 12th-graders, the improvement was essentially a recovery to previous levels in 1992.

According to interviews and internal memos, the original plan for releasing the results did not involve Gore. On previous occasions, the highest official present had been the Education secretary. But statistics commissioner Forgione said that the department’s top managers were excited about the scores and wanted to bring in the White House.

The day of the release, about 300 department employees and education lobbyists were packed into an auditorium. The vice president received a standing ovation as he was introduced by a teacher. Education reporters were assigned to a roped area in back of the hall.

Gore’s announcement stressed the gains in test scores and he linked them to administration policies, urging the Republican Congress to do more. In his eagerness to put a positive spin on the statistics, Gore glossed over the fact that long-term progress had been modest at best. The vice president left without taking media questions. Later, as department officials talked with reporters, the mixed message in the numbers became clear.

Musick, chairman of the board that oversees the tests, wrote the department: “The format, tone and substance of that event was not consistent with the principle of an independent, nonpartisan release of [test scores], an important and long-standing policy.”

But Gore’s spokesman disagreed. “The administration has made investing in schools one of its top priorities,” Lehane said. “It was completely appropriate for the vice president to make the announcement.”

Gore Wins Another Top Endorsement

Meanwhile, Gore on Monday tightened his grip on the 2000 Democratic nomination by winning another high-level endorsement, that of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

Daschle, flanked by Gore in Sioux Falls, S.D., said: “I am proud to stand with you and support your bid to become the next president of the United States.”

The backing came one week after Gore was endorsed by House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, once his top foe for the nomination.

Times staff writer Sheila Hotchkin contributed to this story.

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