The federal agency that suggests what American schools should teach and grades the performance of millions of students with ever-expanding federal standards barely passes Uncle Sam’s biggest demand: complying with rules to write in plain English.
A new study of how federal agencies write public documents gave the Department of Education an embarrassing grade of “D.” Even the Treasury Department, home to the Internal Revenue Service, got an “A.”
Education’s low grade was one of the highlights of the Center for Plain Language’s annual Federal Plain Language Report Card. It judges how well agencies are complying with the Plain Writing Act of 2010.
A top grade of “A” went to 19 of 22 agencies covered by the law. That puts Education’s “D” in the lowest percentile, so to speak. Only State and Interior did worse, with an “F.” However, they could actually be better, but they refused to work with the grading group.
The “D” was for compliance with the law. Ed received a “C” for writing and a “B” for information design. Said the report:
“The Department of Education has work to do. The Department of Education was evaluated for the first time in 2014. They earned passing grades for Writing and Information Design, but a ‘D’ in Compliance, leaving them with catch-up work to do.”
Education Deputy Press Secretary Raymonde Charles said the department was on the case. “The U.S. Department of Education is dedicated to writing in plain language for all of its various audiences, including teachers, parents, education organizations, researchers and the general public. We are committed to continuous improvements and are taking steps to be in full compliance with the law,” she said.
Here is how compliance is graded, said the report: “The Compliance grade evaluates whether a department fulfills the requirements of the Plain Writing Act. We graded 22 departments on Compliance. First, we assigned points to each requirement in the Act. Some elements, such as the training program and easy-to-use feedback channels, were weighted more heavily than others. Then we used the self-reported information, with Google searches to confirm (or determine) if a department fulfilled each requirement. Compliance grades reflect the percentage of requirements a department fulfilled.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
