A high-ranking Education Department official said yesterday at the Graduate School of Education that the federal government needs to step in and help state governments make more efficient use of their funds for education.

Chester Finn, who spoke in front of an audience of about 40 people in the Lyman Room of Longfellow Hall yesterday afternoon, said the federal government's education policy is mired in the past, and must change in order to address serious concerns about the national educational product.

"Education is the largest single item in state budgets," said Finn, who is currently assistant secretary for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. He said the U.S. spends $4400 a year for each elementary student and $11,000 a year for each full-time college or university student.

But he added that Americans feel they are not getting their money's worth for their education dollar. "American students are near or at the bottom in international education, Finn said.

Finn, who received his doctorate in education from Harvard in 1970, said that education has become an important political issue since concerns have increased about the quality of American schools.

"For the first time in the history of the country, the presidential candidates had a debate on education only [in Chapel Hill, N.C.]," Finn said. "It is becoming a discussion issue in national politics because the public is unhappy."

The Education Department official said that the federal government must accept part of the blame for the current critiques. "The federal government's role has not fundamentally changed in twenty years," Finn said.

Yet, Finn said that serious educational problems have arisen over that period. For example, he said that scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) dropped 90 points between 1964 and 1980. And even though he said that 19 points were recovered in the early 1980s, the past two years have seen no significant rise in SAT scores.

"The public takes SAT scores seriously," Finn said.

He added that college board scores are not the only indicator of a weak elementary and secondary school education system in the U.S. "Students learn what teachers oblige them to learn, not a whole heck of a lot more," said Finn. "The entire 19th century is a hazy blur and I think it is a bloody outrage."