The University of Louisville's former dean of education, Robert D. Felner, faces a criminal trial on charges that he and an associate diverted most of a $694,000 earmarked federal grant into their own bank accounts. Louisville officials have announced an administrative overhaul that will, they say, help prevent any future misbehavior with grants. But what about the U.S. Department of Education, which was responsible for overseeing the grant on taxpayers' behalf? Should it, too, be doing some soul-searching in the aftermath of Mr. Felner's indictment? The Education Department's own inspector general has expressed concern about the department's oversight of its earmarked grants. In a 2007 report, the inspector general argued that program officers like Ron Anson were overburdened. At the Fund for the Improvement of Education, which oversaw Mr. Felner's grant, some "monitors were responsible for over 100 earmark projects during Fiscal Year 2005, and therefore were unable to dedicate significant time to each grantee," the report said. Remarkably, the Louisville grant has not been frozen, despite Mr. Felner's indictment. The account still holds $96,000, and in March, Mr. Anson approved a new suggestion from the university to spend that money on an analysis of teacher performance in Jefferson County Public Schools, a district that includes the city of Louisville. Mr. Felner left the university last summer and will have nothing to do with this work; he is at home awaiting trial. But the Jefferson County project might, in a modest way, fulfill some of the promises that Mr. Felner made in his grant proposal back in 2005.