11 November 1992
Hillary Clinton
The Governor's Mansion
1800 Canter Street
Little Rock, AR 72206
Dear Hillary:
I still cannot believe you won. But utter delight that you did pervades
all the circles in which I move. I met last Wednesday in
David
Rockefeller's office with him, John Sculley, Dave Barram and David
Haselkorn. It was a great celebration. Both John and David R. were more
expansive than I have ever seen them — literally radiating happiness. My
own view and theirs is that this country has seized its last chance. I am
fond of quoting Winston Churchill to the effect that "America always does
the right thing — after it has exhausted all the alternatives." This
election, more than anything else in my experience, proves his point.
The subject we were discussing was what you and Bill should do now
about education, training and labor market policy. Following that
meeting, I chaired another in Washington on the same topic. Those present at
the second meeting included Tim Barnicle, Dave Barram, Mike Cohen, David
Hornbeck, Hilary Pennington, Andy Plattner, Lauren Resnick, Betsy Brown
Ruzzi, Bob Schwartz, Mike Smith and Bill Spring. Shirley Malcom, Ray
Marshall and Susan McGuire were also invited. Though these three were not
able to be present at last week's meeting, they have all contributed by
telephone to the ideas that follow. Ira Magaziner was also invited to
this meeting.
Our purpose in these meetings was to propose concrete actions that the
Clinton administration could take — between now and the inauguration, in
the first 100 days and beyond. The result, from where I sit, was really
exciting. We took a very large leap forward in terms of how to advance the
agenda on which you and we have all been working — a practical plan for
putting all the major components of the system in place within four years,
by the time Bill has to run again.
I take personal responsibility for what follows. Though I believe
everyone involved in the planning effort is in broad agreement, they may not
all agree on the details. You should also be aware that, although the plan
comes from a group closely associated with the National Center on Education
and the Economy, there was no practical way to poll our whole Board on this
plan in the time available. It represents, then, not a proposal from our
Center, but the best thinking of the group I have named.
We think the great opportunity you have is to remold the entire
American system for human resources development, almost all of the
current components of which were put in place before World War II. The
danger is that each of the ideas that Bill advanced in the campaign in the
area of education and training could be translated individually in the
ordinary course of governing into a legislative proposal and enacted as a
program. This is the plan of least resistance. But it will lead to these
programs being grafted onto the present system, not to a new system, and the
opportunity will have been lost. If this sense of time and place is correct,
it is essential that the administration's efforts be guided by a consistent
vision of what it wants to accomplish in the field of human resource
development, with respect both to choice of key officials and the program.
What follows comes in three places:
First, a vision of the kind of national — not federal — human
resources development system the nation could have. This is interwoven
with a new approach to governing that should inform that vision. What is
essential is that we create a seamless web of opportunities, to
develop one's skills that literally extends from cradle to grave and
is the same system for everyone — young and old, poor and rich, worker and
full-time student. It needs to be a system driven by client
needs (not agency regulations or the needs of the organization
providing the services), guided by
clear standards
that define the stages of the
system for the
people who progress through it, and regulated on the basis of outcomes
that providers produce for their clients, not inputs into the system.
Second, a proposed legislative agenda you can use to implement
this vision. We propose four high priority packages that will enable
you to move quickly on the campaign promises:
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The first would
use your proposal for an apprenticeship system as the keystone of a
strategy for putting a whole new postsecondary training system in place.
That system would incorporate your proposal for reforming
postsecondary education finance. It contains what we think is a
powerful idea for rolling out and scaling up the whole new human
resources system nationwide over the next four years, using the
(renamed) apprenticeship ideas as the entering wedge.
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The second would
combine initiatives on dislocated workers, a rebuilt employment service
and a new system of labor market boards to offer the Clinton
administration's employment security program, built on the best
practices anywhere in the world. This is the backbone of a system for
assuring adult workers in our society that they need never again watch
with dismay as their jobs disappear and their chances of ever getting a
good job again go with them.
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The third would
concentrate on the overwhelming problems of our inner cities,
combining elements of the first and second packages into a special
program to greatly raise the work-related skills of the people trapped
in the core of our great cities.
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The fourth would
enable you to take advantage of legislation on which Congress has
already been working to advance the elementary and secondary
reform agenda.
The other major proposal we offer has to do with government
organization for the human resources agenda. While we share your
reservations about the hazards involved in bringing reorganization proposals
to the Congress, we believe that the one we have come up with minimizes
those drawbacks while creating an opportunity for the new administration to
move like lightning to implement its human resources development proposals.
We hope you can consider the merits of this idea quickly, because, if you
decide to go with it or something like it, it will greatly affect the nature
of the offers you make to prospective cabinet members.
The Vision
We take the proposals Bill put before the country in the campaign to be
utterly consistent with the ideas advanced in America's Choice, the
school restructuring agenda first stated in A Nation Prepared, and
later incorporated in the work of the National Alliance for Restructuring
Education, and the elaboration of this view that Ray and I tried to
capture in our book, Thinking for a Living. Taken together, we
think these ideas constitute a consistent vision for a new human resources
development system for the United States. I have tried to capture the
essence of that vision below.
An Economic Strategy Based on Skill Development
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The economy's strength
is derived from a whole population as skilled as any in the world,
working in workplaces organized to take maximum advantage of the skills
those people have to offer.
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A seamless system of
unending skill development that begins in the home with the very young
and continues through school, postsecondary education and the workplace.
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Clear national
standards of performance in general education (the knowledge and skills
that everyone is expected to hold in common) are set to the level of the
best achieving nations in the world for students of 16, and public
schools are expected to bring all but the most severely handicapped up
to that standard. Students get a certificate when they meet this
standard, allowing them to go on to the next stage of their
education. Though the standards are
set to international benchmarks, they are distinctly American,
reflecting our needs and values. [Those
standards include benchmarks in
mental
health --
collective thinking,
pluralist values, etc.]
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We have a national
system of education in which curriculum, pedagogy, examinations, and
teacher education and licensure systems are
all linked
to the national standards, but which provides for substantial
variance among states, districts, and schools on these matters. This new
system of linked standards, curriculum, and pedagogy will abandon the
American tracking system, combining high academic standards with the
ability to apply what one knows to real world problems and qualifying
all students for a lifetime of learning in the postsecondary
system and at work.
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We have a system that
rewards students who meet the national standards with further
education and good jobs, providing them a strong incentive to work
hard in school.
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Our public school
systems are reorganized to free up school professionals to make the key
decisions about how to use all the available resources to bring students
up to the standards. Most of the federal, state, district and union
rules and regulations that now restrict school professionals' ability to
make these decisions are swept away, though strong measures are in place
to make sure that vulnerable populations get the help they need. School
professionals are paid at a level comparable to that of other
professionals, but they are expected to put in a full year, to spend
whatever time it takes to do the job and to be fully accountable for the
results of their work. The federal, state and local governments provide
the time, staff development resources, technology and other support
needed for them to do the job. Nothing less than a wholly restructured
school system can possibly bring all of our students up to the standards
only a few have been expected to meet up to now.
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There is a real —
aggressive — program of public choice in our schools, rather than the
flaccid version that is widespread now.
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All students are
guaranteed that they will have a fair shot at reaching the standards:
that is, that whether they make it or not depends on the effort they are
willing to make, and nothing else. School delivery standards are in
place to make sure this happens. These standards have the same status in
the system as the new student performance standards, assuring that the
quality of instruction is high everywhere, but they are fashioned so as
not to constitute a new bureaucratic nightmare.
Postsecondary
Education and Work Skills
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All students who meet
the new national standards for general education are entitled to the
equivalent of three more years of free additional education. We would
have the federal and state governments match funds to guarantee one free
year of college education to everyone who meets the new national
standards for general education. So a student who meets the standard at
16 would be entitled to two free years of high school and one of
college. Loans, which can be forgiven for public service, are available
for additional education beyond that. National standards for
sub-baccalaureate college-level professional and technical degrees and
certificates will be established with the participation of employers,
labor and higher education. These programs will include both academic
study and structured on-the-job training. Eighty percent or more of
American high school graduates will be expected to get some form of
college degree, though most of them less than a baccalaureate. These new
professional and technical certificates and degrees typically are won
within three years of acquiring the general education certificate, so,
for most postsecondary students, college will be free. These
professional and technical degree programs will be designed to link to
programs leading to the baccalaureate degree and higher degrees. There
will be no dead ends in this system. Everyone who meets the general
education standard will be able to go to some form of college, being
able to borrow all the money they need to do so, beyond the first free
year.
(This idea of
post-secondary professional and technical certificates captures all of
the essentials of the apprenticeship idea, while offering none of its
drawbacks (see below). But it also makes it clear that those engaged
in apprentice-style programs are getting more than narrow training; they
are continuing their education for other purposes as well, and building
a base for more education later. Clearly, this idea redefines college.
Proprietary schools, employers and community-based organizations will
want to offer these programs, as well as community colleges and
four-year institutions, but these new entrants will have to be
accredited if they are to qualify to offer the programs.)
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Employers are not
required to provide slots for the structured on-the-job training
component of the program but many do so, because they get first access
to the most accomplished graduates of these programs, and they can use
these programs to introduce the trainees to their own values and way of
doing things.
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The system of skill
standards for technical and professional degrees is the same for
students just coming out of high school and for adults in the workforce.
It is progressive, in the sense that certificates and degrees for entry
level jobs lead to further professional and technical education programs
at higher levels. Just as in the case of the system for the schools,
though the standards are the same everywhere (leading to maximum
mobility for students), the curricula can vary widely and programs can
be custom designed to fit the needs of full-time and part-time students
with very different requirements. Government grant and loan programs are
available on the same terms to full-time and part-time students, as long
as the programs in which they are enrolled are designed to lead to
certificates and degrees defined by the system of professional and
technical standards.
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The national system of
professional and technical standards is designed much like the
multistate bar, which provides a national core around which the states
can specify additional standards that meet their unique needs. There are
national standards and exams for no more than 20 broad occupational
areas, each of which can lead to many occupations in a number of related
industries. Students who qualify in any one of these areas have the
broad skills required by a whole family of occupations, and most are
sufficiently skilled to enter the workforce immediately, with further
occupation-specific skills provided by their union or employer. Industry
and occupational groups can voluntarily create standards building on
these broad standards for their own needs, as can the states. Students
entering the system are first introduced to very broad occupational
groups, narrowing over time to concentrate on acquiring the skills
needed for a cluster of occupations. This modular system provides for
the initiative of particular states and industries while at the same
time providing for mobility across states and occupations by reducing
the time and cost entailed in moving from one occupation to another. In
this way, a balance is established between the kinds of generic skills
needed to function effectively in high performance work organizations
and the skills needed to continue learning quickly and well through a
lifetime of work, on the one hand, and the specific skills needed to
perform at a high level in a particular occupation on the other.
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Institutions receiving
grant and loan funds under this system are required to provide
information to the public and to government agencies in a uniform
format. This information covers enrollment by program, costs and success
rates for students of different backgrounds and characteristics, and
career outcomes for those students, thereby enabling students to make
informed choices among institutions based on cost and performance. Loan
defaults are reduced to a level close to zero, both because programs
that do not deliver what they promise are not selected by prospective
students and because the new postsecondary loan system uses the IRS to
collect what is owed from salaries and wages as they are earned.
Education and
Training for Employed and Unemployed Adults
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The national system of
skills standards establishes the basis for the development of a
coherent, unified training system. That system can be accessed by
students coming out of high school, employed adults who want to improve
their prospects, unemployed adults who are dislocated and others who
lack the basic skills required to get out of poverty. But it is all the
same system. There are no longer any parts of it that are exclusively
for the disadvantaged, though special measures are taken to make sure
that the disadvantaged are served. It is a system for everyone, just as
all the parts of the system already described are for everyone. So the
people who take advantage of this system are not marked by it as damaged
goods. The skills they acquire are world class, clear and defined in
part by the employers who will make decisions about hiring and
advancement.
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The new general
education standard becomes the target for all basic education programs,
both for school dropouts and adults. Achieving that standard is the
prerequisite for enrollment in all professional and technical degree
programs. A wide range of agencies and institutions offer programs
leading to the general education certificate, including high schools,
dropout recovery centers, adult education centers, community colleges,
prisons and employers. These programs are tailored to the needs of the
people who enroll in them. All the programs receiving government grant
or loan funds that come with dropouts and adults for enrollment in
programs preparing students to meet the general education standard must
release the same kind of data required of the postsecondary institutions
on enrollment, program description, cost and success rates. Reports are
produced for each institution and for the system as a whole showing
differential success rates for each major demographic group.
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The system is funded in
four different ways, all providing access to the same or a similar set
of services. School dropouts below the age of 21 are entitled to the
same amount of funding from the same sources that they would have been
entitled to had they stayed in school. Dislocated workers are funded by
the federal government through the federal programs for that purpose and
by state unemployment insurance funds. The chronically unemployed are
funded by federal and state funds established for that purpose. Employed
people can access the system through the requirement that their
employers spend an amount equal to 1-1/2 percent of their salary and
wage bill on training leading to national skill certification. People in
prison could get reductions in their sentences by meeting the general
education standard in a program provided by the prison system. Any of
these groups can also use the funds in their individual training
account, if they have any, the balances in their grant entitlement or
their access to the student loan fund.
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The Employment Service
is greatly upgraded and separated from the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
All available front-line jobs — whether public or private — must be
listed in it by law. (This provision must be carefully designed to make
sure that employers will not be subject to employment suits based on the
data produced by this system — if they are subject to such suits, they
will not participate.) All trainees in the system looking for work are
entitled to be listed in it without a fee. So it is no longer a system
just for the poor and unskilled, but for everyone. The system is fully
computerized. It lists not only job openings and job seekers (with their
qualifications) but also all the institutions in the labor market area
offering programs leading to the general education certificate and those
offering programs leading to the professional and technical college
degrees and certificates, along with all the relevant data about the
costs, characteristics and performance of those programs — for everyone
and for special populations. Counselors are available to any citizen to
help them assess their needs, plan a program and finance it, and, once
they are trained, to find an opening.
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A system of labor
market boards is established at the local, state and federal levels to
coordinate the systems for job training, postsecondary professional and
technical education, adult basic education, job matching and counseling.
The rebuilt Employment Service is supervised by these boards. The
system's clients no longer have to go from agency to agency filling out
separate applications for separate programs. It is all taken care of at
the local labor market board office by one counselor accessing the
integrated computer-based program, which makes it possible for the
counselor to determine eligibility for all relevant programs at once,
plan a program with the client and assemble the necessary funding from
all the available sources. The same system will enable counselor and
client to array all the relevant program providers side by side, assess
their relative costs and performance records and determine which
providers are best able to meet the client's needs based on performance.
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Throughout, the object
is to have a performance- and client-oriented system, to encourage local
creativity and responsibility by getting local people to commit to high
goals and organize to achieve them, sweeping away as much of the rules,
regulations and bureaucracy that are in their way as possible, provided
that they are making real progress against their goals. For this to
work, the standards at every level of the system have to be clear; every
client has to know what they have to accomplish in order to get what
they want out of the system. The service providers have to be supported
in the task of getting their clients to the finish line and rewarded
when they are making real progress toward that goal. We would sweep away
means-tested programs, because they stigmatize their recipients and
alienate the public, replacing them with programs that are for everyone,
but also work for the disadvantaged. We would replace rules defining
inputs with rules defining outcomes and the rewards for achieving them.
This means, among other things, permitting local people to combine as
many federal programs as they see fit, provided that the intended
beneficiaries are progressing toward the right outcomes (there are now
23 separate federal programs for dislocated workers!). We would make
individuals, their families and whole communities the unit of service,
not agencies, programs and projects. Wherever possible, we would have
service providers compete with one another for funds that come with the
client, in an environment in which the client has good information about
the cost and performance record of the competing providers. Dealing with
public agencies — whether they are schools or the employment service —
should be more like dealing with Federal Express than with the old Post
Office.
This vision, as I pointed
out above, is consistent with everything Bill proposed as a candidate. But
it goes beyond those proposals, extending them from ideas for new programs
to a comprehensive vision of how they can be used as building blocks for a
whole new system. But this vision is very complex, will take a long time to
sell, and will have to be revised many times along the way. The right way to
think about it is as an internal working document that forms the background
for a plan, not the plan itself. One would want to make sure that the
specific actions of the new administration were designed, in a general way,
to advance this agenda as it evolved, while not committing anyone to the
details, which would change over time.
Everything that follows is
cast in the frame of strategies for bringing the new system into being, not
as a pilot program, not as a few demonstrations to be swept aside in another
administration, but everywhere, as the new way of doing business.
In the sections that
follow, we break these goals down into their main components and propose an
action plan for each.
Major Components of the
Program
The preceding section
presented a vision of the system we have in mind chronologically from the
point of view of an individual served by it. Here we reverse the order,
starting with descriptions of program components designed to serve adults,
and working our way down to the very young.
HIGH SKILLS FOR
ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS PROGRAM
Developing System
Standards
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Create National Board
for Professional and Technical Standards. Board is private
not-for-profit chartered by Congress. Charter specifies broad membership
composed of leading figures from higher education, business, labor,
government and advocacy groups. Board can receive appropriated funds
from Congress, private foundations, individuals, and corporations.
Neither Congress nor the executive branch can dictate the standards set
by the Board. But the Board is required to report annually to the
President and the Congress in order to provide for public
accountability. It is also directed to work collaboratively with the
states and cities involved in the Collaborative Design and Development
Program (see below) in the development of the standards.
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Charter specifies that
the National Board will set broad performance standards (not
time-in-the-seat standards or course standards) for college-level
Professional and Technical certificates and degrees in not more than 20
areas and develops performance examinations for each. The Board is
required to set broad standards of the kind described in the vision
statement above and is not permitted to simply reify the narrow
standards that characterize many occupations now. (More than 2,000
standards currently exist, many for licensed occupations — these are not
the kinds of standards we have in mind.) It also specifies that the
programs leading to these certificates and degrees will combine time in
the classroom with time at the work-site in structured on-the-job
training. The standards assume the existence of (high school level)
general education standards set by others. The new standards and exams
are meant to be supplemented by the states and by individual industries
and occupations. Board is responsible for administering the exam system
and continually updating the standards and exams.
Legislation creating
the Board is sent to the Congress in the first six months of the
administration, imposing a deadline for creating the standards and the
exams within three years of passage of the legislation.
Commentary:
The proposal
reframes the Clinton apprenticeship proposal as a college program and
establishes a mechanism for setting the standards for the program. The
unions are adamantly opposed to broad based apprenticeship programs by
that name. Focus groups conducted by JFF and others show that parents
everywhere want their kids to go to college, not to be shunted aside
into a non-college apprenticeship "vocational" program. By requiring
these programs to be a combination of classroom instruction and
structured OJT, and creating a standard-setting board that includes
employers and labor, all the objectives of the apprenticeship idea are
achieved, while at the same time assuring much broader support for the
idea, as well as a guarantee that the program will not become too
narrowly focussed on particular occupations. It also ties the Clinton
apprenticeship idea to the Clinton college funding proposal in a
seamless web. Charging the Board with creating not more than 20
certificate or degree categories establishes a balance between the need
to create one national system on the one hand with the need to avoid
creating a cumbersome and rigid national bureaucracy on the other. This
approach provides lots of latitude for individual industry groups,
professional groups and state authorities to establish their own
standards, while at the same time avoiding the chaos that would surely
occur if they were the only source of standards. The bill establishing
the Board should also authorize the executive branch to make grants to
industry groups, professional societies, occupational groups and states
to develop standards and exams. Our assumption is that the system we are
proposing will be managed so as to encourage the states to combine the
last two years of high school and the first two years of community
college into three year programs leading to college degrees and
certificates. Proprietary institutions, employers and community-based
organizations could also offer these programs, but they would have to be
accredited to offer these college-level programs. Eventually, students
getting their general education certificates might go directly to
community college or to another form of college, but the new system
should not require that.
Collaborative Design and
Development Program
The object is to
create a single comprehensive system for professional and technical
education that meets the requirements of everyone from high school
students to skilled dislocated workers, from the hard core unemployed to
employed adults who want to improve their prospects. Creating such a
system means sweeping aside countless programs, building new ones,
combining funding authorities, changing deeply embedded institutional
structures, and so on. The question is how to get from where we are to
where we want to be. Trying to ram it down everyone's throat would
engender overwhelming opposition. Our idea is to draft legislation that
would offer an opportunity for those states — and selected large cities
— that are excited about this set of ideas to come forward and join with
each other and with the federal government in an alliance to do the
necessary design work and actually deliver the needed services on a fast
track. The legislation would require the executive branch to establish a
competitive grant program for these states and cities and to engage a
group of organizations to offer technical assistance to the expanding
set of states and cities engaged in designing and implementing the new
system. This is not the usual large scale experiment, nor is it a
demonstration program. A highly regarded precedent exists for this
approach in the National Science Foundation's SSI program. As soon as
the first set of states is engaged, another set would be invited to
participate, until most or all the states are involved. It is a
collaborative design, rollout and scale-up program. It is intended to
parallel the work of the National Board for College Professional and
Technical Standards, so that the states and cities (and all their
partners) would be able to implement the new standards as soon as they
become available, although they would be delivering services on a large
scale before that happened. Thus, major parts of the whole system would
be in operation in a majority of the states within three years from the
passage of the initial legislation. Inclusion of selected large cities
in this design is not an afterthought. We believe that what we are
proposing here for the cities is the necessary complement to a large
scale job-creation program for the cities. Skill development will not
work if there are no jobs, but job development will not work without a
determined effort to improve the skills of city residents. This is the
skill development component.
Participants
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volunteer states,
counterpart initiative for cities.
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15 states, 15
cities selected to begin in first year. 15 more in each successive
year.
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5 year grants (on
the order of $20 million per year to each state, lower amounts to
the cities) given to each, with specific goals to be achieved by the
third year, including program elements in place (e.g., upgraded
employment service), number of people enrolled in new professional
and technical programs and so on.
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a core set of High
Performance Work Organization firms willing to participate in
standard setting and to offer training slots and mentors.
Criteria for Selection
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strategies for
enriching existing co-op, tech prep and other programs to meet the
criteria.
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commitment to
implementing new general education standard in legislation.
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commitment to
implementing the new Technical and Professional skills standards for
college.
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commitment to
developing an outcome- and performance-based system for human
resources development system.
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commitment to new
role for employment service.
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commitment to join
with others in national design and implementation activity.
Clients
Program Components
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institute own
version of state and local labor market boards. Local labor market
boards to involve leading employers, labor representatives,
educators and advocacy group leaders in running the redesigned
employment service, running intake system for all clients,
counseling all clients, maintaining the information system that will
make the vendor market efficient and organizing employers to provide
job experience and training slots for school youth and adult
traines.
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rebuild employment
service as a primary function of labor market boards.
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develop programs to
bring dropouts and illiterates up to general education certificate
standard. Organize local alternative providers, firms to provide
alternative education, counseling, job experience and placement
services to these clients.
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develop programs
for dislocated workers and hard-core unemployed (see below).
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develop city- and
state-wide programs to combine the last two years of high school and
the first two years of colleges into three-year programs after
acquisition of the general education certificate to culminate in
college certificates and degrees. These programs should combine
academics and structured on-the-job training.
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develop uniform
reporting system for providers, requiring them to provide
information in that format on characteristics of clients, their
success rates by program, and the costs of those programs. Develop
computer-based system for combining this data at local labor market
board offices with employment data from the state so that counselors
and clients can look at programs offered by colleges and other
vendors in terms of cost, client characteristics, program design,
and outcomes. Including subsequent employment histories for
graduates.
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design all programs
around the forthcoming general education standards and the standards
to be developed by the National Board for College Professional and
Technical Standards.
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create statewide
program of technical assistance to firms on high performance work
organization and help them develop quality programs for participants
in Technical and Professional certificate and degree programs. (It
is essential that these programs be high quality, nonbureaucratic
and voluntary for the firms.)
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participate with
other states and the national technical assistance program in the
national alliance effort to exchange information and assistance
among all participants.
National technical
assistance to participants
Dislocated Workers Program
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new legislation
would permit combining all dislocated workers programs at redesigned
employment service office. Clients would, in effect, receive
vouchers for education and training in amounts determined by the
benefits for which they qualify. Employment service case managers
would qualify client worker for benefits and assist the client in
the selection of education and training programs offered by provider
institutions. Any provider institutions that receive funds derived
from dislocated worker programs are required to provide information
on costs and performance of programs in uniform format described
above. This consolidated and voucherized dislocated workers program
would operate nationwide. It would be integrated with Collaborative
Design and Development Program in those states and cities in which
that program functioned. It would be built around the general
education certificate and the Professional and Technical Certificate
and Degree Program as soon as those standards were in place. In this
way, programs for dislocated workers would be progressively and
fully integrated with the rest of the national education and
training system.
Levy-Grant System
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this is the part of
the system that provides funds for currently employed people to
improve their skills. Ideally, it should specifically provide means
whereby front-line workers can earn their general education
credential (if they do not already have one) and acquire
Professional and Technical Certificates and degrees in fields of
their choosing.
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everything we have
heard indicates virtually universal opposition in the employer
community to the proposal for a 1-1/2% levy on employers for
training to support the costs associated with employed workers
gaining these skills, whatever the levy is called. We propose that
Bill take a leaf out of the German book. One of the most important
reasons that large German employers offer apprenticeship slots to
German youngsters is that they fear, with good reason, that if they
don't volunteer to do so, the law will require it. Bill could gather
a group of leading executives and business organization leaders, and
tell them straight out that he will hold back on submitting
legislation to require a training levy, provided that they commit
themselves to a drive to get employers to get their average
expenditures on front-line employee training up to 2% of front-line
employee salaries and wages within two years. If they have not done
so within that time, then he will expect their support when he
submits legislation requiring the training levy. He could do the
same thing with respect to slots for structured on-the-job training.
College Loan/Public
Service Program
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we presume that
this program is being designed by others and so have not attended to
it. From everything we know about it, however, it is entirely
compatible with the rest of what is proposed here. What is, of
course, especially relevant here, is that our reconceptualization of
the apprenticeship proposal as a college-level education program,
combined with our proposal that everyone who gets the general
education credential be entitled to a free year of higher education
(combined federal and state funds) will have a decided impact on the
calculations of cost for the college loan/public service program.
Assistance for
Dropouts are the Long-Term Unemployed
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the problem of
upgrading the skills of high school dropouts and the adult hard core
unemployed is especially difficult. It is also at the heart of the
problem of our inner cities. All the evidence indicates that what is
needed is something with all the important characteristics of a
non-residential Job Corps-like program. The problem with the Job
Corps is that it is operated directly by the federal government and
is therefore not embedded at all in the infrastructure of local
communities. The way to solve this problem is to create a new urban
program that is locally — not federally — organized and
administered, but which must operate in a way that uses something
like the federal standards for contracting for Job Corps services.
In this way, local employers, neighborhood organizations and other
local service providers could meet the need, but requiring local
authorities to use the federal standards would assure high quality
results. Programs for high school dropouts and the hard-core
unemployed would probably have to be separately organized, though
the services provided would be much the same. Federal funds would be
offered on a matching basis with state and local funds for this
purpose. These programs should be fully integrated with the
revitalized employment service. The local labor market board would
be the local authority responsible for receiving the funds and
contracting with providers for the services. It would provide
diagnostic, placement and testing services. We would eliminate the
targeted jobs credit and use the money now spent on that program to
finance these operations. Funds can also be used from the JOBS
program in the welfare reform act. This will not be sufficient,
however, because there is currently no federal money available to
meet the needs of hard-core unemployed males (mostly Black) and so
new monies will have to be appropriated for the purpose.
Commentary:
As you know very well, the High Skills, Competitive Workforce Act
sponsored by Senators Kennedy and Hatfield and Congressmen Gephardt and
Regula provides a ready-made vehicle for advancing many of the ideas we
have outlined. To foster a good working relationship with the Congress,
we suggest that, to the extent possible, the framework of these
companion bills be used to frame the President's proposals. You may not
know that we have put together a large group of representatives of
Washington-based organizations to come to a consensus around the ideas
in America's Choice. They are full of energy and very committed to this
joint effort. If they are made part of the process of framing the
legislative proposals, they can be expected to be strong support for
them when they arrive on the Hill. As you think about the assembly of
these ideas into specific legislative proposals, you may also want to
take into account the packaging ideas that come later in this letter.
ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION PROGRAM
The situation with respect to elementary and secondary education
is very different from adult education and training. In the latter case,
a new vision and a whole new structure is required. In the former, there
is increasing acceptance of a new vision and structure among the public
at large, within the relevant professional groups and in Congress. There
is also a lot of existing activity on which to build. So we confine
ourselves here to describing some of those activities that can be used
to launch the Clinton education program.
Standard Setting
Legislation to accelerate the process of national standard setting in
education was contained in the conference report on S.2 and HR 4323 that
was defeated on a recent cloture vote. Solid majorities were behind the
legislation in both houses of Congress. While some of us would quarrel
with a few of the details, we think the new administration should
support the early reintroduction of this legislation with whatever
changes it thinks fit. This legislation does not establish a national
body to create a national examination system. We think that is the right
choice for now.
Systemic Chance in Public Education
The conference report on S.2 and HR 4323 also contained a
comprehensive program to support systemic change in public education.
Here again, some of us would quibble with some of the particulars, but
we believe that the administration's objectives would be well served by
endorsing the resubmission of this legislation, modified as it sees fit.
Federal Programs for the Disadvantaged
The established federal education programs for the disadvantaged need
to be thoroughly overhauled to reflect an emphasis on results for the
students rather than compliance with the regulations. A national
commission on Chapter 1, the largest of these programs, chaired by David
Hornbeck, has designed a radically new version of this legislation, with
the active participation of many of the advocacy groups. Other groups
have been similarly engaged. We think the new administration should
quickly endorse the work of the national commission and introduce its
proposals early next year. It is unlikely that this legislation will
pass before the deadline — two years away — for the reauthorization of
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, but early endorsement of
this new approach by the administration will send a strong signal to the
Congress and will greatly affect the climate in which other parts of the
act will be considered.
Public Choice Technology, Integrated Health and Human Services,
Curriculum Resources, High Performance Management, Professional
Development and Research and Development
The restructuring of the schools that is envisioned in S.2 and HR
4323 is not likely to succeed unless the schools have a lot of
information about how to do it and real assistance in getting it done.
The areas in which this help is needed are suggested by the heading of
this section. One of the most cost-effective things the federal
government could do is to provide support for research, development and
technical assistance of the schools on these topics. The new Secretary
of Education should be directed to propose a strategy for doing just
that, on a scale sufficient to the need. Existing programs of research,
development and assistance should be examined as possible sources of
funds for these purposes. Professional development is a special case. To
build the restructured system will require an enormous amount of
professional development and the time in which professionals can take
advantage of such a resource. Both cost a lot of money. One of the
priorities for the new education secretary should be the development of
strategies for dealing with these problems. But here, as elsewhere,
there are some existing programs in the Department of Education whose
funds can be redirected for this purpose, programs that are not
currently informed by the goals that we have spelled out. Much of what
we have in mind here can be accomplished through the reauthorization of
the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Legislation for that
reauthorization was prepared for the last session of Congress, but did
not pass. That legislation was informed by a deep distrust of the
Republican administration, rather than the vision put forward by the
Clinton campaign, but that can and should be remedied on the next round.
Early Childhood Education
The president-elect has committed himself to a great expansion in the
funding of Head Start. We agree. But the design of the program should be
changed to reflect several important requirements. The quality of
professional preparation for the people who staff these programs is very
low and there are no standards that apply to their employment. The same
kind of standard setting we have called for in the rest of this plan
should inform the approach to this program. Early childhood education
should be combined with quality day care to provide wrap-around programs
that enable working parents to drop off their children at the beginning
of the workday and pick them up at the end. Full funding for the very
poor should be combined with matching funds to extend the tuition paid
by middle class parents to make sure that these programs are not
officially segregated by income. The growth of the program should be
phased in, rather than done all at once, so that quality problems can be
addressed along the way, based on developing examples of best practice.
These and other related issues need to be addressed, in our judgment,
before the new administration commits itself on the specific form of
increased support for Head Start.
Putting the package together:
Here we remind you
of what we said at the beginning of this letter about timing the
legislative agenda. We propose that you assemble the ideas just
described into four high priority packages that will enable you
to move quickly on the campaign promises:
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The first would use
your proposal for an apprenticeship system as the keystone of the
strategy for putting the whole new postsecondary training system in
place. It would consist of the proposal for postsecondary standards,
the Collaborative Design and Development proposal, the technical
assistance proposal and the postsecondary education finance
proposal.
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The second would
combine the initiatives on dislocated workers, the rebuilt
employment service and the new system of labor market boards as the
Clinton administration's employment security program, built on the
best practices anywhere in the world. This is the backbone of a
system for assuring adult workers in our society that they need
never again watch with dismay as their jobs disappear and their
chances of ever getting a good job again go with them.
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The third would
concentrate on the overwhelming problems of our inner cities,
combining most of the elements of the first and second packages into
a special program to greatly raise the work-related skills of the
people trapped in the core of our great cities.
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The fourth would
enable you to take advantage of legislation on which Congress has
already been working to advance the elementary and secondary reform
agenda. It would combine the successor to HR 4323 and S.2
(incorporating the systemic reforms agenda and the board for student
performance standards), with the proposal for revamping Chapter 1.
Organizing the Executive Branch for Human Resouces Development
The issue here is how to organize the federal government to make sure
that the new system is actually built as a seamless web in the field,
where it counts, and that program gets a fast start with a first-rate
team behind it.
We propose, first, that the President appoint a National Council on
Human Resources Development. It would consist of the relevant key White
House officials, cabinet members and members of Congress. It would also
include a small number of governors, educators, business executives,
labor leaders and advocates for minorities and the poor. It would be
established in such a way as to assure continuity of membership across
administrations, so that the consensus it forges will outlast any one
administration. It would be charged with recommending broad policy on a
national system of human resources development to the President and the
Congress, assessing the effectiveness and promise of current programs
and proposing new ones. It would be staffed by senior officials on the
Domestic Policy Council staff of the President.
Second, we propose that a new agency be created, the National
Institute for Learning, Work and Service. Creation of this agency would
signal instantly the new administration's commitment to putting the
continuing education and training of the `forgotten half' on a par with
the preparation of those who have historically been given the resources
to go to 'college,' and to integrate the two systems, not with a view to
dragging down the present system and those it serves, but rather to make
good on the promise that everyone will have access to the kind of
education that only a small minority have had access to up to now. To
this agency would be assigned the functions now performed by the
assistant secretary for employment and training, the assistant secretary
for vocational education and the assistant secretary for higher
education. The agency would be staffed by people specifically recruited
from all over the country for the purpose. The staff would be small,
high powered and able to move quickly to implement the policy
initiatives of the new President in the field of human resources
development.
The closest existing model to what we have in mind is the National
Science Board and the National Science Foundation, with the Council in
the place of the Board and the Institute in the place of the Foundation.
But our council would be advisory, whereas the Board is governing. If
you do not like the idea of a permanent Council, you might consider the
idea of a temporary President's Task Force, constituted much as the
Council would be.
In this scheme, the Department of Education would be free to focus on
putting the new student performance standards in place and managing the
programs that will take the leadership in the national restructuring of
the schools. Much of the financing and disbursement functions of the
higher education program would move to the Treasury Department, leaving
the higher education staff in the new Institute to focus on matters of
substance.
In any case, as you can see, we believe that some extraordinary
measure well short of actually merging the departments of labor and
education is required to move the new agenda with dispatch.
Getting Consensus on the Vision
Radical changes in attitudes, values and beliefs are required to move
any combination of these agendas. The federal government will have
little direct leverage on many of the actors involved. For much of what
must be done, a new, broad consensus will be required. What role can the
new administration play in forging that consensus and how should it go
about doing it?
At the narrowest level, the agenda cannot be moved unless there is
agreement among the governors, the President and the Congress. Bill's
role at the Charlottesville summit leads naturally to a reconvening of
that group, perhaps with the addition of key members of Congress and
others.
But we think that having an early summit on the subject of the whole
human resources agenda would be risky, for many reasons. Better to build
on Bill's enormous success during the campaign with national talk shows,
in school gymnasiums and the bus trips. He could start on the
consensus-building progress this way, taking his message directly to the
public, while submitting his legislative agenda and working it on the
Hill. After six months or so, when the public has warmed to the ideas
and the legislative packages are about to get into hearings, then you
might consider some form of summit, broadened to include not only the
governors, but also key members of Congress and others whose support and
influence are important. This way, Bill can be sure that the agenda is
his, and he can go into it with a groundswell of support behind him.
• • •
That's it. None of us doubt that you have thought long and hard about
many of these things and have probably gone way beyond what we have laid
out in many areas. But we hope that there is something here that you can
use. We would, of course, be very happy to flesh out these ideas at
greater length and work with anyone you choose to make them fit the work
that you have been doing.
Very best wishes from all of us to you and Bill.