[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 130 (Friday, September 25, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1819-E1825]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DOLLARS TO THE CLASSROOM ACT
______
speech of
HON. BOB SCHAFFER
of colorado
in the house of representatives
Thursday, September 17, 1998
The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of
the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 3248) to
provide Dollars to the Classroom.
Mr. SCHAFFER of Colorado. Mr. Chairman, I insert the following for
printing in the Record.
National Center on
Education and the Economy,
Rochester, NY, November 11, 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 Heselkom. It was a
great celebration. Both John and David R. were more expansive
than
[[Page E1820]]
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 Hombeck, Hillary
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 of 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 were 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:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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 lighting 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
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.
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.
The Schools
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.
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, combing high academic standards with the
ability to apply what one knows to real world problems, and
qualifying all students to a lifetime of learning in the
postsecondary system and at work.
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.
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 professional
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.
There is a real--aggressive--program of public choice in
our schools, rather than the flaccid version that is
widespread now.
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
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
[[Page E1821]]
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.
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.
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
pregressive, 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.
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 quality 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.
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
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.
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 loads 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.
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.
Labor Market Systems
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.
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.
some common features
Throughout, the object is to have a per- formance-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
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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, or 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
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.
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
refly 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. The
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 OUT; 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
Volunteer states, counterpart initiative for cities.
15 states, 15 cities selected to begin in first year. 15
more in each successive year.
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.
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
Strategies for enriching existing co-op tech prep and other
programs to meet the criteria.
Commitment to implementing new general education standard
in legislation.
Commitment to implementing the new Technical and
Professional skills standards for college.
Commitment to new role for employment service.
Commitment to join with others in national design and
implementation activity.
Clients
Young adults entering workforce, dislocated workers, long-
term unemployed, employed who want to upgrade skills.
Program Components
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
[[Page E1823]]
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 trainees.
Rebuild employment service as a primary function of labor
market boards.
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.
Develop programs for dislocated workers and hard-core
unemployed (see below).
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 academic and
structured on-the-job training.
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.
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.
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.)
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
Executive branch authorized to compete opportunity to
provide the following services (probably using a Request For
Qualifications):
State-of-the art assistance to the states and cities
related to the principal program components (e.g., work
reorganization, training, basic literacy, funding systems,
apprenticeship systems, large scale data management systems,
training systems for the HR professionals who make the whole
system work, etc.). A number of organizations would be
funded. Each would be expected to provide information and
direct assistance to the states and cities involved, and to
coordinate their efforts with one another.
It is essential that the technical assistance function
include a major professional development component to make
sure the key people in the states and cities upon whom
success depends have the resources available to develop the
high skills required. Some of the funds for this function
should be provided directly to the states and cities, some to
the technical assistance agency.
Coordination of the design and implementation activities of
the whole consortium, document results, prepare reports, etc.
One organization would be funded to perform this function.
Dislocated Workers Program
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
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 this general education credential (if they
do not already have one) and acquire Professional and
Technical Certificates and Degrees in fields of their
choosing.
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
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 and the Long Term Unemployed
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 nonresidential
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 as sponsored by Senators Kennedy and Hatfield and
Congressman 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 or
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
[[Page E1824]]
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 Change 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 student 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 the 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:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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 Resources 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 ides
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
[[Page E1825]]
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
Marc Tucker.