[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

[[Page E1822]]

     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.