    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [March 23, 1996]
    [Pages 491-495]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on Corporate Mentoring in Cincinnati,
    Ohio
    March 23, 1996

    [Moderator John E. Pepper, chief executive officer, Procter & Gamble,
    and cochair, Cincinnati Youth Collaborative (CYC), welcomed the
    President and noted that the city of Cincinnati recently had achieved
    victories in referendums for schools and construction of sports
    stadiums, along with the University of Cincinnati's entry into the NCAA
    basketball regional tournament.]

        The President. Actually, I watched the game. They did very well.
        Mr. Pepper. Looked really good. But we're pleased to be here and
    look forward to the dialog we can have and to answer your questions on
    these programs.
        The President. Thank you.

    [Mr. Pepper said that the mentor program was driven by Cincinnati's
    commitment to children and education and that community involvement was
    widespread, through the sponsoring CYC and other organizations such as
    the United Way.]

        The President. Thank you very much.
        Well, I don't want to spend a lot of time talking; I came here to
    listen to you. But let me just make a couple of comments. First of all,
    to reiterate what John said, it is perfectly clear that no matter how
    many jobs we can generate in the private sector in America--and our
    country has done a very good job in the last 3 years. We've generated
    8.4 million new jobs, by far more than any advanced country in the
    world. The other six big economies together have netted out about zero.
    Three of them have created a few thousand jobs; three of them have lost
    a few thousand jobs. America is producing jobs.
        But if we want all Americans to do well, to be able to get a job,
    keep a job, and have a growing income, we've got to raise the education
    levels of the country and we have to do a better job of connecting
    school to work.
        Now there are some things the Government can do. We've worked hard
    to increase our investment in Head Start, for example, to give schools
    more funds to try to meet strong national standards, to improve access
    to college through a better college loan program and the national
    service program. I hope that Congress will adopt a balanced budget plan
    that will include a deduction of up to $10,000 a year for the cost of
    education after high school. I think these things will all help.
        But the main role of Government, I think, today is to work with the
    private sector in trying to keep the market successful in generating new
    jobs but also to create the conditions in which at each community level
    in America, in every community in the country, the business and
    education and ordinary citizens can work to-

    [[Page 492]]

    gether to try to develop the capacity of every person. I mean,
    basically, that's what I am trying to achieve by the time I finish my
    service as President. I want a framework out there where the
    Government's role is to help create the conditions in which communities
    can solve their own problems and get the most out of their own people.
        And the school-to-work initiative that we started back in 1993 gives
    funds to projects like this one, not to tell you what to do but just to
    empower you to work together to move young people through education and
    then into the work force. And so I heard a lot of great things about it,
    and I heard that John Pepper and Procter & Gamble were particularly
    active and that there were 1,500 other volunteers in this program. So I
    just wanted us to get a little more personal exposure to it.
        And so, having said that, I'd like to turn it back to you.

    [Mr. Pepper introduced Catherine Ingram, Cincinnati school board
    president, who addressed the need for linkage between the community,
    businesses, schools, and parents in mentor programs. She said that the
    70 percent approval rate in the school referendum was a sign that people
    were starting to realize a connection between education and their
    economic concerns. Mr. Pepper then noted the importance of including the
    president and vice president of the school board as CYC members.]

        The President. I agree with that.

    [Mr. Pepper then introduced John Bryant, CYC executive director, who
    said the program had 1,000 mentors drawn from all walks of life, working
    with students in elementary school through high school. He explained
    that at higher grade levels, students gained exposure to the world of
    work and then were eligible to receive college scholarships raised by
    corporations and to use a college information center sponsored by a
    manufacturing company.]

        The President. Thank you.

    [Mr. Pepper introduced Schroeder Junior High School student Nathaniel
    Walker, saying it was his 13th birthday. Mr. Walker then described
    activities with his mentor in and out of school.]

        The President. You say you spend about an hour a week with her?
        Mr. Walker. Yes.
        The President. Do you look forward to that hour every week?
        Mr. Walker. Yes. When she's on travel, she sends me a postcard and
    tells me when she's coming back. It tells me why she wasn't there or
    something like that.
        The President. You like that because it tells you that it's
    important to her, right?
        Mr. Walker. Yes.
        The President. Do you know a lot of other students that have
    mentors?
        Mr. Walker. Yes, I know one of them. It's a girl that went to my
    school. She said--we got in the same magnet school, and she's got a
    tutor.
        The President. And does she like hers?
        Mr. Walker. I don't talk to her about that. [Laughter]
        The President. Thank you for coming.
        Mr. Walker. You're welcome.
        The President. Happy birthday.
        Mr. Walker.  Thank you.
        The President. Hope you have a good day.

    [Mr. Pepper then introduced Miriam Mazuka, director of the CYC mentoring
    program in which Mr. Walker participated. She commented on the positive
    outcome seen in students who had mentors, including fewer school
    dropouts and fewer teen pregnancies.]

        The President. And you say you have about 1,000?
        Ms. Mazuka. We have 1,007 serving as mentors in a one-to-one
    relationship, and we have about 200 people that are just tutoring
    youngsters. And we have this long, long waiting list of students who
    want to be matched.
        The President. How many do you have who want to have mentors that
    don't?
        Ms. Mazuka. Well, you know, we stopped keeping track of that,
    because the list goes on and on and on. It's a matter of supply and
    demand now. It's over 1,000.
        The President. So it's virtually unlimited. So if you had a thousand
    more adults in the community who would do it----
        Ms. Mazuka. We have a thousand youngsters----
        The President. ----just your students.
        Ms. Mazuka. Absolutely.
        The President. Well, maybe my coming here will help you get some
    more mentors.
        Ms. Mazuka. I certainly hope so.

    [[Page 493]]

        The President. We are formally sending out an appeal to the
    Cincinnati community.
        Mr. Pepper. I'll just add to that by----
        The President. What's that?
        Mr. Pepper. ----holding up that telephone number. [Laughter]
        The President. That's right.
        Mr. Pepper. You know, this is just relentless promotion if we go all
    around. That number is 475-4959, if you can't read it. And we literally
    have 700 youngsters right now who have held up their hand and asked for
    a mentor, and we don't have it. And this does work. This changes lives.
        The President. That's terrific. Thank you.

    [Mr. Pepper introduced Taft High School student Verneilya Britten, who
    related her experience in the Taft Career and Academic Program, training
    to be an administrative assistant at W.R. Grace.]

        The President. Do you know other students that are in this program?
        Ms. Britten. Yes.
        The President. Do they all like it?

    [Ms. Britten replied in the affirmative, saying the program was giving
    her a head start on a career. Mr. Pepper next called upon Paul Laws of
    W.R. Grace, Ms. Britten's supervisor, who said that the program
    benefited students by giving them work experience and helping them make
    career decisions and it benefited employers by providing a pool of
    already trained workers. Mr. Pepper then said 79 companies were
    participating.]

        The President. And does each company essentially take one student?
        Mr. Laws. We have two. We've taught enough volunteers--we have two
    mentors on site, actually formed two little teams, one for
    administrative and one for operations, where Verneilya will learn
    various duties in the administrative area and another mentee will learn
    the duties of operations and plant, lab, along those lines--engineering.
        Mr. Pepper. It's typically one or two, but we do up to as high as
    six.
        Mr. Bryant. We can go up to six, but at the present time, we don't
    have any more than four at the present time. But in terms of the
    original planning, anywhere from one to six.
        The President. You know, I think this is so important because we as
    a nation, we for many years made a strict sort of division between a
    world of school and a world of work, and even within school between
    academic courses and vocational courses. And now all those lines are
    blurring, and that's a very good thing.
        You know, for example, some people learn better, learn academic
    subjects better in practical settings. We know that--we also know that
    the world of work and the world of learning can no longer be easily
    divided, because people have to keep learning at work for a lifetime.
        And one of the problems that I saw first when I was a Governor,
    working with both businesses and schools, and then when I became
    President, is that we have no real system in our country for acquainting
    young people with the world of work and moving them easily into the
    world of work. And I think it will strengthen their academic
    performance. That would be my guess. And I think it will also
    ultimately, therefore, be in the interest of the business community as
    well to have these kinds of programs. I thank you very much for your
    work you're doing.

    [Senator John Glenn asked about training for prospective mentors, and
    Ms. Mazuka described the mentor training program. Mr. Pepper explained
    that Federal funds were used for the job training pilot program and said
    he doubted the program would have been started if that money was not
    available. He then introduced Jan Leslie, Partners in Education
    director, who described the program to match companies with public and
    private schools to provide mentoring, tutoring, and assistance in
    developing curriculum and restructuring school business operations. She
    noted that public schools were able to decrease their administrative
    staffs by 50 percent as a result.]

        The President. Is that right?

    [Ms. Leslie affirmed the positive results and praised the high level of
    corporate support.]

        The President. Were you on the school board when this happened?

    [Ms. Ingram replied that she joined the school board 2 years after the
    corporate involvement began in 1991 but that some educators were still
    skeptical that corporate methods should be applied in schools, even in
    areas such as inventory and purchasing.]

        The President. I think it's very important. The administrative cost
    of American public education

    [[Page 494]]

    has gotten very high. And part of it is because of the school districts
    get their money from the local district, from the State, from the
    Federal Government. Part of it is because these programs sort of built
    up over time that they have to manage. There are a lot of reasons for
    that.
        But in a world in which administrative overhead is going down
    dramatically everywhere else because of computer technology and new
    management techniques and where there's a limit to how much money you
    can raise, it's very important to be able to demonstrate I think, for
    matters of good education, that you've lowered administrative costs and
    put it back into direct education.
        The Federal Government today has 205,000 fewer people working for it
    than it did the day I became President. And we have very good severance
    packages, early retirement packages; we weren't just throwing people
    out, you know. But with the smallest Government that we've had since
    1965, and by the end of the year it will be the smallest it's been since
    1962, that helps us to get the deficit down and it also frees up money
    for real direct services to people. In the education context, that's
    real education programs, it's more of the things we're talking about
    today.
        I know it's not the subject we came here to talk about, but you
    caught my attention. [Laughter] I have to go meet with--I'm going to
    meet with the Governors next week. They're having an update on the
    educational summit we held back in 1989. And it's one of the things that
    I've been trying to get updated on. So I thank you.

    [Mr. Pepper next introduced Sister Rose Ann Fleming of Xavier
    University, who welcomed the President to the campus and then described
    the university's various scholarship and mentoring programs, including
    those for university student-athletes. She mentioned that in the last 14
    years, every Xavier men's basketball player who had played for 4 years
    had graduated.]

        The President. That's fantastic.
        Sister Fleming. And we're looking forward to the same thing
    continuing. So I think for the underscoring of what has been said here
    today through the training and mentors and work with young people, like
    Nate here, a one-to-one relationship is the key to a successful
    development of the individual, and that's what the university is all
    about.
        The President. Thank you.
        Mr. Pepper. That really completes the comments that we wanted to
    have the group make, and we'd obviously be glad to expand on any of
    that, or if you have any comments.
        The President. I just want to ask one question of either Mr. Bryant
    or whoever else: How many students do you have in your summer jobs and
    summer school program?

    [Mr. Bryant replied that there were 460 students in their summer
    programs combined, in addition to about 1,200 jobs in the Youth
    Employment Services program. A participant then encouraged the President
    to ensure that the Federal Government would remain a partner in youth
    summer job training programs.]

        The President.  If I might just offer one or two comments. First of
    all, I want to thank each and every one of you, not only for being here
    today but for what you're doing with your lives, because I think it's
    very important. And secondly, I want to thank a number of you for what
    you said about these programs, and John, what you said about the pilot
    project.
        Let me say what the problem is. If you come from Washington and you
    come to Cincinnati and you say to yourself: What is the connection
    between the National Government and what we're doing? Do they have any
    responsibility in Washington to help us do what we're doing here, and if
    so, what is it?
        You know, when I took office, the deficit was twice as big as it is
    now, the national debt quadrupled; we had to get it down. I've tried to
    take the position that in reducing the deficit, we ought not to be
    cutting our investments in education, and we ought to be not telling
    local communities how to deal with things like this but giving them some
    research fund or some pilot project funds, if you will, to help them
    explore what works, and then keep funding what plainly works, like the
    student loan programs and the summer job programs; these things plainly
    work. And there's not enough to serve everybody, so if we provide the
    base, then perhaps you can come in and raise money on top of the base.
        So I've been quite heartened by what I've seen today because I know
    that most of this work has to be done at the community level, and that
    is a good thing. How could anyone in Washington know whether W.R. Grace
    in Cincinnati could take 2 young students or 5

    [[Page 495]]

    or 3 or 25 or anybody? So this has to be done at the local level.
        What we must do in Washington is to make the National Government
    relevant and trustworthy and effective for the 21st century. And that
    means we have to get our own house in order; we can't--we have to
    balance the budget, but we also have to decide what it is we're going to
    invest in and what our objective is.
        It seems to me our objective ought to be to keep America the world's
    greatest job generator and then to make sure that our young people are
    trained to do good jobs and have successful lives so that they can be
    rewarded in this new world they're living in. And that means that a lot
    of the actual work and how it's done must be decided by these kinds of
    community partnerships, but the National Government has to create the
    conditions in which they can flourish. That's what I'm trying to do.
        A lot of the times you hear these great debates in Washington, you
    know, they sound--they may sound abstract to you. But actually what the
    debate is, is a debate about everyone knows the economy's changed, that
    it involves more mind and less muscle and it's more global and less
    local, and everybody knows, therefore, that--and all businesses are
    changing and there again, the Government has to change. And we're trying
    to define--our great challenge is to define what it is our
    responsibility is to help you do what you're doing.
        One of the things a President can do, of course, is to use the bully
    pulpit--I mean, I just made a plea for more mentors here--[laughter]--
    but also to try to make sure that if we are creating these conditions,
    that people know what you're doing here in Cincinnati with the Youth
    Collaborative, because I think this is a good model that could be
    carried all across America. You know, I wish every community had this
    level of intense and organized partnership, and I'm very grateful to
    you. And I also feel that I have learned, and I think Senator Glenn
    probably feels the same way I do, that at least I think I have a clearer
    idea about exactly what our responsibilities in Washington are to help
    you do what you're doing here. And I thank you for that, all of you.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Pepper. We're glad you're here, and thank you very much for
    coming. I guarantee it will leave us just more energized.
        The President. Great day. Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:40 a.m. in Schmidt Hall at Xavier
    University.