[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 13 (Monday, April 1, 1996)]
[Pages 551-556]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on Corporate Mentoring in Cincinnati, 
Ohio

March 23, 1996

[Moderator John Pepper, chief executive officer, Procter & Gamble, 
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. He noted that the President's 
interest in the basketball tournament might not be as great in 1996 as 
it had been in previous years.]

    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 their education and that community 
involvement was widespread, through the sponsoring Cincinnati Youth 
Collaborative and 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 together 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. Very good. We'll go around the table, and we'll get 
comments. But obviously, at any point, Mr. President, if you want to go 
in a different direction, you tell us, and that's where we'll head.

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    First up is going to be Cathy Ingram. Cathy is the president of the 
school board of the Cincinnati public system, and she's got a few 
comments to make.
    Cathy?

[Ms. Ingram called attention to 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 are starting to realize a connection between education and 
their economic concerns.]

    Mr. Pepper. I'd note that, from the very beginning, we've always had 
on the collaborative the president and vice president of the school 
board, most important to have that representation in that it be part of 
it rather than be seen as a separate body.
    The President. I agree with that.

[Mr. Pepper then introduced John Bryant, executive director of the 
Cincinnati Youth Collaborative. Mr. Bryant said the program has 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 gain exposure to the world of work and then are 
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. Thank you, John. I think next I'd like to call on 
Nathaniel Walker, Nate Walker. You met Nate, Mr. President. He's at 
Schroeder, and I don't think he would mind my telling you that today is 
his 13th birthday.
    The President. Happy birthday.
    Mr. Pepper. Nate is a mentee in our program, and I've heard him talk 
on this once before, and I know he's looking forward to this.
    Nate?

[Mr. Walker said his mentor comes to his school once a week for half an 
hour to an hour and that they spend time together on work days and doing 
fun activities.]

    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.
    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, who commented on the positive 
outcome seen in students who are being mentored, including reduced 
school dropouts and fewer teen pregnancies. She added that 1,000 
students are waiting for mentors.]

    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.

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    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 student Vernelia Britton, who told of her 
experience observing and learning to be an administrative assistant at 
W.R. Grace.]

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

[Ms. Britton replied in the affirmative. Mr. Pepper next called upon 
Paul Laws of W.R. Grace, who said the program benefited the 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 are taking part in the job training.]

    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 Vernelia 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. Mr. President, can I ask a question?
    The President. Sure, John.
    Senator Glenn. You may have a lot of people who want to be mentors, 
but they don't quite know how they can get into this thing or what 
they'd run into. Do you do any training of them? I think you would have 
a lot of people that might want to get into this if you did training. Do 
you have a training program? The screening program was mentioned but not 
anything about a training program. And how long does that take? Because 
I think this is something that could spread to other cities all over the 
country. I think it's an excellent program.

[Ms. Mazuka described the mentor training program. Mr. Pepper explained 
that Federal funds were used to start the job training and said he 
doubted the program would have been started if that money was not 
available. He then introduced Jan Leslie of Partners in Education, which 
matches companies with public and private schools to provide mentoring, 
tutoring, and assistance in developing curriculum. This assistance led 
to pub- 

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lic schools being able to decrease their administrative staffs by 50 
percent, she said.]
    The President. Is that right?
    Ms. Leslie. Yes, yes. It was a tremendous challenge for the 
superintendent and the board, but they took it on. And with the help of 
business volunteers and teams of business volunteers have restructured 
both their systems and operations and how they do their work. And the 
leadership and commitment in this community of John Pepper, of the 
mayor, of the board, and the superintendent coming together and being 
committed I think has set a tone for a lot of individual volunteers. But 
tremendous corporate support also.
    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 and that some educators are 
skeptical of whether corporate methods can be applied in schools. She 
acknowledged that companies do contribute expertise in areas such as 
inventory and purchasing that are unfamiliar to educators.]

    The President. I think it's very important. The administrative cost 
of American public education 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 have 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, which has its own academic mentoring program for students.]

    Sister Fleming. Mr. President, it's a pleasure to have you here on 
campus.
    The President. Thank you.

[Sister Fleming described the university's programs, including those for 
university student-athletes. She mentioned that in the last 14 years she 
has been connected with the program, every basketball player who has 
played for 4 years has 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 are a combined 460 students in the summer 
programs, in addition to those in the Youth Employment Services program, 
which provide about 1,200 jobs. The next participant then encouraged the 
President to ensure that the Federal Gov- 

[[Page 555]]

ernment remains a partner in youth 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 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.

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