Marc & Hillary-plans for our education.
Document #: 029.0.1.0 # 9 FedEduPrgmPart0 Part Zero.
>>>>Disclaimer: This document may be used as you will except: If you change
anything in the text, remove my name and other Ident. You may use it without
my identification also if you wish...I only ask that people read it and
think...think...think. Sources/Ref's if not in the text will be found on the
last page of Doc 000.0.0.1 and 000.0.6. CLMsr.<<<<
We have a Constitution and our Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments) that
makes us free. Right? Then visit:
http://www.trimonline.org http://www.getusout.org
http://www.thenewamerican.com http://www.givemeliberty.org
http://nca.mybravenet.com http://www.jbs.org
Then take a look at these sites: http://www.dixierising.com
http://www.dixienet.org http://www.palmetto.org
http://www.southerncaucus.org http://www.spofga.org
Maple River Education Coalition PAC, 1402 Concordia Avenue, St. Paul, MN
55104, 651-646-0646. http://MrEdCoPAC.org.
Introduction. The federal government is now making a sweeping takeover of
education and the economy. The major parts are known as:
Goals 2000 School-to-Work Workforce Investment Act Outcome Based
Education
For simplicity, call it the "new system." Your fastest understanding comes
from an infamous letter between two insiders discussing their intentions for
the new system - most of which was passed into the above federal laws. The
letter speaks openly, and is easier reading than the various jargon-filled
government documents quoted deeper in this website. Hear it straight from
the horse's mouth. Please take a few minutes to read Marc Tucker's "Dear
Hillary" Letter.
If you read the letter, you are probably surprised at its radical nature,
and you are wondering, "Why wasn't I told this before?" You just discovered
another lamentable thing about the new system - its stealth. The typical
voter, indeed the typical legislator, knows little about this wholesale
restructuring of our American system that will affect all Americans.
Our task is to explain the new system, and deeper in this website we
document our claims by citing various authorities. Please be patient, as
there are many angles to discuss. Once you understand the basics, the
advanced material is given deeper in this website. But at first we avoid the
technical words, and introduce the issues simply.
This new system is bad because:
1. It destroys academic freedom. It removes free choices
from teachers, parents, and students.
2. It is outcome-based education (OBE) for producing
"standardized" students, who have "equal knowledge."
3. It emphasizes subjectivity. It de-emphasizes academics,
knowledge, and the qualities needed to keep a nation free.
4. It requires an abundance of paperwork of dubious value to
education.
5. It measures "success" in a peculiarly bad way.
6. It has perverse incentives.
7. It indoctrinates and filters students for a particular
political ideology.
8. It delivers a dumb-ed-down education.
9. It invades privacy.
10. It is worse for the poor.
11. It pushes parents aside.
12. It is promoted through illusions and misleading words.
13. It will be difficult for families to escape.
14. It aims to "standardize" job requirements across the
nation - a task that is impossible and unnecessary.
15. It is needlessly costly, and its higher costs are
concealed from voters.
16. It is a bad way to govern.
Washington DC is driving the system into all fifty states, though Minnesota
implementation is farther along. In Minnesota, the system manifests itself
partly under the name "Profile of Learning," also called the "Profile." It
goes by different names in other states, but is nearly the same everywhere
because they are all driven from the same source, the federal government.
For this reason this Minnesota information will illuminate your own
situation, no matter what state you happen to live in. For example, see the
tactics used in St. Paul, and notice the similarity to your situation!
Use the above links as entry points, (see http://www.mredcopac.org ) and
follow those to drill deeper. Also, learn the terminology and about
Minnesotans and their resources. Always return to this page until you
understand the basics.
First learn the basics given above, then proceed to advanced pages. (Which
are reproduced hereinafter).
Attend MrEdCo's National Conference "IMPOSING A NATIONAL CURRICULUM - No
Child Left Behind", September 29, 2001. Conference brochure (pdf format)
Online registration form at above web site.
Part Two.
Marc Tucker's "Dear Hillary" Letter.
Marc Tucker is president of the National Center on Education and the
Economy (NCEE). He wrote an 18-page letter, now famous as Marc Tucker's
"Dear Hillary" Letter, to Hillary Clinton a week after the Clintons were
first elected President & Co-President. At the time Hillary served with
Tucker on the Board of NCEE, they were (and remain) comrades.
The letter lays out the master plan of the Clinton Administration to take
over the entire U.S. educational system so that it can serve national
economic planning of the workforce. The letter makes it clear that Hillary
participated in the development of that plan some time before the election,
though it was scarcely reported at the time.
The plan is sweeping in scope, and largely signed into law in 1994 by
Clinton's Democratically controlled Congress (in the Goals 2000 Act, the
School-to-Work Act, and the re-authorized Elementary and Secondary Education
Act). That legislation continues to move our system today, and is being
implemented in all fifty states, driven by money and mandates from the
federal level.
The letter reveals the goals and methods, the who, how, and why. The
infamous letter was placed into the Congressional Record (on Sept. 25, 1998,
by Rep. Bob Schaffer), and is now widely displayed on the Internet.
The "Dear Hillary" letter lays out a plan "to remold the entire American
[school] system" into "a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to
grave and is the same system for everyone," coordinated by "a system of
labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels" where curriculum
and "job matching" will be handled by counselors "accessing the integrated
computer-based program."
The plan would change the mission of the schools away from teaching
children academic basics and knowledge so they can make their own life
choices, and toward training them narrowly in specific job skills to serve
the global economy in jobs selected by workforce boards.
Highlights of the Letter -
A complete, radical, re-structuring of the American system: The letter
repeatedly states its large-scale, sweeping goals to completely overhaul the
system:
"Nothing less than a wholly restructured school system"
"Remold the entire American system for human resources
development"
"A new vision and a whole new structure is required."
"Radical changes in attitudes, values and beliefs are required
to move any combination of these agendas."
The new system is for everyone - it is inescapable: The new system
"literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for
everyone". Repeatedly it says the system is "for everyone," "it is no
longer a system for just the poor and unskilled." It is a "seamless system".
Three times calling it a "seamless web", which we view as a spider's web of
government control, and about as desirable as a straight jacket -- one size
fits all, no escape.
To be implemented quickly: The letter repeatedly emphasizes to move
quickly, and "move like lightning" in implementing its agenda. "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." This has in fact
happened.
Government controlled: Some of the flowery goals don't sound bad, until
you remember it is all government controlled. You don't define those flowery
goals or how they are met, the government does, and its views are different
from your own. The government inevitably defines things for its convenience,
not yours. Under this system you become a "human resource" to be developed
for specific jobs. That kind of education is not the kind that will keep a
nation free. To remember this, after every sentence in the Letter say the
words "as defined by distant, centralized bureaucrats." For example, the new
system "rewards students who meet the national standards with further
education and good jobs" and that seems okay, until you remember the
government decides who is rewarded and how. That is very different from the
traditional kind of free-market rewards you are familiar with.
All education is moved to vocational, job-skills training: The letter
repeatedly aims to turn our entire educational system (including
college-level education) into "apprenticeships" or programs that build job
"skills". It requires colleges to include an abundance of "work-site" and
"on-the-job" training in any program. In other words, the entire education
system is to emphasize, not academics and broad-based knowledge, but
narrowly defined vocational job-skills, "defined in part by the employers"
and in part by government. Families and students have little or no say.
The Letter also recognizes that such apprenticeship programs are adamantly
opposed by unions and parents. So the letter suggests how to conceal the
fact that education would largely become an apprenticeship or jobs-training
program:
"The proposal re-frames 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 be shunted aside
into a non-college apprenticeship "vocational" program. By requiring these
programs to be a combination of classroom instruction and structured OJT,
and creating a standard-setting board that included employers and labor, all
the objectives of the apprenticeship idea are achieved, while at the same
time assuring much broader support for the idea,".
It reaches deep into every classroom: Most everything in the classroom is
substantially controlled by the new system, including "curriculum, pedagogy,
examinations, and teacher education and licensure systems" .
It creates a sweeping new entitlement: It will provide
school/financial/labor counselors to anyone for finding schools, funding,
and employment. It would "guarantee one free year of college education to
everyone" who meets the minimal standards set at the national level, and
"for most post-secondary students, college will be free". Along with this
huge new entitlement there will inevitably be new and higher taxes.
It proposes a new hidden tax: The Letter proposes to take your education
money (from 1.5% to 2% of your salary) before you ever see it, by taking it
from your employer. This makes for a hidden tax, largely hidden from
voters, and therefore far less likely to incur voter's wrath. Voters would
be tempted to think they're getting something for free. Moreover, the
letter proposes to conceal the tax further by contriving to make it look
voluntary. Here is how: "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 [Clinton] 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."
Carrots and sticks: The Letter admits:
"Creating such a system means sweeping aside countless programs, building
new ones, combining funding authorities, changing deeply embedded
institutional structures and so on. .. Trying to ram it down everyone's
throat would engender overwhelming opposition." So the letter proposes to
use bribery, and that requires an expansion of federal power.
It expands the executive branch: It authorizes the executive branch to
bypass Congress and award "grants", in other words, bribes, "on the order of
$20 million per year to each state". In addition, the executive branch
would have free-wheeling power to bypass any uncooperative state and local
governments, and fund directly to local agencies: "A number of
organizations would be funded. .... Some of the funds for this function
should be provided directly to the states and cities, some to the technical
assistance agency."
Highly centralized control: The proposal "is interwoven with a new
approach to governing". That approach involves pushing power away from
students, families, and communities, and toward highly centralized
authorities. "we propose that a new agency be created, the National
Institute for Learning, Work and Service. .... The staff would be small,
high powered and able to move quickly".
Authorities insulated from voters wrath: The controlling authorities are
thoroughly insulated from voters wrath. This occurs because the system is
highly centralized, and such entities are difficult for voters to affect.
Further insulation occurs because the officials are not elected, they are
appointed. Even further insulation occurs because the controlling officials
are insulated even from the oversight of Congress and the executive branch.
In other words, these officials are setup as tyrants. The system is
designed to be thoroughly insulated from voters wrath: "Create National
Board for Professional and Technical Standards. Board is private ....
Neither Congress nor the executive branch can dictate the standards set by
the Board."
Make sure no one commits to the details: As discussed above, the Letter
admits the new system can only arise through "radical" change, and also
suggests ways to insulate the controlling officials from voters. In a
stunning bit of deception, the Letter suggests how to conceal the system
long enough for it to be established: "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."
That strategy - of "not committing anyone to the details" - has strongly
affected the situation there in Minnesota. Disputes about the structure and
details of our new Minnesota education system frequently occur, even among
close observers. When that occurs, the Minnesota Department of Education
(now renamed as the Dept. of Children, Families, and Learning, or DCFL)
issues denials and claims (wrongly) that it's opponents are misinformed.
This is exacerbated by recent moves to empower the DCFL Commissioner with
free-wheeling powers to change the regulations and rules spontaneously at
will - thus bypassing any Legislative responsibility, allowing the confusion
to thrive, and throwing opponents into the dark. This is not how government
should operate.
It takes over public service: It proposes that education loans "can be
forgiven for public service". But the government, not you, would decide what
is and isn't allowed as "public service." This mechanism would allow the
government, in effect, to direct non-paid workers toward (or away from)
various entities, without it being accounted as government "spending".
Government money supposedly going for education loans, could get diverted in
various ways toward other purposes, which are unaccounted. This opens the
door to various types of government corruption. For example, the Government
could reward (or punish) certain employers by sending non-paid "public
service" workers toward (or away).
Moreover, across the country "public service" is now being mis-used in
another way. Students are being required to perform compulsory "public
service" in order to get a diploma. For an example, see the news item on
compulsory volunteer-ism. This ambition to federally takeover and define
what is, and isn't, public service, is hinted in the name of the proposed
new agency: "we propose that a new agency be created, the National Institute
for Learning, Work and Service."
It abandons most students: The Letter makes a cryptic remark that must be
explained. The new system will "free up school professionals to make the
key decisions about how to use all the available resources to bring students
up to the standards." The system (even as it is implemented in Minnesota's
"Profile of Learning") requires that students spend most of their time
working on menial tasks and projects by themselves or in small groups. This
heavy emphasis on tasks and projects (and de-emphasis of traditional
classroom instruction) has two purposes. First, it emphasizes job-skills,
(at the expense of a traditional broad-based academic education). Second,
it will "free up" teachers so they may spend their time on the worst
students - those who are most unruly, dis-interested, or unable. The system
is setup to compel teachers toward this peculiar end. The result is that
students who are average, or better than average, are largely abandoned to
the tasks, projects, and self-learning. This is the reality contained
within the above remark.
It gathers personal information on students: Institutions receiving funds
under this system "are required to provide information" on student's
"backgrounds and characteristics, and career outcomes" As this system has
materialized in Minnesota (where it's known partly by the name "Profile of
Learning") it has become rather invasive into family privacy. (See the
article, Public collection of private data on students.)
New constraints on businesses: The Letter says, "All available front-line
jobs - whether public or private - must be listed in [the government run
employment system] by law." But if the new job-listing system is so good,
why should there be a law requiring all businesses to use it? At the least,
this requirement creates needless paperwork for employers. At the worst it
suggests further (unspecified) government coercion on employers. (Also see
the article, on how School-to-Work creates liability for businesses.)
(Note: Marc Tucker's protégé, Pat Harvey, is now the Superintendent of
Schools in Saint Paul, and pushing the radical agenda of the NCEE in
Minnesota. (See the update: Marc Tucker Curriculum forced on St. Paul
Schools at http://mredcopac.org). An outside article from Crisis Magazine
offers further insight into Marc Tucker, the NCEE, and it's financial
dealings with Hillary Clinton and the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas. The link
is offered for your exploration. If further insight and corroboration is
obtained, it will be posted at http://mredcopac.org.
Below is the infamous Letter, exactly as it appears in the Congressional
Record, complete with page numbers. All bolding and italics [snipped for
this copy] are from the original. Only red highlighting [snipped for this
copy] is added to draw your attention to key items.
Quote:
11 November 1992
Hillary Clinton
The Governor's Mansion
1800 Canter Street
Little Rock, AR 72206
Dear Hillary:
I still cannot believe you won. But utter delight that you did pervades all
the circles in which I move. I met last Wednesday in David Rockefeller's
office with him, John Sculley, Dave Barram and David Haselkorn. It was a
great celebration. Both John and David R. were more expansive than I have
ever seen them - literally radiating happiness. My own view and theirs is
that this country has seized its last chance. I am fond of quoting Winston
Churchill to the effect that "America always does the right thing - after it
has exhausted all the alternatives." This election, more than anything else
in my experience, proves his point.
The subject we were discussing was what you and Bill should do now about
education, training and labor market policy. Following that meeting, I
chaired another in Washington on the same topic. Those present at the second
meeting included Tim Barnicle, Dave Barram, Mike Cohen, David Hornbeck,
Hilary Pennington, Andy Plattner, Lauren Resnick, Betsy Brown Ruzzi, Bob
Schwartz, Mike Smith and Bill Spring. Shirley Malcom, Ray Marshall and
Susan McGuire were also invited.
Though these three were not able to be present at last week's meeting, they
have all contributed by telephone to the ideas that follow. Ira Magaziner
was also invited to this meeting.
Our purpose in these meetings was to propose concrete actions that the
Clinton administration could take - between now and the inauguration, in the
first 100 days and beyond. The result, from where I sit, was really
exciting. We took a very large leap forward in terms of how to advance the
agenda on which you and we have all been working - a practical plan for
putting all the major components of the system in place within four years,
by the time Bill has to run again. I take personal responsibility for what
follows. Though I believe everyone involved in the planning effort is in
broad agreement, they may not all agree on the details.
You should also be aware that, although the plan comes from a group closely
associated with the National Center on Education and the Economy, there was
no practical way to poll our whole Board on this plan in the time available.
It represents, then, not a proposal from our Center, but the best thinking
of the group I have named.
We think the great opportunity you have is to remold the entire American
system for human resources development, almost all of the current components
of which were put in place before World War II. The danger is that each of
the ideas that Bill advanced in the campaign in the area of education and
training could be translated individually in the ordinary course of
governing into a legislative proposal and enacted as a program. This is the
plan of least resistance. But it will lead to these programs being grafted
onto the present system, not to a new system, and the opportunity will have
been lost. If this sense of time and place is correct, it is essential that
the administration's efforts be guided by a consistent vision of what it
wants to accomplish in the field of human resource development, with respect
both to choice of key officials and the program.
What follows comes in three places: First, a vision of the kind of
national - not federal - human resources development system the nation could
have. This is interwoven with a new approach to governing that should inform
that vision. What is essential is that we create a seamless web of
opportunities, to develop one's skills that literally extends from cradle to
grave and is the same system for everyone - young and old, poor and rich,
worker and full-time student. It needs to be a system driven by client needs
(not agency regulations or the needs of the organization providing the
services), guided by clear standards that define the stages of the system
for the people who progress through it, and regulated on the basis of
outcomes that providers produce for their clients, not inputs into the
system.
Second, a proposed legislative agenda you can use to implement this vision.
We propose four high priority packages that will enable you to move quickly
on the campaign promises:
1.The first would use your proposal for an apprenticeship system as the
keystone of a strategy for putting a whole new post secondary training
system in place. That system would incorporate your proposal for reforming
post-secondary 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 lightning to
implement its human resources development proposals. We hope you can
consider the merits of this idea quickly, because, if you decide to go with
it or something like it, it will greatly affect the nature of the offers you
make to prospective cabinet members.
The Vision: We take the proposals Bill put before the country in the
campaign to be utterly consistent with the ideas advanced in America's
Choice, the school restructuring agenda first stated in A Nation Prepared,
and later incorporated in the work of the National Alliance for
Restructuring Education, and the elaboration of this view that Ray and I
tried to capture in our book, Thinking for a Living. Taken together, we
think these ideas constitute a consistent vision for a new human resources
development system for the United States. I have tried to capture the
essence of that vision below.
An Economic Strategy Based on Skill Development:
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, post-secondary 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, combining high academic standards
with the ability to apply what one knows to real world problems and
qualifying all students for a lifetime of learning in the post-secondary
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 professionals' ability
to make these decisions are swept away, though strong measures are in place
to make sure that vulnerable populations get the help they need. School
professionals are paid at a level comparable to that of other professionals,
but they are expected to put in a full year, to spend whatever time it takes
to do the job and to be fully accountable for the results of their work. The
federal, state and local governments provide the time, staff development
resources, technology and other support needed for them to do the job.
Nothing less than a wholly restructured school system can possibly bring all
of our students up to the standards only a few have been expected to meet up
to now.
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.
Post-secondary 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 three years of acquiring the general education
certificate, so, for most post-secondary 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 progressive, in the sense that certificates and degrees for
entry level jobs lead to further professional and technical education
programs at higher levels. Just as in the case of the system for the
schools, though the standards are the same everywhere (leading to maximum
mobility for students), the curricula can vary widely and programs can be
custom designed to fit the needs of full-time and part-time students with
very different requirements. Government grant and loan programs are
available on the same terms to full-time and part-time students, as long as
the programs in which they are enrolled are designed to lead to certificates
and degrees defined by the system of professional and technical standards.
The national system of professional and technical standards is designed
much like the multi-state bar, which provides a national core around which
the states can specify additional standards that meet their unique needs.
There are national standards and exams for no more than 20 broad
occupational areas, each of which can lead to many occupations in a number
of related industries. Students who qualify in any one of these areas have
the broad skills required by a whole family of occupations, and most are
sufficiently skilled to enter the workforce immediately, with further
education 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 post-secondary 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 loan funds that come with dropouts and adults for enrollment in programs
preparing students to meet the general education standard must release the
same kind of data required of the post-secondary 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, post-secondary
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 performance- and client-oriented
system, to encourage local creativity and responsibility by getting local
people to commit to high goals and organize to achieve them, sweeping away
as much of the rules, regulations and bureaucracy that are in their way as
possible, provided that they are making real progress against their goals.
For this to work, the standards at every level of the system have to be
clear; every client has to know what they have to accomplish in order to get
what they want out of the system. The service providers have to be supported
in the task of getting their clients to the finish line and rewarded when
they are making real progress toward that goal. We would sweep away
means-tested programs, because they stigmatize their recipients and alienate
the public, replacing them with programs that are for everyone, but also
work for the disadvantaged. We would replace rules defining inputs with
rules defining outcomes and the rewards for achieving them. This means,
among other things, permitting local people to combine as many federal
programs as they see fit, provided that the intended beneficiaries are
progressing toward the right outcomes (there are now 23 separate federal
programs for dislocated workers!). We would make individuals, their families
and whole communities the unit of service, not agencies, programs and
projects. Wherever possible, we would have service providers compete with
one another for funds that come with the client, in an environment in which
the client has good information about the cost and performance record of the
competing providers. Dealing with public agencies - whether they are schools
or the employment service - should be more like dealing with Federal Express
than with the old Post Office.
This vision, as I pointed out above, is consistent with everything Bill
proposed as a candidate. But it goes beyond those proposals, extending them
from ideas for new programs to a comprehensive vision of how they can be
used as building blocks for a whole new system. But this vision is very
complex, will take a long time to sell, and will have to be revised many
times along the way. The right way to think about it is as an internal
working document that forms the background for a plan, not the plan itself.
One would want to make sure that the specific actions of the new
administration were designed, in a general way, to advance this agenda as it
evolved, while not committing anyone to the details, which would change over
time.
Everything that follows is cast in the frame of strategies for bringing the
new system into being, not as a pilot program, not as a few demonstrations
to be swept aside in another administration, but everywhere, as the new way
of doing business.
In the sections that follow, we break these goals down into their main
components and propose an action plan for each.
Major Components of the Program:
The preceding section presented a vision of the system we have in mind
chronologically from the point of view of an individual served by it. Here
we reverse the order, starting with descriptions of program components
designed to serve adults, and working our way down to the very young.
HIGH SKILLS FOR ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS PROGRAM Developing System
Standards.
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 reify the narrow standards
that characterize many occupations now. (More than 2,000 standards currently
exist, many for licensed occupations - these are not the kinds of standards
we have in mind.) It also specifies that the programs leading to these
certificates and degrees will combine time in the classroom with time at the
work-site in structured on-the-job training. The standards assume the
existence of (high school level) general education standards set by others.
The new standards and exams are meant to be supplemented by the states and
by individual industries and occupations. Board is responsible for
administering the exam system and continually updating the standards and
exams.
Legislation creating the Board is sent to the Congress in the first six
months of the administration, imposing a deadline for creating the standards
and the exams within three years of passage of the legislation.
Commentary:
The proposal re-frames the Clinton apprenticeship proposal as a college
program and establishes a mechanism for setting the standards for the
program. The unions are adamantly opposed to broad based apprenticeship
programs by that name. Focus groups conducted by JFF and others show that
parents everywhere want their kids to go to college, not to be shunted aside
into a non-college apprenticeship "vocational" program. By requiring these
programs to be a combination of classroom instruction and structured OJT,
and creating a standard-setting board that includes employers and labor, all
the objectives of the apprenticeship idea are achieved, while at the same
time assuring much broader support for the idea, as well as a guarantee that
the program will not become too narrowly focused 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 developing an outcome- and performance-based system for human
resources development system.
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 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 academics 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, non-bureaucratic 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.
[Page: E1823]
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 voucher-ized 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 their 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
re-conceptualization 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 non-residential Job
Corps-like program. The problem with the Job Corps is that it is operated
directly by the federal government and is therefore not embedded at all in
the infrastructure of local communities. The way to solve this problem is to
create a new urban program that is locally - not federally - organized and
administered, but which must operate in a way that uses something like the
federal standards for contracting for Job Corps services. In this way, local
employers, neighborhood organizations and other local service providers
could meet the need, but requiring local authorities to use the federal
standards would assure high quality results. Programs for high school
dropouts and the hard-core unemployed would probably have to be separately
organized, though the services provided would be much the same. Federal
funds would be offered on a matching basis with state and local funds for
this purpose. These programs should be fully integrated with the revitalized
employment service. The local labor market board would be the local
authority responsible for receiving the funds and contracting with providers
for the services. It would provide diagnostic, placement and testing
services. We would eliminate the targeted jobs credit and use the money now
spent on that program to finance these operations. Funds can also be used
from the JOBS program in the welfare reform act. This will not be
sufficient, however, because there is currently no federal money available
to meet the needs of hard-core unemployed males (mostly Black) and so new
monies will have to be appropriated for the purpose.
Commentary:
As you know very well, the High Skills, Competitive Workforce Act sponsored
by Senators Kennedy and Hatfield and Congressmen Gephardt and Regula
provides a ready-made vehicle for advancing many of the ideas we have
outlined. To foster a good working relationship with the Congress, we
suggest that, to the extent possible, the framework of these companion bills
be used to frame the President's proposals. You may not know that we have
put together a large group of representatives of Washington-based
organizations to come to a consensus around the ideas in America's Choice.
They are full of energy and very committed to this joint effort. If they are
made part of the process of framing the legislative proposals, they can be
expected to be strong support for them when they arrive on the Hill. As you
think about the assembly of these ideas into specific legislative proposals,
you may also want to take into account the packaging ideas that come later
in this letter.
ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION PROGRAM The situation with respect to
elementary and secondary education is very different from adult education
and training. In the latter case, a new vision and a whole new structure is
required. In the former, there is increasing acceptance of a new vision and
structure among the public at large, within the relevant professional groups
and in Congress. There is also a lot of existing activity on which to build.
So we confine ourselves here to describing some of those activities that can
be used to launch the Clinton education program.
Standard Setting: Legislation to accelerate the process of national
standard setting in education was contained in the conference report on S.2
and HR 4323 that was defeated on a recent cloture vote. Solid majorities
were behind the legislation in both houses of Congress. While some of us
would quarrel with a few of the details, we think the new administration
should support the early reintroduction of this legislation with whatever
changes it thinks fit. This legislation does not establish a national body
to create a national examination system. We think that is the right choice
for now.
Systemic 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
re-submission of this legislation, modified as it sees fit.
Federal Programs for the Disadvantaged:
The established federal education programs for the disadvantaged need to be
thoroughly overhauled to reflect an emphasis on results for the students
rather than compliance with the regulations. A national commission on
Chapter 1, the largest of these programs, chaired by David Hornbeck, has
designed a radically new version of this legislation, with the active
participation of many of the advocacy groups. Other groups have been
similarly engaged. We think the new administration should quickly endorse
the work of the national commission and introduce its proposals early next
year. It is unlikely that this legislation will pass before the deadline -
two years away - for the re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act, [Note: it has now been passed by both houses of Congress
and passed into law by Pres. G. W. Bush. CLMsr] 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
re-authorization of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement.
Legislation for that re-authorization 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.
[It was, Bush approved it too. CLMsr].
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 post-secondary training
system in place. It would consist of the proposal for post-secondary
standards, the Collaborative Design and Development proposal, the technical
assistance proposal and the post-secondary 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 idea of a temporary
President's Task Force, constituted much as the Council would be.
In this scheme, the Department of Education would be free to focus on
putting the new student performance standards in place and managing the
programs that will take the leadership in the national restructuring of the
schools. Much of the financing and disbursement functions of the higher
education program would move to the Treasury Department, leaving the higher
education staff in the new Institute to focus on matters of substance.
In any case, as you can see, we believe that some extraordinary measure
well short of actually merging the departments of labor and education is
required to move the new agenda with dispatch.
Getting Consensus on the Vision:
Radical changes in attitudes, values and beliefs are required to move any
combination of these agendas. The federal government will have little direct
leverage on many of the actors involved. For much of what must be done, a
new, broad consensus will be required. What role can the new administration
play in forging that consensus and how should it go about doing it?
At the narrowest level, the agenda cannot be moved unless there is
agreement among the governors, the President and the Congress. Bill's role
at the Charlottesville summit leads naturally to a reconvening of that
group, perhaps with the addition of key members of Congress and others.
But we think that having an early summit on the subject of the whole human
resources agenda would be risky, for many reasons. Better to build on Bill's
enormous success during the campaign with national talk shows, in school
gymnasiums and the bus trips. He could start on the con-census building
progress this way, taking his message directly to the public, while
submitting his legislative agenda and working it on the Hill. After six
months or so, when the public has warmed to the ideas and the legislative
packages are about to get into hearings, then you might consider some form
of summit, broadened to include not only the governors, but also key members
of Congress and others whose support and influence are important. This way,
Bill can be sure that the agenda is his, and he can go into it with a
groundswell of support behind him.
That's it. None of us doubt that you have thought long and hard about many
of these things and have probably gone way beyond what we have laid out in
many areas. But we hope that there is something here that you can use. We
would, of course, be very happy to flesh out these ideas at greater length
and work with anyone you choose to make them fit the work that you have been
doing.
Very best wishes from all of us to you and Bill.
(signed: Marc)
Marc Tucker
END-QUOTE. This is the end of the Marc Tucker Letter to Co-President Elect
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton.
It is outcome-based education:
The new system is outcome-based education (OBE), which focuses on the
minimal educational requirements. It is an education method driven by the
peculiar political goal of achieving equal outcome for all students. It
pursues that goal in two basic ways:
1.By focusing on the worst students and the minimum threshold needed to
pass, and;
2.By more or less abandoning students who are above the minimum threshold.
The new system does not aggressively pursue knowledge or academic
excellence. On the contrary, it sacrifices these on the altar of
equal-outcome. Its main purpose is to flatten differences and reduce
variation in student achievement - to the detriment of most students. It
penalizes students who are average or better. That is done in an effort to
make students equal. The goal is to produce a universally 'standardized'
student. This is its core, its central essence - a political end. Minnesota
's administrator of the new system, Commissioner Jax, cheerfully glows that
it imparts "equal knowledge" to students. Indeed, that is precisely its
tragedy.
Provided by: Chester L McWhorter Sr, c/o 504 N. Brighton Rd, Lecanto,
Occupied Florida. Occ. Code: 34461-9533. Ph: 352-344-9073. Fax: Same.
E-mail: robertthebruce@naturecoast.net
End of Part 0, Doc # 029.0.1.0 # 9
"I do verily believe that a single, consolidated government would become the
most corrupt government on earth." Thomas Jefferson to Gideon Granger, 1800.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the
argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves." William Pitt speech to the
House of Commons.
"You shall have one world government, whether or not you like it, by consent
or by conquest." Former FDR aide, James Warburg CFR/TC, in testimony before
the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 17 Feb 1950.