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MEDICAL PRIVACY
Marc Tucker And The NCEE Advise Hillary On
Education
And Labor Training
Health and Human Service Integration
The following letter was retyped from
the original for clarity. Marc Tucker is President of
the National Center on Education and the
Economy (NCEE) and the original letter is typed
on NCEE letterhead. The letterhead
includes a list of the NCEE Board of Trustees, one of
whom is Hillary Clinton. It has been
reproduced from the CPR
for Families site.
11 November, 1992
Hillary Clinton
The Governor's Mansion
1800 Center 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 Scully, 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
Malcolm, 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 remake 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 path 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 resources
development with respect both
to choice of key officials and the program.
What follows comes in three pieces:
First, a vision of a 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
organizations providing the
services), guided by clear standards that define the stages of
the system for the people who
progress through it, and recruited 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 lightening 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 others 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 work places organized to take maximum advantage of
the skills those people have
to offer
A seamless system of unending skills 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 sixteen, 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 variation 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 with
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 with a strong
incentive to work hard in school. Our
public school systems are reorganized to free up school
professionals to make the key
decision 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 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 wide spread 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 now 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 as not to
constitute a new bureaucratic nightmare.
Postsecondary Education and Work
Skills
All students who meet the new national standards for general
education are entitled to the
equivalent of three more years of free additional education.
We would have the federal and
state governments match funds to guarantee one free year of
college education to everyone
who meets the new national standards for general education. So
a student who meets the
standard at 16 would be entitled to two 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
postsecondary students, college will
be free. These professional and technical degree programs will
be designed to link to
programs leading to the baccalaureate degree and higher
degrees. There will be no dead ends
in this system. Everyone who meets the general education
standard will be able to go to
some form of college, being able to borrow all the money they
need to do so, beyond the
first free year.
This idea of postsecondary 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 may 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 ways 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
work force. 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 twenty 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 work force immediately, with further
occupation-specific skills provided by their
union or employer. Industry and occupational groups can
voluntarily create standards
building on these broad standards for their own needs as can
the states. Students entering
the system are first introduced to very broad occupational
groups, narrowing over time to
concentrate on acquiring the skills needed for a cluster of
occupations. This modular system
provides for the initiative of particular states and
industries while at the same time providing
for mobility across states and occupations by reducing the
time and cost entailed in moving
from one occupation to another. In this way, a balance is
established between the kinds of
organic 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 grants and loan funds under this
system are required to provide
information to the public and to government agencies in a
uniform format. This information
covers enrollment by program costs and success rates for
students of different backgrounds
and characteristics, and career outcomes for those students,
thereby enabling students to
make informed choices among institutions based on cost and
performance. Loan defaults are
reduced to a level close to zero, both because programs that
do not deliver what they
promise are not selected by prospective students and because
the new postsecondary loan
system uses the IRS to collect what it 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 drop outs and adults. Achieving that standard
is a prerequisite for enrollment
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