NATIONALCENTER

ONEDUCATION

AND THEECONOMY

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MARIO M. CUOMOHonorary Chair

JOHN SCULLEYChair

JAMES B. HUNT, JR.Vice Chair

The Marc Tucker "Dear Hillary" LetterOn Sept. 25, 1998, Rep. Bob Schaffer placed in the Congressional Record an 18-page letter thathas become famous as Marc Tucker's "Dear Hillary" letter. It lays out the master plan of the ClintonAdministration to take over the entire U.S. educational system so that it can serve national economicplanning of the workforce.

The PDF of this letter as entered in the Congressional Record (starts in the lower right-hand cornerof page): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.

The "Dear Hillary" letter, written on Nov. 11, 1992 by Marc Tucker, president of the National Centeron Education and the Economy (NCEE), lays out a plan "to remold the entire American system"into "a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system foreveryone," coordinated by "a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federallevels" where curriculum and "job matching" will be handled by counselors "accessing theintegrated computer-based program."

Tucker's plan would change the mission of the schools from teaching children academic basics andknowledge to training them to serve the global economy in jobs selected by workforce boards.Nothing in this comprehensive plan has anything to do with teaching schoolchildren how to read,write, or calculate.

Tucker's ambitious plan was implemented in three laws passed by Congress and signed byPresident Clinton in 1994: the Goals 2000 Act, the School-to-Work Act, and the reauthorizedElementary and Secondary Education Act. These laws establish the following mechanisms torestructure the public schools:

1. Bypass all elected officials on school boards and in state legislatures by making federal fundsflow to the Governor and his appointees on workforce development boards.

2. Use a computer database, a.k.a. "a labor market information system," into which schoolpersonnel would scan all information about every schoolchild and his family, identified by thechild's social security number: academic, medical, mental, psychological, behavioral, andinterrogations by counselors. The computerized data would be available to the school, thegovernment, and future employers.

3. Use "national standards" and "national testing" to cement national control of tests,assessments, school honors and rewards, financial aid, and the Certificate of Initial Mastery(CIM), which is designed to replace the high school diploma.

Designed on the German system, the Tucker plan is to train children in specific jobs to serve theworkforce and the global economy instead of to educate them so they can make their own lifechoices.

The original Tucker letter was typed on the letterhead shown below.

The text of the letter as inserted into the Congressional Record follows:

11 November 1992

Hillary ClintonThe Governor's Mansion1800 Canter StreetLittle Rock, AR 72206

Dear Hillary:

I still cannot believe you won. But utter delight that you didpervades all the circles in which I move. I met last Wednesday inDavid Rockefeller's office with him, John Sculley, Dave Barramand David Haselkorn. It was a great celebration. Both John andDavid R. were more expansive than I have ever seen them —literally radiating happiness. My own view and theirs is that thiscountry has seized its last chance. I am fond of quoting WinstonChurchill to the effect that "America always does the right thing —after it has exhausted all the alternatives." This election, more thananything else in my experience, proves his point.

R. CARLOS CARBALLADATreasurer

ANTHONY CARNEVALESARAH H. CLEVELANDHILLARY R. CLINTON

THOMAS W. COLE, JR.VANBUREN N. HANSFORD, JR.

LOUIS HARRISBARBARA R. HATTON

GUILBERT C. HENTSCHKEVERA KATZ

ARTURO MADRIDIRA C. MAGAZINER

SHIRLEY M. MALCOMRAY MARSHALL

RICHARD P. MILLSPHILIP H. POWER

LAUREN B. RESNICKMANUEL J. RIVERA

DAVID ROCKEFELLER, JR.MARC S. TUCKERADAM URBANSKI

KAY R. WHITMORE

MARC S. TUCKERPresident

MAIN OFFICE: SUITE 500

39 STATE STREETROCHESTER, NY 14614

716-546-7620FAX: 716-546-3145

WASHINGTON OFFICE: SUITE 1020

1341 G STREET, NWWASHINGTON, DC 20005

202-783-3666FAX: 202-783-3672

The subject we were discussing was what you and Bill should donow about education, training and labor market policy. Followingthat meeting, I chaired another in Washington on the same topic.Those present at the second meeting included Tim Barnicle, DaveBarram, Mike Cohen, David Hornbeck, Hilary Pennington, AndyPlattner, Lauren Resnick, Betsy Brown Ruzzi, Bob Schwartz, MikeSmith and Bill Spring. Shirley Malcom, Ray Marshall and SusanMcGuire were also invited. Though these three were not able to bepresent at last week's meeting, they have all contributed bytelephone to the ideas that follow. Ira Magaziner was also invitedto this meeting.

Our purpose in these meetings was to propose concrete actionsthat the Clinton administration could take — between now and theinauguration, in the first 100 days and beyond. The result, fromwhere I sit, was really exciting. We took a very large leap forwardin terms of how to advance the agenda on which you and we haveall been working — a practical plan for putting all the majorcomponents of the system in place within four years, by the timeBill has to run again.

I take personal responsibility for what follows. Though I believeeveryone involved in the planning effort is in broad agreement,they may not all agree on the details. You should also be awarethat, although the plan comes from a group closely associated withthe National Center on Education and the Economy, there was nopractical way to poll our whole Board on this plan in the timeavailable. It represents, then, not a proposal from our Center, butthe best thinking of the group I have named.

We think the great opportunity you have is to remold the entireAmerican system for human resources development, almost all ofthe current components of which were put in place before WorldWar II. The danger is that each of the ideas that Bill advanced inthe campaign in the area of education and training could betranslated individually in the ordinary course of governing into alegislative proposal and enacted as a program. This is the plan ofleast resistance. But it will lead to these programs being graftedonto the present system, not to a new system, and the opportunitywill have been lost. If this sense of time and place is correct, it isessential that the administration's efforts be guided by a consistentvision of what it wants to accomplish in the field of human resourcedevelopment, with respect both to choice of key officials and theprogram.

What follows comes in three places:

First, a vision of the kind of national — not federal — humanresources development system the nation could have. This isinterwoven with a new approach to governing that should informthat vision. What is essential is that we create a seamless web ofopportunities, to develop one's skills that literally extends fromcradle to grave and is the same system for everyone — young andold, poor and rich, worker and full-time student. It needs to be asystem driven by client needs (not agency regulations or the needsof the organization providing the services), guided by clearstandards that define the stages of the system for the people whoprogress through it, and regulated on the basis of outcomes thatproviders produce for their clients, not inputs into the system.

Second, a proposed legislative agenda you can use to implementthis vision. We propose four high priority packages that will enableyou to move quickly on the campaign promises:

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1. The first would use your proposal for an apprenticeship

system as the keystone of a strategy for putting a wholenew postsecondary training system in place. That systemwould incorporate your proposal for reforming postsecondaryeducation finance. It contains what we think is a powerfulidea for rolling out and scaling up the whole new humanresources system nationwide over the next four years, usingthe (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 labormarket boards to offer the Clinton administration'semployment security program, built on the best practicesanywhere in the world. This is the backbone of a system forassuring adult workers in our society that they need neveragain watch with dismay as their jobs disappear and theirchances of ever getting a good job again go with them.

3. The third would concentrate on the overwhelming problemsof our inner cities, combining elements of the first andsecond packages into a special program to greatly raise thework-related skills of the people trapped in the core of ourgreat cities.

4. The fourth would enable you to take advantage of legislationon which Congress has already been working to advancethe elementary and secondary reform agenda.

The other major proposal we offer has to do with governmentorganization for the human resources agenda. While we share yourreservations about the hazards involved in bringing reorganizationproposals to the Congress, we believe that the one we have comeup with minimizes those drawbacks while creating an opportunityfor the new administration to move like lightning to implement itshuman resources development proposals. We hope you canconsider the merits of this idea quickly, because, if you decide togo with it or something like it, it will greatly affect the nature of theoffers you make to prospective cabinet members.

The Vision

We take the proposals Bill put before the country in the campaignto be utterly consistent with the ideas advanced in America'sChoice, the school restructuring agenda first stated in A NationPrepared, and later incorporated in the work of the NationalAlliance for Restructuring Education, and the elaboration of thisview that Ray and I tried to capture in our book, Thinking for aLiving. Taken together, we think these ideas constitute a consistentvision for a new human resources development system for theUnited States. I have tried to capture the essence of that visionbelow.

An Economic Strategy Based on Skill Development

The economy's strength is derived from a whole populationas skilled as any in the world, working in workplacesorganized to take maximum advantage of the skills thosepeople have to offer.

A seamless system of unending skill development thatbegins in the home with the very young and continuesthrough school, postsecondary education and theworkplace.

The Schools

Clear national standards of performance in generaleducation (the knowledge and skills that everyone isexpected to hold in common) are set to the level of the bestachieving nations in the world for students of 16, and publicschools are expected to bring all but the most severelyhandicapped up to that standard. Students get a certificatewhen they meet this standard, allowing them to go on to thenext stage of their education. Though the standards are setto international benchmarks, they are distinctly American,reflecting our needs and values.

We have a national system of education in whichcurriculum, pedagogy, examinations, and teacher educationand licensure systems are all linked to the nationalstandards, but which provides for substantial varianceamong states, districts, and schools on these matters. Thisnew system of linked standards, curriculum, and pedagogywill abandon the American tracking system, combining highacademic standards with the ability to apply what oneknows to real world problems and qualifying all students fora lifetime of learning in the postsecondary system and atwork.

We have a system that rewards students who meet thenational 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 schoolprofessionals to make the key decisions about how to useall the available resources to bring students up to thestandards. Most of the federal, state, district and union rulesand regulations that now restrict school professionals' abilityto make these decisions are swept away, though strongmeasures are in place to make sure that vulnerablepopulations get the help they need. School professionals arepaid at a level comparable to that of other professionals, butthey are expected to put in a full year, to spend whatevertime it takes to do the job and to be fully accountable forthe results of their work. The federal, state and localgovernments 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 canpossibly bring all of our students up to the standards only afew have been expected to meet up to now.

There is a real — aggressive — program of public choice inour schools, rather than the flaccid version that iswidespread now.

All students are guaranteed that they will have a fair shot atreaching the standards: that is, that whether they make it ornot depends on the effort they are willing to make, andnothing else. School delivery standards are in place to makesure this happens. These standards have the same statusin 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 newbureaucratic nightmare.

Postsecondary Education and Work Skills

All students who meet the new national standards forgeneral education are entitled to the equivalent of threemore years of free additional education. We would have the

federal and state governments match funds to guaranteeone free year of college education to everyone who meetsthe new national standards for general education. So astudent who meets the standard at 16 would be entitled totwo free years of high school and one of college. Loans,which can be forgiven for public service, are available foradditional education beyond that. National standards forsub-baccalaureate college-level professional and technicaldegrees and certificates will be established with theparticipation of employers, labor and higher education.These programs will include both academic study andstructured on-the-job training. Eighty percent or more ofAmerican high school graduates will be expected to getsome form of college degree, though most of them less thana baccalaureate. These new professional and technicalcertificates and degrees typically are won within three yearsof acquiring the general education certificate, so, for mostpostsecondary students, college will be free. Theseprofessional and technical degree programs will be designedto link to programs leading to the baccalaureate degree andhigher degrees. There will be no dead ends in this system.Everyone who meets the general education standard will beable to go to some form of college, being able to borrow allthe money they need to do so, beyond the first free year.

(This idea of post-secondary professional andtechnical certificates captures all of the essentials ofthe apprenticeship idea, while offering none of itsdrawbacks (see below). But it also makes it clear thatthose engaged in apprentice-style programs aregetting more than narrow training; they are continuingtheir education for other purposes as well, andbuilding a base for more education later. Clearly, thisidea redefines college. Proprietary schools, employersand community-based organizations will want to offerthese programs, as well as community colleges andfour-year institutions, but these new entrants willhave to be accredited if they are to qualify to offer theprograms.)

Employers are not required to provide slots for thestructured on-the-job training component of the program butmany do so, because they get first access to the mostaccomplished graduates of these programs, and they canuse these programs to introduce the trainees to their ownvalues and way of doing things.

The system of skill standards for technical and professionaldegrees is the same for students just coming out of highschool and for adults in the workforce. It is progressive, inthe sense that certificates and degrees for entry level jobslead to further professional and technical educationprograms at higher levels. Just as in the case of the systemfor the schools, though the standards are the sameeverywhere (leading to maximum mobility for students), thecurricula can vary widely and programs can be customdesigned to fit the needs of full-time and part-time studentswith very different requirements. Government grant and loanprograms are available on the same terms to full-time andpart-time students, as long as the programs in which theyare enrolled are designed to lead to certificates and degreesdefined by the system of professional and technicalstandards.

The national system of professional and technical standardsis designed much like the multistate bar, which provides anational core around which the states can specify additional

standards that meet their unique needs. There are nationalstandards and exams for no more than 20 broadoccupational areas, each of which can lead to manyoccupations in a number of related industries. Students whoqualify in any one of these areas have the broad skillsrequired by a whole family of occupations, and most aresufficiently skilled to enter the workforce immediately, withfurther occupation-specific skills provided by their union oremployer. Industry and occupational groups can voluntarilycreate standards building on these broad standards for theirown needs, as can the states. Students entering the systemare first introduced to very broad occupational groups,narrowing over time to concentrate on acquiring the skillsneeded for a cluster of occupations. This modular systemprovides for the initiative of particular states and industrieswhile at the same time providing for mobility across statesand occupations by reducing the time and cost entailed inmoving from one occupation to another. In this way, abalance is established between the kinds of generic skillsneeded to function effectively in high performance workorganizations and the skills needed to continue learningquickly and well through a lifetime of work, on the one hand,and the specific skills needed to perform at a high level in aparticular occupation on the other.

Institutions receiving grant and loan funds under this systemare required to provide information to the public and togovernment agencies in a uniform format. This informationcovers enrollment by program, costs and success rates forstudents of different backgrounds and characteristics, andcareer outcomes for those students, thereby enablingstudents to make informed choices among institutions basedon cost and performance. Loan defaults are reduced to alevel close to zero, both because programs that do notdeliver what they promise are not selected by prospectivestudents and because the new postsecondary loan systemuses the IRS to collect what is owed from salaries andwages as they are earned.

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Education and Training for Employed and Unemployed Adults

The national system of skills standards establishes thebasis for the development of a coherent, unified trainingsystem. That system can be accessed by students comingout of high school, employed adults who want to improvetheir prospects, unemployed adults who are dislocated andothers who lack the basic skills required to get out ofpoverty. But it is all the same system. There are no longerany parts of it that are exclusively for the disadvantaged,though special measures are taken to make sure that thedisadvantaged are served. It is a system for everyone, justas all the parts of the system already described are foreveryone. So the people who take advantage of this systemare not marked by it as damaged goods. The skills theyacquire are world class, clear and defined in part by theemployers who will make decisions about hiring andadvancement.

The new general education standard becomes the target forall basic education programs, both for school dropouts andadults. Achieving that standard is the prerequisite forenrollment in all professional and technical degreeprograms. A wide range of agencies and institutions offerprograms leading to the general education certificate,

including high schools, dropout recovery centers, adulteducation centers, community colleges, prisons andemployers. These programs are tailored to the needs of thepeople who enroll in them. All the programs receivinggovernment grant or loan funds that come with dropouts andadults for enrollment in programs preparing students to meetthe general education standard must release the same kindof data required of the postsecondary institutions onenrollment, program description, cost and success rates.Reports are produced for each institution and for the systemas a whole showing differential success rates for each majordemographic group.

The system is funded in four different ways, all providingaccess to the same or a similar set of services. Schooldropouts below the age of 21 are entitled to the sameamount of funding from the same sources that they wouldhave been entitled to had they stayed in school. Dislocatedworkers are funded by the federal government through thefederal programs for that purpose and by stateunemployment insurance funds. The chronically unemployedare funded by federal and state funds established for thatpurpose. Employed people can access the system throughthe requirement that their employers spend an amount equalto 1-1/2 percent of their salary and wage bill on trainingleading to national skill certification. People in prison couldget reductions in their sentences by meeting the generaleducation standard in a program provided by the prisonsystem. Any of these groups can also use the funds in theirindividual training account, if they have any, the balances intheir grant entitlement or their access to the student loanfund.

Labor Market Systems

The Employment Service is greatly upgraded and separatedfrom the Unemployment Insurance Fund. All available front-line jobs — whether public or private — must be listed in itby law. (This provision must be carefully designed to makesure that employers will not be subject to employment suitsbased on the data produced by this system — if they aresubject to such suits, they will not participate.) All trainees inthe system looking for work are entitled to be listed in itwithout a fee. So it is no longer a system just for the poorand unskilled, but for everyone. The system is fullycomputerized. It lists not only job openings and job seekers(with their qualifications) but also all the institutions in thelabor market area offering programs leading to the generaleducation certificate and those offering programs leading tothe professional and technical college degrees andcertificates, along with all the relevant data about the costs,characteristics and performance of those programs — foreveryone and for special populations. Counselors areavailable to any citizen to help them assess their needs,plan a program and finance it, and, once they are trained, tofind an opening.

A system of labor market boards is established at the local,state and federal levels to coordinate the systems for jobtraining, postsecondary professional and technicaleducation, adult basic education, job matching andcounseling. The rebuilt Employment Service is supervisedby these boards. The system's clients no longer have to gofrom agency to agency filling out separate applications forseparate programs. It is all taken care of at the local labor

market board office by one counselor accessing theintegrated computer-based program, which makes itpossible for the counselor to determine eligibility for allrelevant programs at once, plan a program with the clientand assemble the necessary funding from all the availablesources. The same system will enable counselor and clientto array all the relevant program providers side by side,assess their relative costs and performance records anddetermine which providers are best able to meet the client'sneeds based on performance.

Some Common Features

Throughout, the object is to have a performance- and client-oriented system, to encourage local creativity andresponsibility by getting local people to commit to high goalsand organize to achieve them, sweeping away as much ofthe rules, regulations and bureaucracy that are in their wayas possible, provided that they are making real progressagainst their goals. For this to work, the standards at everylevel of the system have to be clear; every client has toknow what they have to accomplish in order to get whatthey want out of the system. The service providers have tobe supported in the task of getting their clients to the finishline and rewarded when they are making real progresstoward that goal. We would sweep away means-testedprograms, because they stigmatize their recipients andalienate the public, replacing them with programs that arefor everyone, but also work for the disadvantaged. Wewould replace rules defining inputs with rules definingoutcomes and the rewards for achieving them. This means,among other things, permitting local people to combine asmany federal programs as they see fit, provided that theintended beneficiaries are progressing toward the rightoutcomes (there are now 23 separate federal programs fordislocated workers!). We would make individuals, theirfamilies and whole communities the unit of service, notagencies, programs and projects. Wherever possible, wewould have service providers compete with one another forfunds that come with the client, in an environment in whichthe client has good information about the cost andperformance record of the competing providers. Dealing withpublic agencies — whether they are schools or theemployment service — should be more like dealing withFederal Express than with the old Post Office.

This vision, as I pointed out above, is consistent with everythingBill proposed as a candidate. But it goes beyond those proposals,extending them from ideas for new programs to a comprehensivevision of how they can be used as building blocks for a whole newsystem. But this vision is very complex, will take a long time tosell, and will have to be revised many times along the way. Theright way to think about it is as an internal working document thatforms the background for a plan, not the plan itself. One wouldwant to make sure that the specific actions of the newadministration were designed, in a general way, to advance thisagenda 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 forbringing the new system into being, not as a pilot program, not asa 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 theirmain components and propose an action plan for each.

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Major Components of the Program

The preceding section presented a vision of the system we have inmind chronologically from the point of view of an individual servedby it. Here we reverse the order, starting with descriptions ofprogram components designed to serve adults, and working ourway down to the very young.

HIGH SKILLS FOR ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS PROGRAM

Developing System Standards

Create National Board for Professional and TechnicalStandards. Board is private not-for-profit chartered byCongress. Charter specifies broad membership composed ofleading figures from higher education, business, labor,government and advocacy groups. Board can receiveappropriated funds from Congress, private foundations,individuals, and corporations. Neither Congress nor theexecutive branch can dictate the standards set by theBoard. But the Board is required to report annually to thePresident and the Congress in order to provide for publicaccountability. It is also directed to work collaboratively withthe states and cities involved in the Collaborative Designand Development Program (see below) in the developmentof the standards.

Charter specifies that the National Board will set broadperformance standards (not time-in-the-seat standards orcourse standards) for college-level Professional andTechnical certificates and degrees in not more than 20areas and develops performance examinations for each.The Board is required to set broad standards of the kinddescribed in the vision statement above and is notpermitted to simply reify the narrow standards thatcharacterize many occupations now. (More than 2,000standards currently exist, many for licensed occupations —these are not the kinds of standards we have in mind.) Italso specifies that the programs leading to these certificatesand degrees will combine time in the classroom with time atthe work-site in structured on-the-job training. Thestandards assume the existence of (high school level)general education standards set by others. The newstandards and exams are meant to be supplemented by thestates and by individual industries and occupations. Board isresponsible for administering the exam system andcontinually updating the standards and exams.

Legislation creating the Board is sent to theCongress in the first six months of the administration,imposing a deadline for creating the standards andthe exams within three years of passage of thelegislation.

Commentary:

The proposal reframes the Clinton apprenticeshipproposal as a college program and establishes amechanism for setting the standards for the program.The unions are adamantly opposed to broad basedapprenticeship programs by that name. Focus groupsconducted by JFF and others show that parents

everywhere want their kids to go to college, not to beshunted aside into a non-college apprenticeship"vocational" program. By requiring these programs tobe a combination of classroom instruction andstructured OJT, and creating a standard-settingboard that includes employers and labor, all theobjectives of the apprenticeship idea are achieved,while at the same time assuring much broadersupport for the idea, as well as a guarantee that theprogram will not become too narrowly focussed onparticular occupations. It also ties the Clintonapprenticeship idea to the Clinton college fundingproposal in a seamless web. Charging the Board withcreating not more than 20 certificate or degreecategories establishes a balance between the needto create one national system on the one hand withthe need to avoid creating a cumbersome and rigidnational bureaucracy on the other. This approachprovides lots of latitude for individual industry groups,professional groups and state authorities to establishtheir own standards, while at the same time avoidingthe chaos that would surely occur if they were theonly source of standards. The bill establishing theBoard should also authorize the executive branch tomake grants to industry groups, professionalsocieties, occupational groups and states to developstandards and exams. Our assumption is that thesystem we are proposing will be managed so as toencourage the states to combine the last two yearsof high school and the first two years of communitycollege into three year programs leading to collegedegrees and certificates. Proprietary institutions,employers and community-based organizations couldalso offer these programs, but they would have to beaccredited to offer these college-level programs.Eventually, students getting their general educationcertificates might go directly to community college orto another form of college, but the new systemshould not require that.

Collaborative Design and Development Program

The object is to create a single comprehensivesystem for professional and technical education thatmeets the requirements of everyone from high schoolstudents to skilled dislocated workers, from the hardcore unemployed to employed adults who want toimprove their prospects. Creating such a systemmeans sweeping aside countless programs, buildingnew ones, combining funding authorities, changingdeeply embedded institutional structures, and so on.The question is how to get from where we are towhere we want to be. Trying to ram it downeveryone's throat would engender overwhelmingopposition. Our idea is to draft legislation that wouldoffer an opportunity for those states — and selectedlarge cities — that are excited about this set of ideasto come forward and join with each other and withthe federal government in an alliance to do thenecessary design work and actually deliver theneeded services on a fast track. The legislation wouldrequire the executive branch to establish acompetitive grant program for these states and citiesand to engage a group of organizations to offertechnical assistance to the expanding set of statesand cities engaged in designing and implementing

the new system. This is not the usual large scaleexperiment, nor is it a demonstration program. Ahighly regarded precedent exists for this approach inthe National Science Foundation's SSI program. Assoon as the first set of states is engaged, another setwould be invited to participate, until most or all thestates are involved. It is a collaborative design, rolloutand scale-up program. It is intended to parallel thework of the National Board for College Professionaland Technical Standards, so that the states and cities(and all their partners) would be able to implementthe new standards as soon as they becomeavailable, although they would be delivering serviceson a large scale before that happened. Thus, majorparts of the whole system would be in operation in amajority of the states within three years from thepassage of the initial legislation. Inclusion of selectedlarge cities in this design is not an afterthought. Webelieve that what we are proposing here for the citiesis the necessary complement to a large scale job-creation program for the cities. Skill development willnot work if there are no jobs, but job developmentwill not work without a determined effort to improvethe skills of city residents. This is the skilldevelopment component.

Participants

volunteer states, counterpart initiative for cities.

15 states, 15 cities selected to begin in firstyear. 15 more in each successive year.

5 year grants (on the order of $20 million peryear to each state, lower amounts to the cities)given to each, with specific goals to beachieved by the third year, including programelements in place (e.g., upgraded employmentservice), number of people enrolled in newprofessional and technical programs and soon.

a core set of High Performance WorkOrganization firms willing to participate instandard setting and to offer training slots andmentors.

Criteria for Selection

strategies for enriching existing co-op, techprep and other programs to meet the criteria.

commitment to implementing new generaleducation standard in legislation.

commitment to implementing the newTechnical and Professional skills standards forcollege.

commitment to developing an outcome- andperformance-based system for humanresources development system.

commitment to new role for employmentservice.

commitment to join with others in nationaldesign 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 labormarket boards. Local labor market boards toinvolve leading employers, laborrepresentatives, educators and advocacygroup leaders in running the redesignedemployment service, running intake system forall clients, counseling all clients, maintainingthe information system that will make thevendor market efficient and organizingemployers to provide job experience andtraining slots for school youth and adulttrainees.

rebuild employment service as a primaryfunction of labor market boards.

develop programs to bring dropouts andilliterates up to general education certificatestandard. Organize local alternative providers,firms to provide alternative education,counseling, job experience and placementservices to these clients.

develop programs for dislocated workers andhard-core unemployed (see below).

develop city- and state-wide programs tocombine the last two years of high school andthe first two years of colleges into three-yearprograms after acquisition of the generaleducation certificate to culminate in collegecertificates and degrees. These programsshould combine academics and structured on-the-job training.

develop uniform reporting system forproviders, requiring them to provideinformation in that format on characteristics ofclients, their success rates by program, andthe costs of those programs. Developcomputer-based system for combining thisdata at local labor market board offices withemployment data from the state so thatcounselors and clients can look at programsoffered by colleges and other vendors in termsof cost, client characteristics, program design,and outcomes. Including subsequentemployment histories for graduates.

design all programs around the forthcominggeneral education standards and thestandards to be developed by the NationalBoard for College Professional and TechnicalStandards.

create statewide program of technicalassistance to firms on high performance workorganization and help them develop quality

programs for participants in Technical andProfessional certificate and degree programs.(It is essential that these programs be highquality, nonbureaucratic and voluntary for thefirms.)

participate with other states and the nationaltechnical assistance program in the nationalalliance effort to exchange information andassistance among all participants.

[Page: E1823]National technical assistance to participants

executive branch authorized to competeopportunity to provide the following services(probably using a Request For Qualifications):

state-of-the art assistance to thestates and cities related to theprincipal program components(e.g., work reorganization,training, basic literacy, fundingsystems, apprenticeshipsystems, large scale datamanagement systems, trainingsystems for the HR professionalswho make the whole systemwork, etc.). A number oforganizations would be funded.Each would be expected toprovide information and directassistance to the states andcities involved, and to coordinatetheir efforts with one another.

it is essential that the technicalassistance function include amajor professional developmentcomponent to make sure the keypeople in the states and citiesupon whom success dependshave the resources available todevelop the high skills required.Some of the funds for thisfunction should be provideddirectly to the states and cities,some to the technical assistanceagency.

coordination of the design andimplementation activities of thewhole consortium, documentresults, prepare reports, etc. Oneorganization would be funded toperform this function.

Dislocated Workers Program

new legislation would permit combining alldislocated workers programs at redesignedemployment service office. Clients would, ineffect, receive vouchers for education andtraining in amounts determined by the benefitsfor which they qualify. Employment service

case managers would qualify client worker forbenefits and assist the client in the selectionof education and training programs offered byprovider institutions. Any provider institutionsthat receive funds derived from dislocatedworker programs are required to provideinformation on costs and performance ofprograms in uniform format described above.This consolidated and voucherized dislocatedworkers program would operate nationwide. Itwould be integrated with Collaborative Designand Development Program in those states andcities in which that program functioned. Itwould be built around the general educationcertificate and the Professional and TechnicalCertificate and Degree Program as soon asthose standards were in place. In this way,programs for dislocated workers would beprogressively and fully integrated with the restof the national education and training system.

Levy-Grant System

this is the part of the system that providesfunds for currently employed people toimprove their skills. Ideally, it shouldspecifically provide means whereby front-lineworkers can earn their general educationcredential (if they do not already have one)and acquire Professional and TechnicalCertificates and degrees in fields of theirchoosing.

everything we have heard indicates virtuallyuniversal opposition in the employercommunity to the proposal for a 1-1/2% levyon employers for training to support the costsassociated with employed workers gainingthese skills, whatever the levy is called. Wepropose that Bill take a leaf out of the Germanbook. One of the most important reasons thatlarge German employers offer apprenticeshipslots to German youngsters is that they fear,with good reason, that if they don't volunteer todo so, the law will require it. Bill could gathera group of leading executives and businessorganization leaders, and tell them straight outthat he will hold back on submitting legislationto require a training levy, provided that theycommit themselves to a drive to get employersto get their average expenditures on front-lineemployee training up to 2% of front-lineemployee salaries and wages within twoyears. If they have not done so within thattime, then he will expect their support whenhe submits legislation requiring the traininglevy. He could do the same thing with respectto slots for structured on-the-job training.

College Loan/Public Service Program

we presume that this program is beingdesigned by others and so have not attendedto 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 ourreconceptualization of the apprenticeshipproposal as a college-level education program,combined with our proposal that everyone whogets the general education credential beentitled to a free year of higher education(combined federal and state funds) will have adecided impact on the calculations of cost forthe college loan/public service program.

Assistance for Dropouts are the Long-TermUnemployed

the problem of upgrading the skills of highschool dropouts and the adult hard coreunemployed is especially difficult. It is also atthe heart of the problem of our inner cities. Allthe evidence indicates that what is needed issomething with all the important characteristicsof a non-residential Job Corps-like program.The problem with the Job Corps is that it isoperated directly by the federal governmentand is therefore not embedded at all in theinfrastructure of local communities. The way tosolve this problem is to create a new urbanprogram that is locally — not federally —organized and administered, but which mustoperate in a way that uses something like thefederal standards for contracting for Job Corpsservices. In this way, local employers,neighborhood organizations and other localservice providers could meet the need, butrequiring local authorities to use the federalstandards would assure high quality results.Programs for high school dropouts and thehard-core unemployed would probably have tobe separately organized, though the servicesprovided would be much the same. Federalfunds would be offered on a matching basiswith state and local funds for this purpose.These programs should be fully integrated withthe revitalized employment service. The locallabor market board would be the local authorityresponsible for receiving the funds andcontracting with providers for the services. Itwould provide diagnostic, placement andtesting services. We would eliminate thetargeted jobs credit and use the money nowspent on that program to finance theseoperations. Funds can also be used from theJOBS program in the welfare reform act. Thiswill not be sufficient, however, because thereis currently no federal money available to meetthe needs of hard-core unemployed males(mostly Black) and so new monies will have tobe appropriated for the purpose.

Commentary:

As you know very well, the High Skills, CompetitiveWorkforce Act sponsored by Senators Kennedy andHatfield and Congressmen Gephardt and Regulaprovides a ready-made vehicle for advancing manyof the ideas we have outlined. To foster a good

working relationship with the Congress, we suggestthat, to the extent possible, the framework of thesecompanion bills be used to frame the President'sproposals. You may not know that we have puttogether a large group of representatives ofWashington-based organizations to come to aconsensus around the ideas in America's Choice.They are full of energy and very committed to thisjoint effort. If they are made part of the process offraming the legislative proposals, they can beexpected to be strong support for them when theyarrive on the Hill. As you think about the assembly ofthese ideas into specific legislative proposals, youmay also want to take into account the packagingideas that come later in this letter.

ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATIONPROGRAM

The situation with respect to elementary andsecondary education is very different from adulteducation and training. In the latter case, a newvision and a whole new structure is required. In theformer, there is increasing acceptance of a newvision and structure among the public at large, withinthe relevant professional groups and in Congress.There is also a lot of existing activity on which tobuild. So we confine ourselves here to describingsome of those activities that can be used to launchthe Clinton education program.

Standard Setting

Legislation to accelerate the process of nationalstandard setting in education was contained in theconference report on S.2 and HR 4323 that wasdefeated on a recent cloture vote. Solid majoritieswere behind the legislation in both houses ofCongress. While some of us would quarrel with a fewof the details, we think the new administration shouldsupport the early reintroduction of this legislation withwhatever changes it thinks fit. This legislation doesnot establish a national body to create a nationalexamination system. We think that is the right choicefor now.

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Systemic Chance in Public Education

The conference report on S.2 and HR 4323 alsocontained a comprehensive program to supportsystemic change in public education. Here again,some of us would quibble with some of theparticulars, but we believe that the administration'sobjectives would be well served by endorsing theresubmission of this legislation, modified as it sees fit.

Federal Programs for the Disadvantaged

The established federal education programs for thedisadvantaged need to be thoroughly overhauled toreflect an emphasis on results for the students rather

than compliance with the regulations. A nationalcommission on Chapter 1, the largest of theseprograms, chaired by David Hornbeck, has designeda radically new version of this legislation, with theactive participation of many of the advocacy groups.Other groups have been similarly engaged. We thinkthe new administration should quickly endorse thework of the national commission and introduce itsproposals early next year. It is unlikely that thislegislation will pass before the deadline — two yearsaway — for the reauthorization of the Elementary andSecondary Education Act, but early endorsement ofthis new approach by the administration will send astrong signal to the Congress and will greatly affectthe climate in which other parts of the act will beconsidered.

Public Choice Technology, Integrated Health andHuman Services, Curriculum Resources, HighPerformance Management, Professional Developmentand Research and Development

The restructuring of the schools that is envisioned inS.2 and HR 4323 is not likely to succeed unless theschools have a lot of information about how to do itand real assistance in getting it done. The areas inwhich this help is needed are suggested by theheading of this section. One of the most cost-effective things the federal government could do is toprovide support for research, development andtechnical assistance of the schools on these topics.The new Secretary of Education should be directed topropose a strategy for doing just that, on a scalesufficient to the need. Existing programs of research,development and assistance should be examined aspossible sources of funds for these purposes.Professional development is a special case. To buildthe restructured system will require an enormousamount of professional development and the time inwhich professionals can take advantage of such aresource. Both cost a lot of money. One of thepriorities for the new education secretary should bethe development of strategies for dealing with theseproblems. But here, as elsewhere, there are someexisting programs in the Department of Educationwhose funds can be redirected for this purpose,programs that are not currently informed by the goalsthat we have spelled out. Much of what we have inmind here can be accomplished through thereauthorization of the Office of Educational Researchand Improvement. Legislation for that reauthorizationwas prepared for the last session of Congress, butdid not pass. That legislation was informed by a deepdistrust of the Republican administration, rather thanthe vision put forward by the Clinton campaign, butthat can and should be remedied on the next round.

Early Childhood Education

The president-elect has committed himself to a greatexpansion in the funding of Head Start. We agree.But the design of the program should be changed toreflect several important requirements. The quality ofprofessional preparation for the people who staffthese programs is very low and there are no

standards that apply to their employment. The samekind of standard setting we have called for in the restof this plan should inform the approach to thisprogram. Early childhood education should becombined with quality day care to provide wrap-around programs that enable working parents to dropoff their children at the beginning of the workday andpick them up at the end. Full funding for the verypoor should be combined with matching funds toextend the tuition paid by middle class parents tomake sure that these programs are not officiallysegregated by income. The growth of the programshould be phased in, rather than done all at once, sothat quality problems can be addressed along theway, based on developing examples of best practice.These and other related issues need to beaddressed, in our judgment, before the newadministration commits itself on the specific form ofincreased support for Head Start.

Putting the package together:

Here we remind you of what we said at the beginningof this letter about timing the legislative agenda. Wepropose that you assemble the ideas just describedinto four high priority packages that will enable you tomove quickly on the campaign promises:

1. The first would use your proposal for anapprenticeship system as the keystone of thestrategy for putting the whole newpostsecondary training system in place. Itwould consist of the proposal forpostsecondary standards, the CollaborativeDesign and Development proposal, thetechnical assistance proposal and thepostsecondary education finance proposal.

2. The second would combine the initiatives ondislocated workers, the rebuilt employmentservice and the new system of labor marketboards as the Clinton administration'semployment security program, built on the bestpractices anywhere in the world. This is thebackbone of a system for assuring adultworkers in our society that they need neveragain watch with dismay as their jobsdisappear and their chances of ever getting agood job again go with them.

3. The third would concentrate on theoverwhelming problems of our inner cities,combining most of the elements of the firstand second packages into a special programto greatly raise the work-related skills of thepeople trapped in the core of our great cities.

4. The fourth would enable you to takeadvantage of legislation on which Congresshas already been working to advance theelementary and secondary reform agenda. Itwould combine the successor to HR 4323 andS.2 (incorporating the systemic reformsagenda and the board for student performancestandards), with the proposal for revampingChapter 1.

Organizing the Executive Branch for HumanResouces Development

The issue here is how to organize the federalgovernment to make sure that the new system isactually built as a seamless web in the field, where itcounts, and that program gets a fast start with a first-rate team behind it.

We propose, first, that the President appoint aNational Council on Human Resources Development.It would consist of the relevant key White Houseofficials, cabinet members and members of Congress.It would also include a small number of governors,educators, business executives, labor leaders andadvocates for minorities and the poor. It would beestablished in such a way as to assure continuity ofmembership across administrations, so that theconsensus it forges will outlast any oneadministration. It would be charged withrecommending broad policy on a national system ofhuman resources development to the President andthe Congress, assessing the effectiveness andpromise of current programs and proposing newones. It would be staffed by senior officials on theDomestic 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 newadministration's commitment to putting the continuingeducation and training of the `forgotten half' on a parwith the preparation of those who have historicallybeen given the resources to go to 'college,' and tointegrate the two systems, not with a view todragging down the present system and those itserves, but rather to make good on the promise thateveryone will have access to the kind of educationthat only a small minority have had access to up tonow. To this agency would be assigned the functionsnow performed by the assistant secretary foremployment and training, the assistant secretary forvocational education and the assistant secretary forhigher education. The agency would be staffed bypeople specifically recruited from all over the countryfor the purpose. The staff would be small, highpowered and able to move quickly to implement thepolicy initiatives of the new President in the field ofhuman resources development.

The closest existing model to what we have in mindis the National Science Board and the NationalScience Foundation, with the Council in the place ofthe Board and the Institute in the place of theFoundation. But our council would be advisory,whereas the Board is governing. If you do not likethe idea of a permanent Council, you might considerthe idea of a temporary President's Task Force,constituted much as the Council would be.

In this scheme, the Department of Education wouldbe free to focus on putting the new studentperformance standards in place and managing theprograms that will take the leadership in the nationalrestructuring of the schools. Much of the financingand disbursement functions of the higher education

program would move to the Treasury Department,leaving the higher education staff in the new Instituteto focus on matters of substance.

In any case, as you can see, we believe that someextraordinary measure well short of actually mergingthe departments of labor and education is required tomove the new agenda with dispatch.

Getting Consensus on the Vision

Radical changes in attitudes, values and beliefs arerequired to move any combination of these agendas.The federal government will have little direct leverageon many of the actors involved. For much of whatmust be done, a new, broad consensus will berequired. What role can the new administration playin forging that consensus and how should it go aboutdoing it?

At the narrowest level, the agenda cannot be movedunless there is agreement among the governors, thePresident and the Congress. Bill's role at theCharlottesville summit leads naturally to areconvening of that group, perhaps with the additionof key members of Congress and others.

But we think that having an early summit on thesubject of the whole human resources agenda wouldbe risky, for many reasons. Better to build on Bill'senormous success during the campaign with nationaltalk shows, in school gymnasiums and the bus trips.He could start on the consensus-building progressthis way, taking his message directly to the public,while submitting his legislative agenda and working iton the Hill. After six months or so, when the publichas warmed to the ideas and the legislativepackages are about to get into hearings, then youmight consider some form of summit, broadened toinclude not only the governors, but also keymembers of Congress and others whose support andinfluence are important. This way, Bill can be surethat the agenda is his, and he can go into it with agroundswell of support behind him.

• • •

That's it. None of us doubt that you have thoughtlong and hard about many of these things and haveprobably gone way beyond what we have laid out inmany areas. But we hope that there is somethinghere that you can use. We would, of course, be veryhappy to flesh out these ideas at greater length andwork with anyone you choose to make them fit thework that you have been doing.

Very best wishes from all of us to you and Bill.

[signed: Marc]

Marc Tucker

END