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Hillary Rodharn Clinton
Keynote Address
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Conference or: Adult Basic Skills q,nd
the Kansas Work Force
S~ptember 13,1991
.Waner Conference Centre· Kansas E...."PoC~ntre
Topeka, Kansas
Sometimes when I came to places to address a group like this. I like to imagine in my mind what else
might be 'going an in Kansas today. Vlhat ather meetings are being held and what ather subjects are being
dis~sed? And if we were to go up in agre:lt big hot air balloon together (which is always-appropriate for
these. eccasions), and look dawn over the whale state and see everything that was happening, all the meet
. ings that were being he!d and the caucuses and ather civic eventS, and then ask ourselves, woich of these
would stand the test of time, whiCh of these could make any difference whatsoever in real peoples' lives in
five, ten, fifteen or twenty ye:lrs, certainly the subject matter of this cotlfere~ci: today should Ie:ld us to say
that this is such a mee:ing. Taat bringing together people from around the state with varying backgrounds to
look at the results of what I thought was an e."Ccellent n:por and to think :hrough what it me:lDS to talk
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about crnining, educating, readying people, Kansans. fer the workforce addresses absolutdyc:iti61 issues.
And depending upon how the questions at stake are.ar.swered, both coUec:ive!y by all of us who are here as
we take action together, and individually in each of our lives. this mee.ting could have a very big role in
detemIining what kind of future e:cits, not only in Kansas but acress this countf'/. So as I'm up here hovering
above this state, I would have to guess that this meeting could, if it leads to action, be one of those tbt wiU
make a difference in the next years.
Part of the reason that's so· is because we are finally beginning to link up all the pieces of what has to be
the paramount social domestic agenda for our country. And that is how cia we raise children from the very
beginning until they are productive citizens and of the pieces and all of the institutions that have a role to
play in that, have to be held more 'accountable than we have been holding them in the last decades.
all
. In order to understand, for me, why it is we are finally ata point woe:-: we are willing to' talk publicly
about what is happening in our children's lives, and what an earth differe~ce that makes in terms of what
happens in the businesses that are represented arqund this room and in this state, you have to get a little
historic context. Bec:luse part of the dilemma we are struggling with in our country is pushing ourselves
through what amc!Jnts toa cultural transition. As we Uterally move from the post World War II United
States, when we s.oed dominate militarily. economically and politically, into the new world that we, in large
measure, helped to c:e:lte, we find, ironically, we will nat be competitive within that new world ifwe don't
tend to our problems at harne, and partic-..tlarlythe problems affecting our children. If you look at what this
world was like in the last forty years after the Second World War. there's no argument as to what country
·really was dominnte. But if you begin to look at what was happening, starting at the early 19705, as countries
that once had been our allies, and countries that had ceen our e:-:emies. and countries that didn't even e:cist
twenty or thirty years ago burst an to the global economic marke~ and begin competing with us, it is clear the
Unit~d St:ltes was ill prepared co continue leading in a world chnt it had Iarge!y midwifed intoe:cistence..
Because we took for granted our institutions, we took [or granted our pcsicion, and O-sour awn internal
conditions began to change, as the family .structure chO-nged, as our businesses changed, as our schools
Changed, we found we were unreO-dy to meet the new chailcnges.
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Finally, I think we have a consenSus around the country that we have a problem. \\lhat we do not have ::
consensus about yet. nor !eade:-ship to help de"le:op that consensus, is how we are going to address that
problem• .And what I hope you will take from thiS conference is some understanding of .the depth of the
problem. a commitment to addressing it at least in one state, and, through the states as Iacor3tories.k::ritting
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together some national solutio'ns.
I want to spe3k specifically about a proposal that comes from the Commission on the Skills of the Ameri
,can Workforce. a c:e:lture of the National Center on Education and the Economy, and group that took an
in-<iepth look ai: how well we were preparing our young peopie to be competitive with their compatriots
around the worid.In the course of doing the research for the Commission's report, we interviewed over
2.000 business and politicalleade:-s and ordinary folks in th!ee continents: Europe, Asia and North Amerio
And we asked them questions about how their education syste:ns were 'preparing young people, how their '
businesses were organized. how competitive they thought theywere, what kind of social support government
gave to business to be competitive. how business and education worked together.,',
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The results of that survey served as the basis for the report called America's Choice: HighSkiIIs or Low
Wages! In fac~, it was referenced in the Kansas Inc. report that was handed out today. And the report poses
very drlmaticaIIy' the question whether we will be a nation of high skills and. therefore,de:nand high wages ir
the international marketplace or whether we wiil continue to deskll1 our work. e.'Cpect iess 9f our students '
than is expe:ted of students in competitive countries and generally be satisfied with a lower standard of
living, although nobody made that choice. There was never an e!ection he!d and nobody ran for office
saying, "I choose low wages. Everybody who's for me line up over here.'· That has ne-ver been a choice that
has been given to the American public, but it is the choice that we have 'made day after day for the last two
decades.
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And why have we made tha,t choice? Partly because we have refused to see the reality of what was
happening economically around us. and partly because we have so many problems in this C::l untr'y figuring out
how to work together. We thrive on management and labor conflic:. on business and gove:nment conflic~
on business and schools problems. We thrive on adversary, and. as a la....: er, I can say I make a living on
people who thrive on adversarial relationships. And yet it is part of the A.merican character, we do not like
to be organized. We do not want to have some gre3t"grand approach to solving our problems, and so we
figure out that we'll just muddle our way througb. and because of good old American know how we v.ill
figure out what needs to be done. and we will be compedtive. The problem is that in a world wbere others
are o,ganized to beat us economically, that have coherent systems of education and employment and train
ing. that have governments and businesses that support the 'common e!'lterprise of cre:lting higher paying,
higher skilled jobs for the people, muddling through may not be the aOsw'er that gets us where we need to be.
And to that end.~his commission haS made sortie very specific recommendations that I want briefly to de
,scribe to you.
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Tne first is that every youngster by the age of si."tteen should be able to demonstrate a basic level of
competency in the skills wee:q::ec: from si:tteen-year-olds and earn what we at the Commission call a Certifi
cate of Initial Mastery. Now stating that may not sound revolutionary, btit when the report came out in June
,of 1990, it was very controversial. Because if you examined the recommendation. what it says is that people
who go to schools in Kansas, or Arkansas or Alaska ought to come out at basically the same place by the age
of si."Cteen. That means that local control can still e:cist, but it has to e:cist in a conteXt of uniformly high
standards. I spent years in Arbnsas traveling around. going to schools. talking to educators as my husband
and I invested much of our time and effort in trying to improve our schools. And I was str..:ck in the eady
1980s when we began this. how people would. with a straightJace. argue to me that they had a right to te:J.ch
whatever algebra they wantcdtote:J.ch in their town and nobody at the state should tell them what that '
should be. I would always sort orscra[ch my hC:J.d and say, "You mean algebra in Little Rock is different
than algcbrJ in New York," and they would say; "Well. if we want it to be, that's whatlocal control is." Well
the problcm with taking local control at tha,t IC·/e!. whcre there are no standards by whIch we judge how well
�educ:ltion is being delivered, is we no longer live in a society whose boundaries are determined by Little
Rock. or Arkansas or Kansas. Whether or not our kids know algebra is going to determine how successful.
they are. with kids sitting in classrooms in Taipei. Tokyo and Berlin.. Tnat is the re:tiity in which we are living.
And if we do not make up our minds that we are inte:lt upon ensuring that e"/eryone of our youngsters
achie"/es a basic level of compe:ency, we will continue to .tondemnmany of those same youngsters to a lifeaf
secondc!ass opportunity. In order to get where we need to be. to have this standard, there :.s a !ot of work
that has to be done. It is not ezy waking up· in a country as diverse as weare, with our history of 10C31
cootrol, and the very firm belief that I, as a parent, bave some sayan what my daughter learns, and say ~.
bt you !mow you want to also be sure that what she le:tms is at a world c!ass intematiooalbenchmark
standard. BC""...:luse when she gets out of school. that's the world in which she's going to live and compete. It
is no longer adequate for her to learn Little Rock algebra, Arkansas algebra or .American algebri' ],bat's the
same kind of challenge America's businesses are facing. but in American eduC:l.tion the route to getting
where we Deed to be is much more difficult because of all.the political and other interest group pressures .
that you know as well as L
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In order to corne to te:ms with what it would mean to have a Certificate.of!nitial Mastery, just let me
give you a.single example. When you step into .the commercial airliner that's going to take you an your next
trip, you assume that the pilat sitting there is a licensed pilat, at least we hope, right? Now you don't stop .
and say, "E'CC"JSe me, did it take you si.~ montr.s in the Air Force to get your pilot's license or did it take you
twa years working an your awn through a commercial enterprise to get your pilat's license?" because there
are standards that pilotS have .ta meet. -.It doesn't matter to Die whether he was a fast learner or slow learner,
. ·as long.as he !e:trned·it. And that's what we have to start thinking about with educ:ltion~It doesn't matter to
me if the c::'lid takes longer or faster to ge~ where we want to go as long as we know what the end result will
be.
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And to that end the National Center has been'running a project called the New Standa.rcis Prajca:. It is
an effort to try to ta~e control over this very diffuse arid much taoabstrac:. conversation we've been having
about what students should or should not learn and try to put'it in same cammon sense language. What
should a fourth grader know about mathematics? What should the algebra curnculum consist of? We
shc:dd always be thinking about the international benchmarks·we should be trying to me~ure ourselves
agil:nst. Tne New Standards Project is enlisting assistance from eauc:ttors all aver the country, and we are
going to try and piiot what we. think are the kind of standards we should be trying to meet with this Certifi
cate. Is this cr:::ntroversial? Does this challenge the traditional ideas of education? You bet. Is there a
.. better alte:-nati':e for us to move ourselves forward? Tnere may be, but I eoubt that there can be one that
does not initially accept the :Ieed for nationally articulated standards for every stude:Itto be me~ured
. against. Nor the need to. begin to unpack the examination process sa that it consistS ootjust IJf an up or
down test but consists of performance me~ur~ along a child's care::r, Culminating at the age of sixteen in
this Certific:tte.
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Why do we use the age si."(teen? We chase it because by the age of sLXtee:I most af'aur children, whether
we admit it or nat, are on a track, whether. it is explicit or not. We have this mythology in :his country that we
educate everybody. We are the great equalizer in our public education system. We are r.at like those ather
countries that sort chiidren out and make these elitist distinctions. Tne truth is those ather countries do a
better job of bringing more of their children to ne:tr universal literacy and higher levels of knowledge content
thar: 've do bec:tuse we start sorting our children in 1cindergartenwhether we. say so or not. We sort. them by
looking at them. "Well. that looks like a cute little white, biond girl; bet she'll be smart. That's a nice
. looking woite boy with glasses; he probably knows math. WeB, that poor little black kid. if we C:1O just get
. that child to be able to re:td nt grnde level, we wiil be ac::omplishing something." We sat t them in our brain'
all thc,time~ We mnke judgementS about what kids can or cannot learn. and then by the time they get to our
. comprehensive high sc:'aol. they're really an a track. Yet we continue to hold aut this ide:t we're educating
nil of them. t want same proof we're educating ?i1ofthem and. therefore. I want a standard that all of them
C:1O be mC:lSured ngainst, which then puts pressure an the educ4ltiqn,system to mnke sure we meet that
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standard for the vast majority of our youngste:s. A.nd I want alotcf fle:aoility in that system sO that it's not
just how many ye:lCs a stude:lts sits in class~ but it's aU other kinds of measurements as 'to wnat childr:e:l are
learning along the way. And part of the way we're going to get there is by committing ourselves to the belief
that all childre:l can le:lrn. and believing if the"! don't le:lrn. it doesn't hurt just them. it hurts us as welL
Now having said that, the second recommer:d:ltion of the Commission isa 'very re:liistic one.' Because we
know that if we started having such a standard tomorrow many of our childre:l could not meet it. Many of
those children are childre:l we don't expect to Je:lrn. Taey have many diffiC".,lities from the:r home environ
ment. They live in a world that is disorganized: it's veri hard for them to grasp what it is we'reaslcing of them
aC:ldemic:llly. The schools need to change to want to keep those youngsters as students. That is not the case
now. Anybody who has bee:l in education more than a minute and a half kno\VS after those average daily
attendance figures go in. whether it's the first of October or shortly thereafter, there's not much incentive to
keep these difficult children around. You know you can do a whole lot better with the other ones if you
don't keep them around. We need some incentives within our system to keep as many of our children as
possible and to be successful with them.
The :llte::lative, and what the Commission recommended. is that ,we set up a system outside the system.
as an altemative system that is rooted in the responsibilities of recapturing dropouts. which is not afraid to
use unconver:tional teaching methods. computer-aided instruction and other things that we bow work with
this populatien in order to move 'these children forward. s6 either within the schools or outside the schools,
sC!mebody, seme institution has got to be responsible for trying to take
of thestude:lts that otherwise
don't make it. and move them up to the level of competencidrepresented by the Certificate.
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Toe third recommendation is building on the age sixteen certificate. We want children to have real
choices. Some of these children will go on to baccalaureate dt;grees, but whc;n you look at all the statistics we
know right :lOW only about 30% of an age cohort ends up with a four~year baccalaureate degree. Fifty
pe:cen.t start college. 30% actually get that degree. And we spend more time. effort and money worrying
about that 30% than we do that 70% that don't get that degree. And we are unlike mest of our competitors
who ::ave a ::luch bette: system for helping to direct the 70% into future opportunities. So the Commission
recommends that by the time we get someone to that level of competenC"!, than we can give real choices and
none of the choices should be choices which close dears. They should be part of a continuing life-long
lear::ing oppor;tunity _. the best of what aduit education represents~ Bec3us~ some will continue with
acacemic work, some will go into an apprenticeship program, some will go into work where they get work
based training and additional assistance in continuing their education. But in order for that to happen, we
need. to artlC"Jlate dearly what we expect to know to do certain jobs. And we have the same trouble there as
we do with algebr3.. What does it mean to be a shee: metal worker? What dces it mean to be a computer
programme:? What does it mean to be a retail c!e:k? What are the standards for these jobs that would
transfer them into C:lreer opportunities?
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You k."'lOW most of us i!.ate to hear about other countries and what the"! do beC:luse its part of that men
tality that we have that we're so different and we're so unique that we really can't le:lm anyt!ling from them.
I have the privilege of serving on the Board of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is whereit is today because it is unem
barrassed to learn '!Vhatever it can learn anywhere. The Wal-Mart executives spend as much time in competi
tors' stores as they do in their own. Sam Walton walks up and down the aisles of a K-Mart embarrassing all
of us to de:lth. stopping clerks and saying, "\Vhat do you like about this place and what,don't you like?" and
stopping c:JstomerS. asking, "Why are you here and not over at WaHyfart?'· But you k."'lOW '.vhat, that keeps
us on the edge all the time. How many of us in education go into a s,:hool and ask what works here and what
doesn't'? How man? of us in other businesses go and re:llly take a look at what our competitors are doing to
satisfy their customc:'S, and what we could learn from'? We as Americans h:lVe to get on the road and go find
out wh:lt we C:ln barrow from what works in other countries and bring it home. Tnere is a lot of knowledge
to be gainedout there. The Japanese have done it to us in spades: it's time that we re~urn the favor. Let's
find out what works.
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II you were a youngster in Germany and you finished your basic level bf educ:ltion. you would then have
an opportunity to choose from a varie::y of apprenticeship and work training opportunities. Let's take 3n
e."C:lmple again - retail. Most of us don't think of retail as a profession. You know, you go and stand behind
the counter, you may learn how to run the c:lSn register, you may le:lm a little about inventory, a little about
buying. but that's about it. In Germany, you would take a course for fourye:lrs. The first two ye:lrs would be
more study than work; between Se'/enteen and eighteen if that's the C3reer you've chosen. And you would
study about how retail opentes. %at are the budgetary constraints;' what does it mean to have an inven·
torr, how do you know when you have enough stock and supplies. etc? Even if you're juSt going [0 be a
clerk selling across' the counter. Then in your last two years you are in the marketplace primarily but sol1
with some studying. .Ahd then there is a curric-..uum that's been de'/e!oped in conjunction with the educition
and buSiness enterprises that defines whatyou'rc eXpected to know. You come out of that three oc four year
program. and you are a professional It is the same for bank teilers, and nearly any kind of profession you
can think of. Contrast what happens with our youngsters. If the'! graduate from high school at about the age
of eigh teen. they have alre:ldy gone to school two years less than our European or .~ian counterparts who '
go to school mere days and more hours. So they are already two years behind in days spent. They then are in
the marketplace. If thC'j are not going to college, if they don't have a parent that can find them a job, what .
happe!lS? Well. thC'j flounder until they finally end up somewhere. That eventually may be in a permanent
job, but, ac~ording to the research available to the Commission, that doesn't happen until most of them are
in their twe::~:: So look at the lost time in ter:ns of a person's individual opportunities and the lost produc
tivity in terr::;; ':his society. We need to define technical certification programs where community coileges,
four-year coiie~es and voc:ltional schools work Iland in hand with business and industry to define what'
various job occupations mean. .And the educ:ltionsystem has to be ready to experiment with 2+2 programs
and with'ac.ditionarlcinds of post-secondary programs that will help prepare these youngsters for these job
opportUnities.
Now the fourth recommendation. Business itself has to re:hink how it organizes the way it work:s. This is
probably the most unusual of the Commission's recommendations and often the hardest one for the audi·
ences to grasp. Bec::llise when we think from our perspec:ive about. American business, we think that tile
profit motive andthc: marketplace basically c.e:ermines how business is done, and business. unlike govern
ment or education. has aU these external pressures. and you either live er you die, but basically that's how the
system works. But we have found in our interviews and our rese:lrch work that American business is in as·
much need of reorganization as American education. American business needs to be willing to be more
flexible and more responsive. to give more responsibility to the individual employees and to transform itself
into high performance work organizations. Because what is happening around the country is that many of
our businesses, C'/en the big.ones in the global marketplace, don't yet understand the outdated, Tayloristic
modeLof production that we inherited when we set up Henry Ford production tines is not only out of date,
but: ':.S vestiges are seriously interfering with our capacity to be competitive. If you, think about what the
TayIoristic model taught us. it was that we nc:eded to human proof most joqs. We needed to descnbe jobs in
as smail pieces as we possibly could and then we needed to have those individuals who perform those jobs
heavily supervised so they wouldn't mess up. Business bought:nto that. labor bought into it in a big way.
"You know if my contrac:sllYS I sc;:oew in the same bulb iOO times, then that's alII do." And education
'bol.!~~!t into it. "Well. if we're producing people for,that kind of produc:ionline. th~nwe jus: need to make
sure they show up and trj to get them civilized by the time we push them out :!:to the fac:ory." That was the
model that cre:lted the American economic miracle, and it worked. But it also enabled people with re!atively
low skills to command high wages. You didn't have to be a rocke~ scientist to make'a very good living for
yourself and your family. Bu: when. all of a sudden, starting in the 19iOs it be9mec!ear that people in
Bangladesh. in Thailand. in Br~zil could screw in that same buib and do it for a dollar a day, we were all
surprised. '~Well that's unfair. Tney shouldn't be able to get those jobs." .:'.:r:d companies which had moved
out of the North, where I grew up. down to the South. where I now live. in 'the 40s and 50s because they
wanted to escape high wages and unionization. aU of a sudden moved out of the South to developing.coun
tries bec:lUse they could re:lIly escape high w::J.ges and unionization. And old methcds of utilizing workers
were no longer the cutt~n~ edge methods. We h::J.d to begin to change our mindset ~bout what we expected
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�from the people v:.ho worked for us. we had to trust and respect them. and we had to give :he:n some control
over what happened in their workplace.
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It's just as true for teachers in schools it is for factory workers on a fac:ory t1oor. But it has been a very
, hard lesson for managers. whether they beschc91 superintendents or fac:ory foreme~ to understand. So
part of what has to h3;ppen that buSiness has to reo'rganize how it docs work in order to have the pOsitive
influence on education that needs to happen.' Much of the lectUring business has done in education for the .
fast te:l ye:lI"S. about how you need to improye your production and you need to do bette::- and aU of that,
ares.: out of the desire of business people to have the same kind of employee that they used to,ha~ You
know - a compliant. docile person who would de what theywc:re told. have the skills that the new,ldnd of
imperatives that the economy demanded. That's a mi'Ced message. You cannot take a person and teach him
or her to think: and have high slc::ills and be a productive me:nber of a ne'N business enterprise, then say, "but.
don't think while on the job," and expect high productivity. That's what we've done to teachers, that's what
we've done to workerS. And that's one of the fundamental changes that has to happen in this counuy. You
can read any stary of an American business failure of the last decade, and you will find that it failed in large
, measure bec:luse it could not change its work habits· and work culture to meet the competition. And if you
, go into factories and other production fac-lities in oche::- places thatare.be:ng more competitive, you find
teams making decisions. You find far fewer supervisors, far fewer middle :nanagers that have to make the
lcind of production de~.sions that we still pennie middle managers and indirect workers to make in this
country. So we are recomme:lding that business take a look at itself and. in that way, be a much be!tcr
contnbutor to the entire ente:-prise of upgrading our skills.
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And EinaiIy, we need a ,bette I' system than what we have to integrate employment, education and trainiDg
in this country. It isver"l frustrating. I would imagine. for many ofyou. as it has been for me over the Ye:lrs.
to know that our adult basic education people often don't talk to our literacy council people. who often. don't
talk to our secondary school peOple. who don't talk to our post-secondary people; nobody talks. We don't
have a system that :naves youngsters from conventional public schooling into work. eve:l though we have
many pieces that are doing a goed job. in isolation that are totally non-integrated with one another. There
has to be a coherent approach. ir:d there has to be a wiilingness on the part of all of us to step over the turfs
that divide us. And we all have to keep our eye on the same goal. which is to produce an oPk=c:runity for our
children th:::.: is equivale:u to what is produced in the systems in which we are compe~ing. And that requires
not an adve:-sarial attitude among all of us. but a ceoperative one and one that is willing to be part of a larger
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Now those five recommendations are not written in stone. There are"many opportunities for coming up
. with better ide:lS and criticizing those. but at le:lSt the'! start the kind of conversation that we have to have
.around this country. There are many pieces of it that I don 'thave time to ';0 ,into that I am equally con
ce:ned about. suc:"" :.s l'resc:iooling oPPOrtunities and health opportunities that we provide to youngsters so
they have a chance :0 be competitive. How'',1le reverse the reversible damage that brings 10 -12% of our
your: gste:-s. according to the Education Commission of the States, into our schcc:s with academic deficien
c:e::: :!!ated to preve:ltab!: ?roblems relating to pregnancies, birth and e:lrly chiichood. Those are proble::ns
j'..!.St ;.s significant as the workplace literacy and adult education problems that we are focasing on today. But
however we define the issues that have to be addressed. we need to bring them back to a child and person
centered' focus. And we need to be honest with ourse~ves. by asking ourselves. "Is what I'm doing working?
.~ I willinr ::::: have what I'. ,acing evaluated? Can I think of a beuerway to make the system I'm a part of
work better:' '::ow do I breakout of the bure:lucracy t~at strangles aU of us as soon as we get two or more
people :::-:ing anything? How can we produce a betterproduc~?" '
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You know American busineSs. because it is in a life or death situation. has been undergoing a quality
movement that has taken some places andlre:llly shown results. Gove:nment. health care and education
need to undergo a similar :malysis where we ask ourselves the hard questjons. Making these decisions may
not be tomorrow a lifeordcath issue: It's going to be vcry difficult (although thcy're probably thinking about
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�, it) for the J a!,anese 'to figure out how to get into our school market or'to be :n our legislatures. But it is 3 life
or de:nh issue in terms of quality of life that we =4'ect to enjoy in this country. Any many of us in this room.
very honestly, would be compe:itive wnere"lerwe were in the global economy. We're all educated. :md after'
our lunch. well-fed and mobile. But that is not tI"'..le for the majority of our people. A.nd I want to end with a
story that put this into a pe~pective I will never forget. '
I was in Minnesota speaking at 3 very large'breakfast hosted by the Governor and the !e:lders of the
legislature an this issue of work force tr:lining and skilLS upgrading and,the connection be::,,veen the educa.
tion svstem and the business community. 'And at the end of mv remarkS. the Governor's remarks and the
legisl;tive leade~' remarks, we heard from the SRS and e:npl~yment security division and education commis·
sione: and all the people were there and very an:cious about being a part of Salving this problem. A business
man stood up and said he had something to say. He was' a chairman of a high-tech firm in the Twin Cities.
And, if you picture in your mind what a, very successful chairman of a board of a midwestern finn looks like,
that was it.' I mean just exuding authority. And he said his company did business in eighty countries. And he
recently had to rr.ake a decision where to place twO R&D plants and one production plant. And after look
ing at aU factors, I mean they e.''Camined everything an these computer matrices - what's the political stability,
what's the c!lrrency exchange, they look at an theSe big picture issues - they decided nat to put one of those
facilities in the United States. Because at the production facilities they could get that law-skil~ed work done
much mare cheaply somewhere else and at the R&D facility they didn't think they had the workforce, even
in Minnesota,' to do the work that was required~' .And he said, "I want you all to hear something. I'm an
A.meric:ln. I was barn and raised in Minnesota. I love this state~ I will live aut my ye:lrs here, but my com
pany may neve: put another job in this countr",!. Because business is no longer bounded by national borders.
Not just capital,but al:so producdon, R&D~ and all the qthe: aspects of business flow to wherever in this
globe it can be done most efficiently." And he said, "It's not a question of wages. I'm paying mare money in
Holland:' (where he put one of his plants) "than I probablywouicl pay for one of the workers here in Minne
sota,and I'm sure paying a whole lot more inta."tes bec:lusethey've got this cradle-to-grave system that takes
care of all sorts of human needs. But the bottom line is their system produces more efficie6t and more highly
skillea workers than we do.", I don't think you could have heard that proverbial pin drop in that roo~
Because all oEa sudden all the theory I've be~!'l talking about, research data. and the 2.000 intervlC"NS and '
ide:lS were brought ho~e very dramatically. This company may never put anOther job in the United States.
And I can guarantee you right now in Kansas. businesses are making comparable decisions. This is fo~ me ,
the equivale:u of the Desert Shield or Desert Storm or anything else we've ,been through in the last decade
in this country. 'If we do not address how we take care of our human resources. if we do not start paying'
attention to what children need in order to grow a'nd develop, if we don't start reforming and reorganizing
the institutions we entrust them to, such as our school svstem, and ,if business daesn~t aooreciate what it has
to do differently to be competitive, we're going to hear ~hat same spe~ch made in lots places~ ,
or'
I'm here, though. because I'm an a'ptimist. And I also believe that when the going gets tough.we get
going. And part of what your charge from this canfer~:lce has to be is to tak:: a hard leak at wherever you
came from and ask yourself what you can do to help this country address these issues. And if we get a critical
mass of us wiiling to a:;k that question, and ar.swer it positively, and be wiiling to take risks in the answer,
''
'than I'm confident we won't have to hear that Minnesota spe~c!1 again. and we'll have lots of apponunities
for lots of our states, and the people who livt:within them. to have the jobs they deserve for the lives we want
them and us to lead. Tnank you very mUcfl.
'
'
i
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Lissa Muscatine - Press Office
Creator
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First Lady's Office
Press Office
Lissa Muscatine
Date
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1993 - 1997
Is Part Of
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<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36239" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="http://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431941" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Identifier
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2011-0415-S
Description
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<p>Lissa Muscatine first served in the Clinton Administration as a speechwriter. Within the First Lady’s Office, she served as Communications Director to the First Lady.</p>
<p>Lissa Muscatine’s records consist of materials from First Lady Hillary Clinton’s Press Office, highlighting topics such as health care, women’s rights, the Millennium Council, Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, and deal extensively with press interviews given by the First Lady; her domestic and foreign travel; and speeches and remarks, on a wide variety of topics, given by her before and during her time as First Lady. The records include interview transcripts, press releases, speeches and speech transcripts.</p>
Provenance
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
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Adobe Acrobat Document
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1,324 folders in 27 boxes
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Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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FLOTUS Statements and Speeches 5/31/69 - 10/12/92 [Binder]: [Topeka, Kansas 9/13/1991]
Is Part Of
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Box 11
<a href="http://clintonlibrary.gov/assets/Documents/Finding-Aids/Systematic/2011-0415-S-Muscatine.pdf" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="http://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431941" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Creator
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First Lady's Office
Press Office
Lissa Muscatine
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2011-0415-S
Provenance
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
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Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
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Adobe Acrobat Document
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Reproduction-Reference
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11/26/2012
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2011-0415-S-flotus-statements-and-speeches-5-31-69-10-12-92-binder-topeka-kansas-9-13-1991
7431941