DOCUMENT RESUME ED 468 398 JC 020 611 Doucette, Don, Ed. AUTHOR Leadership Abstracts, 1993. TITLE League for Innovation in the Community Coll. INSTITUTION SPONS AGENCY Systems & Computer Technology Corp., Malvern, PA. PUB DATE 1993-00-00 65p.; Initial support from the WK. Kellogg Foundation. NOTE Published monthly. Issues were not published for the months of November and December of 1993. For the 1992 issues, see ED 358 885. For full text: http://www.league.org/publication/ AVAILABLE FROM abstracts/leaderab_main.htm. Collected Works PUB TYPE Reports Descriptive Serials (022) (141) Leadership Abstracts; v6 n1-10 Jan-Oct 1993 JOURNAL CIT EDRS Price MF01/PC03 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE *Community Colleges; *Curriculum Development; *Educational DESCRIPTORS Assessment; *Educational Finance; Faculty Development; Instructional Improvement; *Leadership Effectiveness; Leadership Responsibility; *Part Time Faculty; Two Year Colleges ABSTRACT This document includes 10 issues of Leadership Abstracts 1993), a newsletter published by the League for Innovation in the (volume 6, Community College (California). The featured articles are: "Reinventing (1) Government" by David T. Osborne; "Community College Workforce Training (2) Programs: Expanding the Mission to Meet Critical Needs" by Brenda M. Beckman (3) "Positioning the Community College for Community and Don Doucette; Leadership" by Edgar J. Boone and George B. Vaughan; "Principles of Good (4) Practice for Assessing Student Learning"; "Catalyst for Community Change: (5) Helping to Address Critical Issues" by Nancy LeCroy and Barbara Tedrow; (6) "Part-Time Faculty: Partners in Excellence" by John McGuire; (7) "Professional Development for Two-Way Teaching and Learning" by Nancy E. "A Community College President's Guide to Corporate Stetson; (8) Contributions" by Herrington J. Bryce; "Vocational and General Education: (9) New Relationship or Shotgun Marriage?" by James Jacobs; and (10) "What Presidents Need to Know about the Impact of Networking." (JCC) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Leadership Abstracts, 1993 Dan Doucette, Editor Leadership Abstracts v6 n1-10 Jan-Oct 1993 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND Office of Educational Research and Improvement DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION BEEN GRANTED BY CENTER (ERIC) p This document has been reproduced as T. O'Banion received from the person or organization originating it. p Minor changes have been made to improve TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES reproduction quality INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. 1 AVAILABLE BEST COPY 2 Leadership Abstracts January 1993 Volume 6, Number 1 League for Innovation in the Community College REINVENTING GOVERNMENT David T. Osborne An historic change is now coursing through all levels of American government: a shift from the rigid, wasteful, centralized bureaucracies of the industrial era to the more flexible, entrepreneurial, decentralized government needed to succeed in today's world. This shift, under way for more than a decade, has been brought into sharp relief by the fiscal crisis now crippling our governments. As the 90s dawned, every government in America seemed to hit the wall at once. State governments struggled to close their largest deficits in history totaling well over $30 billion. Cities like New York struggled with billion dollar deficits. The Federal deficit ballooned toward $400 billion roughly the equivalent, in inflation adjusted dollars, of the entire Federal budget in 1965. The most frightening aspect of this fiscal melt down is that it will continue, even as the recession ends. Only part of the problem is declining revenues. A significant portion is built in spending increases, particularly in Medicaid (where spending is doubling every four years), prisons and corrections (where state spending nearly quadrupled in the 80s), and education. This unprecedented, ongoing fiscal crisis has created a sudden urgency to do more with less. Politicians who three years ago paid no attention to management issues are now desperate for ways to save money without eliminating vital services. The voters vehemently oppose most tax increases, but they also oppose many service cuts. They want government to do more in areas from health care to education to environmental protection. 3 Voters don't want more government, as Democrats have traditionally offered. But they don't want less government either. They want better government and less expensive government. They are frustrated with slow, unresponsive, inefficient bureaucracies that soak up ever more tax dollars and deliver ever poorer services. Without articulating it in so many words, the American people are demanding governments that are less bureaucratic and more entrepreneurial. During the industrial era, public institutions were set up much like businesses: large, centralized bureaucracies, with elaborate rules and regulations and hierarchical chains of command. But in today's world of economic flux, fierce global competition, and sophisticated information and communications technologies, such institutions are dinosaurs. To be effective in these times, institutions (public or private) must be flexible, adaptable, and innovative. They must search constantly for new ways to improve services and heighten productivity. Characteristics of Entrepreneurial Government How do we get such governments? My co author, Ted Gaebler, and I spent the last five years trying to answer that question. We have visited public entrepreneurial institutions from coast to coast school districts, local governments, public housing authorities, even parts of the Pentagon. We have asked a simple question: What makes them different? What have they changed that makes their employees act so differently? In answer, we have come up with a series of principles that define entrepreneurial government. For example, while bureaucratic governments concentrate virtually all of their attention on spending money, entrepreneurial governments also concentrate on earning money. The other principles include the following: Catalytic Government. Traditional governments use their tax dollars primarily to create bureaucracies that deliver services: public schools, public transit systems, public welfare departments. Caught between rising service demands and falling revenues, entrepreneurial governments increasingly act as catalysts--leveraging private sector actions to solve problems. They steer more than they row. Community Owned Government. As they shift into more catalytic mode, entrepreneurial governments push control of many of the services out of the bureaucracy and into the community. Traditional public programs empower bureaucrats and professionals, giving police, doctors, teachers, and social workers the control, while the people they are serving have none. Doing this undermines the confidence and competence of citizens and communities. This creates dependency. Entrepreneurial public organizations empower families and communities to solve their own problems. It is simple common sense: families and communities are more committed, more caring, and more creative than professional service bureaucracies. They are also a lot cheaper. Competitive Government. In traditional governments, monopoly is the American way. The assumption is that each neighborhood should have one school, each city should have one police force, each region should have one organization driving its buses and operating its commuter trains. When costs have to be cut, we eliminate anything that smacks of duplication - assuming that consolidation will save money. Yet we know from painful experience that monopoly in the private sector often encourages inefficiency and inhibits change. It is an enduring paradox of American ideology that we attack private monopolies so fervently but embrace public monopolies so warmly. Mission Driven Government. Public officials who are frustrated by their huge, rule driven bureaucracies simply go offshore, creating smaller, more entrepreneurial organizations. Those organizations are driven not by their rules but by their missions. They get rid of most of their rules and dissolve most of their budget items. They define their fundamental missions, then develop budget systems and rules that free their employees to pursue those goals. Results Oriented Government. Traditional public institutions focus almost exclusively on inputs. They finance schools based upon how many children enroll; welfare based upon how many poor people are eligible; police departments based upon police estimates of manpower needed to fight crime. They pay little attention to outcomes, to results. It doesn't matter how well children do in one school versus another, how many poor people get off welfare into stable jobs, how much the crime rate falls or how secure the public feels. In fact, schools, welfare departments, and police departments typically get more money when they fail: when children do poorly, welfare roles swell, or the crime rate rises. Entrepreneurial governments seek to change these incentives. They measure outcomes and reward success. Customer Driven Government. When practical, the best way to tie spending to results is to give the resources directly to the customers the intended recipients of the service in question and let them choose a provider, based upon information about quality and price. This forces providers (job training vendors, childcare centers, landlords) to compete to offer the best deal to customers. It also gives customers a choice of services. Putting resources directly in customers' hands is hardly a radical idea. Vouchers and cash grants have been around for decades. Food stamps are vouchers. Our largest housing subsidy the mortgage interest deduction is the equivalent of a voucher. Pell grants, the primary form of Federal aid to college students, are like vouchers: their recipients can use them at any accredited college or technical school. Decentralized Government. Sixty years ago, centralized institutions were indispensable. Information technologies were primitive, communication between locations was slow, and the public work force was relatively uneducated. In order to gather information and dispense orders efficiently, there was little alternative but to bring all public health employees together in one hospital, all public works employees together in one organization, all bank regulators together in one or two institutions. There was plenty of time for information to flow up the chain of command and for decisions to flow back down. But today, information is virtually limitless, communication between remote locations is instantaneous, many public employees are well educated, and conditions change with blinding speed. There is no time to wait for information to go up the chain of command and decisions to come down. Today, things work better if those laboring in public organizations schools, public housing developments, parks, training programs have the authority to make their own decisions. Market Oriented Government. If you had set out to buy a home in 1930, you would have saved up to 50 percent of the purchase price for a down payment and applied at your local bank for a five year mortgage. That was how banks did business. During the New Deal, the Federal Housing Administration pioneered a new form of mortgage, which required only 20 percent down and let the borrower repay over 20, and later 30, years. Other government corporations created a secondary market, so banks could resell these new loans, and the banking industry converted. In pushing banks to offer a new form of mortgage, the Federal Government was restructuring the marketplace to fulfill a public purpose. This is a powerful and economical way for governments to accomplish their goals. By finding the incentives that can leverage millions of private decisions government can often accomplish far more than it can by financing administrative programs. Think of the way some states have handled litter from bottles and cans. Rather than creating elaborate and expensive recycling programs, they have simply required buyers to pay a 5 cent deposit on each bottle or can to be refunded when the bottle or can is returned. As the industrial era dawned, in the early decades of this century, Americans reinvented their governments. Because our economy and society have once again experienced profound and wrenching changes, we have begun to do so again. The task is not ideological; it is not about making government smaller, or weaker. The task is to make government stronger, by making it work again. We desperately need government in the 1990s. We don't need more government, we need better government. To be more precise, we need better governance. Governance is the act of collectively solving our problems. Government is the instrument we use. The instrument is outdated, and it is time to remake it. This issue is abstracted from the article "Government That Means Business," which was published in the New York Times Magazine, March 1, 1992. The article was adapted from Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Trans forming the Public Sector by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, published by Addison Wesley Publishing Company in February 1992. David Osborne has assisted President Clinton in speech writing on reform in government. [Editor's note: Although this abstract focuses on governments, these principles apply to other publicly funded institutions, including community colleges. Both governments and educational institutions have similar resource constraints in the face of rising demand, and both must deal with public expectations that they help the citizenry survive and prosper in the rapidly changing economy and world.] Guest editor, Kay McClenney, Vice President, Education Commission of the States 8 Leadership Abstracts February 1993 Volume 6, Number 2 League for Innovation in the Community College COMMUNITY COLLEGE WORKFORCE TRAINING PROGRAMS: EXPANDING THE MISSION TO MEET CRITICAL NEEDS Brenda Marshall Beckman and Don Doucette Growing concern regarding the nation's competitive position in the global economy has been a matter of discussion for some time. It is now clear that a fundamental factor contributing to this critical is the chronic, long term inadequacy of workforce preparation. situation Consequent issues of quality and productivity have forced corporations across the country to restructure their organizations and to invest in worker training. Due to the positive anecdotal experience of many employers in using community colleges to provide such training, there has been a growing interest in these colleges as primary sources of education and training for business and industry. Costs have been reasonable; their experience in teaching adults has helped employees to learn effectively; and their willingness to design high quality, need specific training programs on relatively short lead times have made community colleges increasingly the providers of choice. What has not been known is the extent to which this has occurred nationwide. In response to the need for more information about workforce training programs, the League for Innovation conducted a survey in the fall of 1992. Its purpose was to determine the extent and nature of community college workforce training programs, the types of companies they serve, funding mechanisms, and perceived obstacles to providing effective training. Results of the Survey The "Survey of Community College Training Programs for Employees of Business, Industry, Labor & Government" was sent to a list of all community college chief executive officers in the United States compiled from the fifty state directories of two year colleges. The CEOs were instructed to pass the survey on to the individuals in their colleges responsible for workforce training to complete. Responses representing 763 of the 1,042 two year colleges surveyed were returned, for a remarkable response rate of 73.2 percent. Responding colleges were highly representative of all community colleges in the United States. Nearly all were public institutions; over 80 percent were comprehensive community colleges and about half were single campus colleges located in rural communities. Extent of Training Programs. Of the 96 percent of respondents who indicated that they provide workforce training for employees of business, industry, labor, and government, almost all customized programs to meet the needs of local employers. All reported providing workforce training, although the majority did so on a modest scale. Half trained fewer than 1,000 employees during the 1991 92 academic year; half provided training for fewer than 25 employers; and half generated less than $100,000 gross in training contracts. However, 10 15 percent of the respondents reported large programs training several thousands of employees in contracts worth over a million dollars. Types of Training and Companies Served. Two-thirds of training provided was for employees from small and medium sized companies those with fewer than 500 employees. The largest percentage was for employers in manufacturing (39.2 percent), followed by those in government and education (12.9 percent), and health services industries (11.7 percent). Most commonly provided was job specific technical training (20.2 percent), followed by computer 1f0