Remarks in a roundtable discussion on the School-to-Work program in Nashua, New Hampshire

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Feb 12, 1996

[Marie Devlin, director, Southern New Hampshire School-to-Careers Partnership, opened the roundtable by describing the nature of the coalition.]

The President. I just have a few brief remarks I'd like to make. First of all, let me thank all of the people at Sanders for making us feel welcome today and for the good work that they do for our country, and I congratulate them on all of the many things they do, as well as their participation in this program.

As Marie said, I have been interested in this whole concept of how we move young people from school to work for years and years, going way back before I ever even thought about running for President. Many years ago, my wife actually served on a commission that was funded by the Grant Foundation in New York to look at the movement of young Americans from school into the workplace, and particularly those who did not go on to and finish 4-year colleges.

This group found that our country was really the only advanced economy in the world that didn't have a systematic cooperation between the education system anti the workplaces of our country to move young people into the workplace in a seamless way that continued their training and guaranteed that they had a much better chance to get a good job with a growing prospect of success, both in terms of pay and promotion and stability of work.

This was about 10 years ago. So for about 10 years I have been really concerned about this, and when I became President, I asked the Congress to pass this law - and it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support - to provide funding for a few years to give every State the chance not to set up a program but to set up a partnership, a network that would build systematic linkages between workplaces and schools and colleges and community colleges and other training systems so that every young person in our country who finishes high school would be able to go into some line of work which would also carry with it future education and training. I think it's going to make a big difference.

I was very alarmed - I think every American is - by the dramatic divergence in the earnings capacity of young Americans based on the level of education they have, and it happened because we simply did not have a system, particularly for taking care of the young people who didn't go on to the 4-year colleges and into the degree programs. And that's what the School-to-Work program is designed to do, to kind of let people like all of you form partnerships to fill that big vacuum. And I hope we can keep the funding up, but we never intended to fund it forever, but I hope we can keep the funding up long enough to get every State in the country to have the kind of network New Hampshire does.

I can say this - in only a year and a half, we now have about 42,000 employers and 116,000 young people participating in this program nationwide, and more will come quickly. So I congratulate you on what you've done in New Hampshire, and I'd like to spend the rest of my time just hearing from all of you about how this actually works for you and how you relate to it.

[At this point, Ms. Devlin introduced two students who described their experience in a Sanders Lockheed program called Women in Technology, which allows young women to meet women engineers and to see the types of opportunities available in the engineering field. Ms. Devlin then introduced a student intern at Parkland Medical Center and a student intern at the Salem Police Station, who described their experiences.]

The President. It's different from television, huh?

Q. Yes. And my mentor, Eric Lamm's here -

The President. Where is he? Stand up there, Mr. Lamm. Thank you.

Q. I just want to thank Salem Police Station a lot for opening the doors and having the opportunity for me to go in and experience what a lot of other kids don't get to experience.

The President. And did it change your view of law enforcement then?

Q. I always wanted to do it since I was a little kid, so I just wanted - I wanted to go in there and see if this is what I really wanted to do. So yes and no. It didn't, but it did.

[Ms. Devlin introduced a student who described his experience at Brooks Automation where he served as a mechanical assembler.]

The President. That's terrific.

[Ms. Devlin introduced the father of a student intern who described both the opportunities and the real work experience the program had given to his son and thanked Brooks Automation and Nelson Shaw for the opportunity.]

The President. Are they here?

Q. Nelson is here.

The President. Who's here? Stand up. Thank you very much, sir.

[Ms. Devlin introduced the participant from an electric company who described his company's experience with taking student interns and how much he had come to depend on his current intern, Jeremy deGagli.]

The President. Is he here?

Ms. Devlin. Jeremy, could you stand up, please? This is Jeremy deGagli.

The President. Good for you.

Mr. deGagli. Thank you.

The President. That's great. Thank you for doing it.

[Ms. Devlin introduced a participant from Sanders Lockheed who described her experience as a mentor to several of the young women participating in the program.]