Where Reform Won’t Happen

Abstract

As a former college president, I spent countless hours in the state capital meeting with legislators, talking to lobbyists, giving testimony, and attending committee meetings as special-interest groups presented their cases and legislation was debated. In one memorable legislative year, the community college presidents in the state were faced with a particularly distasteful bill to create a new technical college from a small secondary vocational school that served several rural counties in a sparsely populated region. The bill was sponsored by a powerful senator from the school’s hometown who had pledged to his constituents that he would turn their little vocational school into a college with a statewide mission focused on selective high-tech career programs.

“All Politics is local”

—Tip O’Neill