In the 1990’s
President
Bill Clinton worked to reform Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) better known as
welfare. His plan was to address
complaints that recipients were making little to no progress in finding
employment or were out-right abusing the system. His solution was to turn over the system to
the experts of each state. However, I
wonder what would of happened if he had taken the time to asked recipients what
they thought of the program or how would they redesign the program. Not just a wish-list of wants that keep them
“stuck” in the system but a program that would return welfare back to its
original purpose of being a temporary assistance for those with little to no
income.
This reminds me of my reading on wikinomics, for my
other leadership class. In the article, Wikinomics:
The art and science of peer production, the authors write about a gold mining company, Wikipedia, and others
that have benefited from having an open system that allows individuals to
collaborate and share their ideas in order to bring about innovation and
growth. I wonder if this approach would
be beneficial for our government. It
would be interesting to hear the solutions from those currently using welfare. What would happen if the people that are
experiencing homelessness provided solutions to address their growing population? Or even if students and parents played an
active role in addressing the achievement gap, high school graduation rates or
behavioral problems in school?
I know not everyone would
welcome hearing from those who have traditionally been excluded from the
decision making process. I mean I am
talking about giving a voice to welfare recipients, people who are homeless and
even worse - the actually students who are struggling, and behaving poorly. These people lack “education”, they aren’t
armed with all the data and theories but they armed with common sense and basic
knowledge of their problems. What if we
ditched “professionalism” and aimed for getting results. How would our country look differently??