MEMO of the Month
MEMO of the Month DATE: September 27, 1972 ro : Professional Staff, OPA FROM : Jack L. Billings Acting Assistant Commissioner for Public Affairs SUBJECT‘ Illuminating Affirmatively Under the...
...Most speeches will probably fall into this category, as will articles in journals and magazines and many, if not most, of the articles in American Education Magazine...
...Distribution of this memorandum is being made to all staff members in order to make sure that all of us are aware of the requirement...
...We are to report on those things we did that helped to shed light in a favorable way on educational success...
...Such items clearly have nothing to do with illuminating the success of education...
...Some responses to public inquiry could be so described...
...October 16...
...Submission to the Deputy Commissioner will will be no later than c.0.b...
...The title of the objective is “Affirmative Illumination of Success of Education...
...The dissemination of certain kinds of materials may also be classified in this way...
...Although this will necessarily be a quantitative report, the format will be narrative...
...There are many other activities which also have no impact, except by the most devious route, on this topic...
...MEMO of the Month DATE: September 27, 1972 ro : Professional Staff, OPA FROM : Jack L. Billings Acting Assistant Commissioner for Public Affairs SUBJECT‘ Illuminating Affirmatively Under the Operational Planning System, the Office of Public Affairs has one “objective” which is to be tracked by the Deputy Commissioner for External Relations...
...That would be an evasion of the the point...
...Films and other special projects, in most cases, will fit this model, as will the television and radio appearances of program people and administrators when arranged by OPA people...
...For example, press releases are prepared and distributed about the appointment of new employees of certain ranks and grades...
...Recompilation and transmittal to the next level will be accomplished in the Office of the Assistant Commissioner...
...Seminars, meetings and clinics which we have helped publicize, organize or operate may meet the criteria...
...The first quarter of this fiscal year will end on September 30...
...With critics continually emphasizing what’s wrong with education, the Commissioner wants to counter-balance that by highlighting what’s rightwith education...
...In order for this office to provide a continuing report on the achievement of this objective, it will be necessary for us to receive quarterly reports of progress from all units of OPA...
...Responding to this directive will take some creative management on the part of Division Directors and Branch Chiefs in OPA, and the development of the first such report will be the most difficult and must be done in the least time...
...The production of a Presidential Proclamation might qualify...
...Obviously, certain of our publications will fall into this category...
...Value judgments must be made, and some thorough searching of files and tapping of memories wdl be in order...
...The key to this exercise is the name of the objective...
...One could, of course, argue that this is, in fact, the entire name of the game for OPA...
...By October 10, we will need a report from each Division and independent unit of accomplishments which can be included under the stated objective...
...We should end up with an overall narrative report (one at the end of each quarter) which will clearly tell the Deputy Commissioner what OPA has been doing to help achieve this goal...
...clearly, however, it will be necessary for the appropriate supervisors to make the assignments necessary at each level to make sure all the material is submitted to this office no later than the close of business on October 10...
...In other words, we do not want a table showing the number of press releases and actualities produced during the quarter (in the case of the news division), but rather a paragraph about press releases and actualities--or one on each--explaining how these helped to achieve the objective as well as how many were produced and what the distribution was...
Vol. 4 • December 1972 • No. 10
