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VIEWPOINT
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Comfort and Joy
The First Mom suggests reading as an easy way to help a baby's brain grow
HE NIGHT AFTER THE INAUGURAL, BILL AND I GATHERED
ation and the American Library Association, a national
T
with our family in the solarium on the third floor of the
campaign to put books in the hands of parents who bring
White House. After dinner our toddler nephews Tyler
their young children to the doctor, and to get doctors to
and Zachary climbed up on the couch with their Uncle
prescribe daily reading. My husband and I will be dis-
Bill to hear him read a story. They accompanied him with
cussing this and other activities to follow up on the latest
words, sounds, pointed fingers and a few tussles over who
findings about the brain at a White House conference in
would hold the book. As I watched them, I thought of all the
the spring.
times Bill and I used to take turns reading stories to Chelsea.
It's important that we take to heart what the neuro-
Every night one of us (and occasionally both) would stretch
scientists are telling us-without losing the heart of the
out on her bed, hold her in our arms, and either read or
reading experience. In today's high-tech world of E-mail
make up new tales about imaginary characters who em-
and microchips, it is easy to forget the importance of hu-
barked on improbable but breathtaking adventures.
man connections in our daily activities. Technology has
Bill and I did not know about brain cells or synapses or
brought many welcome conveniences to our lives. But it
the newest discoveries in neuroscience. Reading to
has the potential to create feelings of distance, detachment
Chelsea became a daily ritual because it's what our own
and isolation among us.
parents and grandparents had done with us, and because
Reading to a child while touching, hugging and hold-
we wanted to spend quiet time with her every day. Bill's
ing him or her can be a wonderful antidote to the im-
grandmother thought that
personal tendencies of the
reading to him would help
information age-for both
him develop a strong vo-
the adult and the child.
cabulary and the language
While critical to building
skills he would need later
brains, reading is equally
on in school. My mother
important to building
and father placed a similar
trusting and close relation-
premium on reading, and
ships. That's why many of
to this day I remember the
us remember the warm
feelings of security and
embrace or the comfort-
comfort that I felt sitting in
able lap that cradled us
my grandfather's lap when
when we read books as
he read stories to my
children. And that's why
brothers and me.
reading should not be
Today, thanks to ad-
viewed solely as an intel-
vances in brain research,
lectual proposition, par-
we know that reading with
ticularly in the era in
a child has intellectual,
which we now live.
emotional and physical
If Americans take away
benefits that can enhance
Mrs. Clinton with her daughter In the crucial first three years
only one lesson from these
the child's development. The intimacy of sharing books
exciting scientific discoveries, I hope it's that reading to
and stories strengthens the emotional bonds between a
children is easy, affordable and feasible for parents no
parent and child, helps a child learn words and concepts,
matter what their level of education or economic station in
and actually stimulates the growth of a baby's brain.
life. Children's books are available for free at public
As I discussed in my book, It Takes a Village, scientists
libraries in every community and can be found at reason-
have discovered that children whose parents read and talk
able prices in many bookstores. Doctors, librarians, teach-
to them during the first three years of life create a stronger
ers, book publishers, business leaders and the news media
foundation for future reading success. In other words,
can help make books available to families and educate
what our parents and grandparents knew instinctively is
parents about the vital role that reading plays in our chil-
now backed up by hard scientific evidence.
dren's lives.
That's why doctors and nurses are starting to pre-
It isn't very often that we have before us such a simple,
scribe reading to babies along with regular checkups and
inexpensive and pleasurable way to improve our children's
vaccinations. Recently I went to Georgetown University's
health and development and raise their prospects for a
Medical Center with Maurice Sendak, the renowned
brighter future. Whether you lie down together on the rug,
children's author and illustrator. His book Where the
sit together in an old rocking chair or cuddle on your
Wild Things Are was one of Chelsea's-and Bill's-fa-
child's bed the way Bill and I used to with Chelsea, there
vorites. Mr. Sendak read the story to children, and I an-
is no better way to spend time than reading to your child.
nounced, along with representatives of the American
And now we also know that there are few better ways
Academy of Pediatrics, the American Booksellers Associ-
to help your baby's brain grow.
TIME, FEBRUARY3 1997
63
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
March 13, 1997
Today, Hillary and I are pleased to announce that on April 17, 1997, we will host the
White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning: What New Research
on the Brain Tells Us About Our Youngest Children. The Conference, which will take place at
the White House, will spotlight exciting new findings about how our children develop, and
explore how we can make the most of this information to give our children what they need to
thrive.
We hope that this one-day Conference will make the latest scientific research, nearly all
supported by the federal government, more accessible and understandable to America's
families. The research clearly indicates the importance of children's first few years to their
later success in school and in life. This Conference is a continuation of my Administration's
commitment to children and, in particular, it follows Hillary's work over the years on issues
relating to early childhood development.
The Conference will examine how we can use this new research in practical ways -- to
be better parents, more informed care-givers and more responsive members of our
communities. It will also explore how this information can be used by all members of our
society -- from corporate executives to pediatricians, from ministers to elected officials -- to help
strengthen America's families.
Parents desperately want to do right by their children, and we all have a role to play in
making sure they have the tools they need to do the best job they can. We believe this
Conference can make a valuable contribution.
-30-30-30-
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Raleigh, North Carolina)
For Immediate Release
March 13, 1997
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO THE JOINT SESSION OF THE
NORTH CAROLINA LEGISLATURE
House of Representatives Chamber
Raleigh, North Carolina
11:09 A.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Lt. Governor
Wicker, Speaker Brubaker, Senator Basnight, the other state
elected officials who are here; my good friend, Governor Hunt;
Mayor Fetzer. I'd like to thank those who came down here with me
today. I brought some of the members of your congressional
delegation home -- they don't need to hear this speech, they've
heard it before, but I was glad to have them here in moral
support-- Congressman David Price; Congressman Bob Etheridge,
your former superintendent of education; Congressman Mike
McIntire; and Congresswoman Eva Clayton. I thank them for
coming. (Applause.)
I also want to say I'm glad to be joined today by
your neighbor, the Secretary of Education, Richard Riley, former
governor of South Carolina -- (applause) -- and by our new
Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen of Maine. We're glad to have
him with us today, too. Thank you, Secretary Cohen, for coming.
(Applause.)
I was glad that you mentioned my Chief of Staff,
Erskine Bowles. He wouldn't come here with me today because he
was afraid all of you would think that he was shirking his duties
and not at work. But let me tell you, he is doing a magnificent
job. I'm very proud of him. I couldn't believe it when he
agreed to come back to Washington and take this job -- especially
because I knew it would cost him a small fortune. And he
reminded me that his father used to tell him, once you have the
tools you've got to spend some time to add to the wood pile. So
he's up in Washington adding back to the wood pile. And you
should all be very proud of him. He is a remarkable man. He's
doing a good job. (Applause.)
I'd also like to thank the other North Carolinians
on my staff -- two of the three of them are here today. Doug
Sosnik, my former political director and senior counselor, is not
here; but my Director of Communications, Don Baer, is here; and
Charles Duncan, the Associate Director of Presidential Personnel.
They both came home with me and they were glad to have the excuse
to come home. And I appreciate their being here and their
service.
I was told that this was the first time a sitting
President has addressed the North Carolina State Legislature. If
it's not true don't disabuse me now, because I'm about to say
something here. (Laughter.) And I am very honored to be here.
Even more important, I've spent a little time here over the years
and I am honored and mildly surprised that you are here, because
it's tournament time and you've got four teams, as usual, in the
tournament. (Applause.)
You may know that I am something of a basketball
fanatic. And you may know that one of my most memorable
basketball experiences -- I once saw North Carolina and Kentucky
play in the Dean Dome, and the car that I came in was towed.
(Laughter.) But I had so much fun at the ball game I would have
walked all the way back to Arkansas after it was over.
(Laughter.) I make it a point never to take sides in basketball
games unless my home team in Arkansas or my alma mater,
Georgetown, are playing. But I am looking forward to the day
when the great Dean Smith breaks Adolf Rudd's record.
(Applause.)
There is much for the rest of the nation and
especially the rest of the South of to admire in North Carolina
-- the determined and visionary leadership that has characterized
this state for many decades in education and economic
development, in bringing harmony among peoples of different
backgrounds.
When I was a young man, I followed the work here of
then-Governor Terry Sanford who later became my friend and
colleague. Eighteen years ago, when I first started my career as
Governor of Arkansas, my best mentor and friend was Jim Hunt.
And he is still my mentor and friend. Dick Riley were laughing
with Jim Hunt -- we were together 18 years ago as the governors
of Arkansas, South Carolina and North Carolina, and we were
laughing that Jim was probably the only one of us who could still
get elected governor in our home states after 18 years.
(Laughter.) And I applaud him on that.
It was in Chapel Hill that the cornerstone was laid
at our nation's first publicly funded university, in Kitty Hawk
where man first took to the skies. And today, North Carolina is
an aeronautics and an air travel hub center for millions of
people. Your state universities receive the highest level of
funding for research and development in the nation. You have
connected more of your communities than any other state in the
country to the Information Superhighway -- something I'm trying
to do for every classroom and library in America by the year
2000. The Research Triangle has one of the highest per capita
concentrations of Ph.D.s in the word, and you are clearly one of
America's most dynamic centers of economic activity.
The most important thing about all this is not for
me to brag on you, you know that already, but to emphasize the
main point: These things do not happen by accident. They are
the product of vision and disciplined, long-term effort.
Now, our country faces the challenges of a new
century -- a whole new economy, a whole new way in which people
will work and live and relate to each other here at home and
around the world. It is driven by information and by technology.
Its best hopes may be undermined by its darkest fears, by the old
demons of racial and religious and ethnic hatreds, by terrorism
and narco trafficking and organized crime.
This new time that we're moving into that,
coincidentally, will be part of a new century and a new
millennium, will give more people in this state and this nation
the chance to live out their dreams than at any period in human
history if we take advantage of it to seize our opportunities and
deal with our challenges.
There is unprecedented peace and prosperity now.
And it has been very rare in our country's history -- you can go
back and find maybe a couple of other examples when we've had
real security, a feeling of prosperity, and yet, a whole lot of
challenges before us. Usually when people feel secure and
relatively prosperous, one of two things happens -- neither of
them very laudable, but it's part of human nature -- we either
get sort of happy and self-satisfied and don't do anything, or
because we are not gripped by big differences, we fall out with
each other over small things and petty things make us less than
we ought to be.
The point I want to make today is that we cannot
afford either to be complacent or to be divided among ourselves
about small things. For we have been given an opportunity almost
unique in American history to fashion a future that will embrace
everybody. And we cannot and dare not blow that opportunity.
If you look at where we are now, you can see the
vistas of the future. Our economy produced 12 million jobs in
four years -- never happened before in a four-year period. We've
had constant decline in crimes. We've had the biggest drop in
the welfare rolls in American history in the last four years. In
North Carolina, you've seen the unemployment rate drop to 4.2
percent -- 75,000 people off the welfare rolls; 350,000 new jobs.
That's going on all over America. But you know that we have more
to do.
I have been going around the country to the Michigan
and the Maryland state legislatures -- today the Vice President
is in California speaking to the state legislature as I am here
with you -- because I know that to achieve the vision that we
share for America we all have to do our part. I've said many
times that the era of big government is over. Your federal
government is now 285,000 people smaller than it was the day I
took office. It's the smallest its been since President Kennedy
was in office, in real terms. As a percentage of the civilian
work force, the federal government is now as small as it was when
Franklin Roosevelt was sworn into office the first time before
the New Deal.
But the challenges we face are still very big,
indeed. If they cannot be solved by government alone, and
especially by the federal government, obviously, a new
partnership is required. And new efforts, new activity, new
responsibility is required of people at the state level, at the
local level and in their private lives. The biggest challenge we
face today, I believe, is the challenge of creating a world-class
education system that embraces every child that lives in this
state and in this nation. And this must not be a political
football.
In the Cold War, because we knew that communism
threatened our existence, it became commonplace that politics
would stop at the water's edge. And the Democrats and the
Republicans would fight like cats and dogs over whatever it was
they were fighting about, but when it came to standing up to the
threat of communism we were together. If the President of one
party went abroad on a mission of world peace, he was never
criticized back home by members of the other party because
politics stopped at the water's edge.
I think we understand today intuitively that
education holds the key to our future in the 21st century. And I
believe politics must stop at the schoolhouse door. (Applause.)
When I was governor, a long time ago now, North
Carolina already had the highest percentage of its adults in
institutions of higher education of any state in the South.
The economy was growing and it was diversifying, and yet you
still had more success in maintaining manufacturing jobs than any
state in our region, and indeed, in the country. You know all
this. Last year you had the biggest increase in 8th grade math
scores, I noticed, in the country. I was in Michigan and I said
that they had had the second biggest increase in math scores, and
the minute I got in the car Governor Hunt made sure I knew who
was number one. (Laughter.) So I knew that.
The Governor chose to be sworn in at the Needham
Laughton High School, his old school, to make clear that school
standards and teaching excellence will be his top priorities.
But with all the progress that we have made, you know we've got a
lot more to do.
Between 1992 and the year 2000, 89 percent of the
new jobs created in this economy will require more than a high
school level of literacy and math skills -- 89 percent. Today,
even though over 80 percent of our children are graduating from
high school, more than half -- or about half the people entering
the work force are not prepared with these skills. We all know
that is true.
For 20 years, inequality among working Americans
grew. In the last few years it started to shrink -- in the last
couple of years -- as we've gotten -- more and more of our new
jobs are becoming higher-wage jobs and as growth and productivity
are permitting wages to rise again.
Many people, just a couple of years ago, were
saying, well, is the middle class vanishing in America, will it
always be squeezed, are we going to create a country with a huge
number of people that are very well off and an even much larger
number of people that are poor, with a smaller middle class.
We've seen in the last few years that that does not have to
happen. We can begin to grow the middle class again with
productivity and growth and the right kinds of new jobs, but we
have to be able to provide the people with the skills to hold
those jobs if we're going to maintain a high-wage, high-growth,
high-opportunity society in America in the 21st century. And our
schools are still turning out millions of young people who simply
cannot do that.
That is why our number one priority has to be to
make America's education the best in the world. We have to have
a nation in which every 8-year-old can read independently, every
12-year-old can log on to the Internet, every 18-year-old can go
on to college and every adult American can keep on learning
throughout an entire lifetime.
In my State of the Union address, I laid out a
10-point call to action for American education that describes the
steps we have to meet. First, we have to make sure the all of
our children come to school ready to learn. Our balanced budget
will expand Head Start to a million children. But we all must do
more, and a lot of that has to be done at the state level. And I
hope every state in the country is looking closely at the Smart
Start program in North Carolina. (Applause.)
The idea of having all elements of a community in a
community nonprofit environment working on not only education,
but health care and parenting skills and child care, trying to
give our poorest children a coherent early childhood is terribly
important. Scientists have discovered that learning begins in
the earliest days of life. And now we have to explore how
parents and educators can best use these findings.
On April 17th, the First Lady and I will host the
White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and
Learning in Washington, and I want Smart Start to be an important
part of what is considered there.
Let me just give you one simple example of the
scientific findings. Over half of the capacity of the brain to
absorb and to learn and to grow, the capacity is developed in the
first four years of life. In the first four years of life, if a
child has parents who understand this and who constantly --
whether they have a Ph.D. or they were high school drop-outs --
but who constantly work at nourishing the child's learning
capacities, that child will get 700,000 positive contacts.
But in the typical experience of a child with a
single parent, let's say, with very little education and no
self-confidence about parenting and no training and no
understanding, and a sense that no difference can be made, and
the child that's left in front of the television in the first
four years, that child will get 150,000 positive contacts -- a
more than four-to-one difference.
Now, you tell me what the future is going to be life
for them. Smart Start can change that. And our cooperative
efforts can change that. But we have to understand that we have
totally underestimated the impact of this whole thing. And the
new scientific findings impose upon all of us a heavier
responsibility than we have ever had for developing the
capacities of our children in their earliest years. So I look
forward to that. (Applause.)
I believe we have to do more to give constructive
alternatives, creative alternatives for our young children in our
public schools. I favor public school choice. I've been a
pioneer supporter of the charter school movement. I think that
it's important to open schools that stay opened as long as they
do a good job, but only as long as they do a good job. And I
know that this afternoon, your State Board of Education has the
opportunity to open more charter schools than any state has ever
opened at one time, to foster innovation and competition and
renewal. I hope the Board will take that step today, and one
more time, North Carolina will be in the vanguard of a movement
you can be proud of. (Applause.)
We have got to have a commitment to rebuild our
schools and give our children the facilities they need to learn
in. We have the largest number of children in public schools in
history. The Secretary of Education never gets tired of
reminding me, since I am the oldest of the baby boomers, that our
generation has finally been eclipsed in numbers by the people
that are in the public schools today. We also have the physical
facilities in many of our schools deteriorating at a rapid rate.
So, for the first time in history, I have proposed a program that
will enable us at the national level to support local efforts to
increase their investment in the physical facilities of the
schools by making sure that the interest rates are lower and the
costs are lower in the places where the need is most critical.
I'm going to Florida after I leave you, and tomorrow
morning, I will be at a school where there are 17, I understand,
according to my briefing -- 17 trailers for classroom space
around the existing school facility in a modest-sized community
in Florida. That is not an atypical experience in many of our states.
We have to meet our national goal of connecting
every classroom and library to the Internet by the year 2000. We
have to open the doors of college to all. North Carolina
pioneered, with your network of four-year and two-year higher
educational institutions, pioneered the idea that education ought
to be a lifetime experience and that the doors ought to be open
to everyone.
In the last four years, we have lowered the cost and
improved the reach of the student loan program, added 200,000
slots to work-study, opened up almost 70,000 slots for college
through the national service program, AmeriCorps. We have worked
very, very hard, but I think we have to do more.
It is clear to me -- if you look at the job profile,
where 89 percent of the new jobs will require more than a high
school education, we have to make two years of education after
high school -- the 13th and 14th grades -- just as universal in
America by the year 2000 as a high school diploma is today --
every bit as universal. (Applause.)
To achieve that our balanced budget plan proposes a
$1,500 HOPE Scholarship -- a tax credit that reflects the cost of
the typical community college tuition in America, modeled on
Governor Zell Miller's HOPE Scholarship program in Georgia. We
propose to give people a tax deduction of us to $10,000 a year
for the cost of any education after high school; an expanded IRA
that you can withdraw from tax-free if the money is used to pay
for higher education; and the largest increase in Pell Grants in
20 years, along with another 100,000 work-study slots. That will
help North Carolina, and it will help America.
Finally, let me say on this subject, we know we have
to make sure learning continues throughout a lifetime. We know
that we have older and older students going back to community
colleges, changing their careers and getting new careers and
opening up new vistas. We have a federal response which I think
is totally antiquated. There are at least, conservatively
speaking, at least 70 different federal programs that were
developed with the best of intentions to try to help to pay for
various training programs for people who lose their jobs or
people who are grossly underemployed.
I have proposed for four years -- with a Democratic
Congress and with the Republican Congress -- getting rid of these
programs and putting the money in a pot and sending a skills
grant to an unemployed person or an underemployed person who has
qualified for any of them, and let them go to the nearest
community college or four-year college if it's the appropriate
one -- whatever is nearest and best to get their education. We
do not need a lot of government intermediaries here. People know
-- people know what they need. They're capable of making a
judgment.
In a state like North Carolina and most places in
the country, nearly everybody's within driving distance of a
community college that works. And that's -- I call that my G.I.
Bill for America's Workers. And if you could prevail upon your
legislators to support it, I would appreciate it. I've been
trying for four years to pass that thing. I would appreciate it.
(Applause.)
I think the most important thing we have to do is to
make sure that our children have met certain national standards
in basic courses. In 1989, when President Bush and the governors
met at the University of Virginia, I had the honor of being the
Democratic governor chosen to try to write the nation's education
goals. And at the time we always assumed that out of those goals
there would come national standards and a system, a nationally
recognized system of testing our children to see if they met
those standards.
Well, that hasn't happened yet. And as a result, we
still don't know. We don't really know whether every child in
every classroom knows what he or she needs to know when he or she
needs to know it in math and in basic language skills. I have
challenged every state in this country to adopt high national
academic standards, not just in math and language, but in other
areas as well, to participate nationally by 1999 in an
examination of 4th graders in reading and 8th graders in math so
that we can see how every child is doing in meeting those basic
standards.
Now, this is, I know, somewhat controversial. There
are people who have actually argued that you couldn't possibly
have a national examination reflecting national standards in a
country as diverse as America -- as if it's some sort of plot, as
if math is different in Raleigh than Little Rock; or any board of
education could rewrite the rules of algebra for Alaska as
opposed to Florida. I think that is inherently implausible.
When you compete here in North Carolina for a new
high-tech plant, when the Research Triangle finds some new
breakthrough, you do it based on an international competition
--you have to win based on standards that are imposed. We have
to be willing to hold our children to the same standards and to
hold ourselves to the same standards.
Governor Hunt told me today that he will endorse our
call for national standards and a testing plan. North Carolina,
therefore, would be the third state to do SO. The Republican
governor of Michigan joined in, along with his legislative
leaders, just a few days ago.
But let me say what I think we need to do. A lot of
you know a lot about this. We have some standardized tests in
America, but we don't have any tests to nationally accepted
standards. The closest we have is the so-called NAEP test, the
National Assessment of Education Progress. But, as all of you
know, it only is given to a sample of students in various
districts. There is no examination in America which says, here
are the standards that everyone should know in language or math,
and here is a test which reflects those standards; and it doesn't
matter whether you're first or last in your class, it matters
whether you get over this bar. If you're first in your class and
nobody is over this bar, nobody know what they need to know. If
you're last, but you're over the bar, you're still going to do
okay in this old world.
I think that is very important. We all need to know
that. We all need to know that. You know -- and let me also say
that I know it won't be easy, because some of our kids won't do
all that well at first. If you saw the State of the Union
address you know that I introduced two students from 20 school
districts in Northern Illinois who took the Third International
Math and Science Survey and the 20 school districts up there tied
for first in science and second in math in the survey, with
Singapore for first. But if they had finished dead last I would
have been equally proud of them because they were willing to
actually hold themselves to international standards of
achievements and measure themselves.
And this is where we need all of your help. I'm
convinced that one of the reasons that we've never done this in
America is that we were afraid if the news was bad we wouldn't
know what to do about it. And I think that in so doing we have
sold our children short. All the evidence is, all the scientific
evidence is, all the anecdotal evidence is that almost all of our
children, without regard to their race, their income and where
they live, can learn what they need to know to compete and win in
the global economy. And when we do not hold them to high
standards because we are afraid that in the beginning they won't
meet them, we are selling their futures down the drain and we are
insulting them, because they can meet these standards.
What we have to be willing to do is to say, okay,
we'll have these exams, we'll hold people to high standards; some
people won't make it first; we don't want to punish people, we
want to lift everybody up; but we can't know how to lift people
up unless we know where we start.
When I go around the world people find it
unbelievable that we have no national standard in America to tell
our parents and our school leaders whether our children know what
they're supposed to know in the basic skills that are necessary
to learn all the other more sophisticated things we want people
to know.
And I tell you, I believe in the kids of this
country. I have been in schools in circumstances where it would
be unthinkable that people could learn -- because of crime in the
neighborhoods and because of poverty in the neighborhoods. And I
have seen children performing at very high levels, meeting
standards that would be acceptable in anyplace in the entire
world. And I am tired of people telling me that there is some
reason we shouldn't have that opportunity given to every American
child. We are not protecting our children by denying them the
chance to develop their God-given capacities to measure up to
what they need to know and do, to do well in the future. And we
ought to stop it and do better. (Applause.)
Now, on a lighter note, you may wonder why the
Secretary of Defense is here with me today. (Laughter.) Before
I came down here, Senator Helms asked me to tell you that he is
not the guard that Jesse once said I would need to come to North
Carolina. (Laughter and applause.) Ever since I got a Chief of
Staff that does not speak with an accent, we've been getting
along a lot better, Senator Helms and I. (Laughter.)
There is another reason that the Secretary of
Defense is here today. We want to set an example -- we want to
set an example, we think we ought to start the standards
movements with the schools that we run at military bases. At 66
schools across our country and 167 more around the world, our
Department of Defense educates 115,000 of our children every
year. The Department of Defense runs a school system as big as
that of the state of Delaware. And I met some of the children,
some of the teachers and some of the parents out at the airport
when I came in today.
Sixteen of those schools are at Camp LeJeune and
Fort Bragg, right here in North Carolina, and nearly 8,000
students attend them. It's important that we give these children
the best possible education, too -- especially these children,
because their families sacrifice, they live far from home, they
often risk their lives for their country. It's important, too,
because these students come from every racial and ethnic
background. They move from place to place as their parents are
transferred from base to base.
Because of this mobility, no groups of students
better underscores the need for common national standards and a
uniform way of measuring progress than this group. If standards
can work in these schools, they can work anywhere.
So I am pleased to announce today that, with the
strong support of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of
Defense schools have stepped forward to ask that their students
be among the first to take the new tests when they become
available. The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of
Education Riley have both committed their work.
Starting in 1999, students and classrooms, from
Wiesbaden Air Force Base in Germany to Kadena Air Force Base in
Okinawa, to Camp LeJeune will learn the same rigorous material
and take the same national tests as students throughout this
state, and I hope throughout our entire nation. We can make our
public schools just like our military, the best on Earth, if,
like our military, we are willing to adhere to high, rigorous
standards for all people, regardless of their background. That's
what we ought to do.
And I thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here
today. (Applause.)
Let me also say that we know we have to do more work
to prepare all of our students. And the Department of Defense is
being directed today through its school system to use every
resource to prepare the students for 1999 when the new math and
science tests -- or math and reading tests are ready.
Let me mention one other thing that I think is very
important, and it goes well with a lot of what you are doing here
with your pre-school years and your early years. It is appalling
to me that 40 percent of America's 8-year-olds cannot read a book
on their own. But it's true. And the rest of this stuff is just
sort of whistling the breeze if people can't read. So we have
launched the America Reads Initiative, through the Department of
Education, to mobilize an army of a million reading tutors,
properly trained, to help make sure that by the year 2000 every
8-year-olds can read independently.
Thirteen North Carolina college presidents have
pledged to commit a portion of their work-study students to serve
as tutors, and I thank them for that. We're going to have
300,000 new work-study students over a four-year period. If we
can put at least a third of them into reading instruction for our
young children, we'll be a long way toward those million
volunteers.
We ought to be clear about something else, too --
and here's something that I really take my hat off to Governor
Hunt for. We cannot expect our children to meet high standards
unless we demand that our teachers meet high standards. We have
to do whatever is necessary to make sure that they do.
Last year, the report of Governor Hunt's National
Commission on Teaching and America's Future laid out a blueprint
for the road ahead. And all of you have together across party
lines to develop a comprehensive legislative agenda that
implements the report's recommendations. We have to start by
recognizing and rewarding our best teachers. We all know what a
difference a good teacher can make in the life of a child. I
know what a difference my teachers made in mine.
The National Board for Professional Teaching
Standards, led by Governor Hunt, has encouraged teachers all over
the country to improve their skills and seek certification as
master teachers. North Carolina already has more certified
national teachers than any other state in the country. And the
Governor was kind enough to bring five or six of them out to the
airport to meet me, and they were not ashamed of the fact that
they had been board-certified master teachers.
Over 20 percent of all the teachers that have been
certified are here in North Carolina. That's the good news. The
bad news is that only about 500 teachers have been certified. In
our balanced budget plan, there's enough money to help 100,000
teachers achieve this important credential. Now, the states need
to do things like North Carolina has and offer to pay -- the
Governor's plan would pay master teachers another 12 percent
more. You have to encourage people. But we need 100,000 at
least, because what we really want is at least a board certified
master teacher in every single school building in America. If
you get one in every single school building in America, we know
from the research that they will change the education environment
and help lift the standards that other teachers achieve and help
to lift the quality of teaching in all the classrooms.
So that is one of the things that we're trying to do
in our budget. But again, I'd say that we are following your
lead and especially the years and years and years that Governor
Hunt has put into this. In April, Secretary Riley will hold a
national forum on attracting and preparing teachers with 50 of
our nation's best teachers and thousands of others. And we are
going to have to do more to encourage our brightest young people
to become teachers.
Finally, we also have to make sure, as the Governor
said, that while good teachers get a raise, the truly bad
teachers who can't measure up should get a pink slip. We have to
do that in an expeditious and fair way. Today, that is too time
consuming and costly. In some states, it can cost hundreds of
thousands of dollars. That same money could be and should be
used to reward good teachers and to train those who are trying to
improve their skills. We can change this, as they have in
Cincinnati where school boards and teachers unions have worked
together in partnership to find more efficient and fair ways to
remove teachers who should leave the classroom. Encouraging
teachers is not easy or cheap, but again, I say, we know what a
phenomenal difference it makes.
Finally, to elevate teaching, I think we have to
reform the way we spend money in our schools and give parents the
tools to demand more accountability. Today, the Vice President
is discussing that at the state legislature in Sacramento,
California. His reinventing government initiative has helped us
to shrink the national government to the smallest it's been in
three decades and to take that money and invest it in education,
invest it in technology, invest it in transportation, invest it
in growing the economy and building a better future. We have to
have the same sort of national effort to analyze the way
expenditures are made in public education throughout America, so
that we can support those who are committed to reducing
unnecessary bureaucratic expenditures and increasing expenditures
on children and teachers and learning.
Yesterday I did a town hall meeting, with 35
children, on drugs. And I asked all these kids -- and some of
these kids had been on drugs and were off drugs, a couple of
these kids were in treatment, some of them had been in families
of gang members who had been involved in drugs, and then some of
them had never used drugs. It was a whole panoply of kids. But
I went through child after child after child, and I asked them to
tell me about their circumstances. And they all said, we need
mentors, we need programs we're interested in. And one after
another they kept telling me about how their school had had to
abandon its music program or its art program, its physical
education programs, its intramural athletic programs -- all the
things that happen after school or on weekend that keep kids
involved in positive things.
We have to understand that however much money we
have for our schools we have to make sure we are spending it
first and foremost on instruction and, secondly, on ways designed
to give the children the best chance to live productive,
wholesome, good, constructive lives -- and that ought to be a
national effort as well.
We have found phenomenal amounts of money that we
could redirect in the federal government to reducing the deficit
or investing in our future simply by slowly, but deliberately,
eliminating hundreds of unnecessary programs, thousands of
unnecessary regulations and reducing -- without running people
off -- just slowly reducing the size of government until we have
got it to the point where I mentioned to you earlier.
And we have to work on that in our schools because
we cannot afford to waste a single dollar when it comes to these
children's future. And it is folly to believe that we're not
paying for it when we take these kids away from a chance to have
a full, wholesome experience and to be in those schools after
school hours or before school hours and doing things in addition
to their academic learning. So I hope you will support that.
(Applause.)
Let me just say one final word in closing about
another big job we have to do together. We have to finish the
work of welfare reform. In the first four years of my
presidency, we gave waivers from federal rules to 43 states to do
all kinds of things to help move people from welfare to work. We
now know that partly because of the growing economy, partly
because of state welfare reform efforts, and partly because of a
50 percent increase in child support collections nationwide, the
welfare rolls went down by 2.6 million in four years -- a record
number.
Then the Congress passed and I signed the welfare
reform bill, which says there will still be a national guarantee
for poor children for food and medicine, but there's a limit to
how long an able-bodied person can be on welfare without going to
work. And we're going to give it to the states and let the
states decide how to design their plans to move people from
welfare to work.
Well, what I want to tell you folks is that this is
like that old country singer, Chet Atkins, used to say, you've
got to be awful careful what you ask for in this old life,
because you might get it. And now you've got it. And here is
what you have: In order to meet the demands of the law that was
supported by almost every governor and every state official in
the country, we must move about another million people from
welfare to work. Now, keep in mind, when we reduced the welfare
rolls by 2.6 million some of those were children -- only about a
million of those were people moving from welfare into the work
force. So we moved a million people in four years when the
economy created almost 12 million jobs. We have to move another
million in the next four years because of what the law says,
whether the economy creates jobs or not. And it is your
responsibility to design a plan to get that done.
Now, I want to help. And I have proposed federal
legislation to give a tax credit of 50 percent for up to $10,000
in salaries for people who hire people specifically off welfare.
I have proposed to give extra cash to high-impact,
high-unemployment areas so people can do public service work,
community service work, if necessary.
But there are more things you can do. Your Work
First program here in North Carolina is encouraging private
employers by subsidizing paychecks and holding job fairs. These
are the kinds of things we have to do everywhere. But you really
need to look at how your program works. And you need to look at
whether you have a system for challenging private employers to
look at the incentives that are available. And you need to
figure out how many people every country is going to have to move
from welfare to work in order for you not to have a train wreck
at the end of the next four years.
Every state has to do this. And it's going to have
to be done county by count, community by community. Because I'm
telling you, everybody that ever said people who are able-bodied
on welfare ought to have to work now has a moral obligation to
make sure that the people who have been told they have to work
actually have jobs so they can work. We have to do that.
(Applause.)
Let me just say -- I have been to a lot of states
and looked at a lot of programs. In Missouri, they go to
employers and say, we'll give you the welfare check for up to
four years if you need it; but you have to pay people $1.75 over
the minimum wage and we'll give you the welfare check as an
employment-in-training supplement. And you can have it for a
slot, but not for a particular individual, for up to 10 years if
you'll just keep being part of our program. So they've got a lot
of employers -- small, medium and large -- who are part of that
You have to do something like that to do something
for the employers who are not taxed. Community nonprofits and
religious organizations can hire a lot of people from welfare
into their ranks, and have a lot to do with integrating their
families into the mainstream of life in North Carolina. But they
have to have some incentive to do SO.
The second thing I would urge you to do is to make
sure that as you realize savings from people moving from welfare
to work, I think you can meet your goals better if you turn
around and invest at least the initial of those savings back into
the transition. We did a good job of adding $4 billion to child
care for people moving from welfare to work. But we still may
not have enough child care to do the job. And we know that is a
huge barrier. You cannot ask people to hurt their kids when they
go to work. And a lot of folks entering these entry-level jobs
don't make much money. Now, we can carry them over with Medicaid
health insurance for their kids for a while -- they've got to
have the child care.
This bill gives you a lot of flexibility and now you
have to design this program. I would just implore you to really
get down to brass tacks, get the facts: How many people does
North Carolina have to move from welfare into jobs in four years?
How many is that per county? How many is that per community?
What are the tools we have? Who have we asked to do the job?
I believe that the private sector is anxious to be
asked to participate in this. I believe they want to end the
permanent underclass in America and help people move into the
thriving, growing middle class. But we have to do it in an
organized, disciplined way state by state. We're going to do our
part, but we need you to do yours.
Finally, let me say that it is obvious from looking
at education that we have to have a new partnership in America.
Washington can lead the way, but the work has to be done by all
Americans. North Carolina has led the way for a long time.
I was smiling today when I got up and I thought
about coming down here, and I thought about the first time I was
ever in a meeting with Governor Hunt and Governor Riley -- 18
years ago -- we were all much younger then. And we had this idea
that all the southern states would reach the national average in
per capita income and have all these great opportunities for our
people if only we could have an education system that was as good
as anyplace in the country and it would reach everybody, without
regard to race or income.
And, ironically, the mission that many of us who are
southerners have carried for 20 or 30 years in our hearts is now
the mission of America in a global society dominated by
information and technology. And it is within our reach,
literally, to give every single child in America the greatest
future in human history if we create the conditions in which we
can flourish -- that's partly our job, through national defense
and meeting the security challenges and providing a good economy
-- but also having the tools.
We cannot guarantee the future for any child, but we
can give every child the tools to make the most of his or her own
life. That is now America's mission. It is a mission this state
has pursued for a long time. If you will lead the way, America's
best days are still ahead.
Thank you and God bless you all. (Applause.)
END
12:00 Noon EST
16
FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY
March 13, 1997
White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning:
What New Research on the Brain Tells Us About Our Youngest Children
Today, the President issued a statement announcing that he and Mrs. Clinton will host the
White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning: What New
Research on the Brain Tells Us About Our Youngest Children on April 17, 1997, at the
White House.
The President and First Lady chose this topic because of how critically important
children's experiences in their first few years of life are to their development and their
later success both in school and in life.
The Conference will focus on the practical applications of the latest scientific research on
brain development for parents and care-givers, as well as on ways that all members of
society can use this information to help strengthen America's families.
[NOTE: The President first announced this Conference in his State of the Union Address:
"Learning begins in the first days of life. Scientists are now discovering how young children develop
emotionally and intellectually from their very first days, and how important it is for parents to begin
immediately talking, singing, even reading to their infants. The First Lady has spent years writing about
this issue, studying it. And she and I are going to convene a White House Conference on Early Learning
and the Brain this spring, to explore how parents and educators can best use these startling new
findings. (State of the Union, 2/4/97)]
Q.
Who will be participating in this Conference?
A.
No formal invitations have been issued yet. The President and Mrs. Clinton will invite
leaders in the scientific and academic communities, leaders in the field of early childhood
development, as well as representatives from various sectors of society, including the business,
faith and medical communities. However, because the Conference will take place at the White
House, space will be very limited. We are exploring how best to involve as many people as we
can.
Q.
If people want to come or be involved, who should they call or write to?
A.
They should write to:
Office of Public Liaison
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20502
Attention: Ann Eder
Q.
Is the President going to make a big policy announcement at this Conference?
This Conference builds on the Administration's commitment to children and to early
development. For example, the Administration has increased participation in Head Start, created
Early Head Start for 0-3 year olds, increased participation in the WIC Supplemental Nutrition
Program, and raised the rate of childhood immunization to all-time high levels.
One of the things that will be explored at the White House Conference is how all members of
society -- including policy makers -- can use this information most effectively. The Conference
is certainly intended to focus the Administration's own attention on these early years and to spur
action, not necessarily for the day of the Conference, but for the course of the Administration.
Q.
How much does something like this cost?
Because the logistics of the Conference have not been finalized, we aren't in a position to
estimate yet.
Q.
How is this going to structured?
While the details are still being worked out, we expect that the Conference will be divided into
panel discussions, exploring the latest scientific research, addressing the practical applications of
that research for parents and care-givers, and examining how all sectors of society can use this
research to strengthen families.
Q.
Will the President be there the whole time?
That hasn't been decided yet.
Q.
Is this Conference part of Rob Reiner's 0-3 campaign?
A.
No. Rob Reiner is working on an important effort -- a National Engagement Campaign --
with a collaboration of foundations, corporations and media to spread the-word about the
significance of the first few years of life. The President and the First Lady are supportive of his
efforts and believe they complement the White House Conference, but the two are separate.
Q.
Doesn't the research on the earliest years of life suggest that women should stay at home?
(NOTE: Joe Klein wrote a recent piece suggesting this)
No. What the research suggests is that we should support all parents, those who work outside the
home and those who don't. What's most important is that children are surrounded by loving,
nurturing care-givers who understand the importance of the first few years of life.
Q.
Will there be a record of the Conference, a Conference report?
We're in the process of exploring that, but do not yet know definitively.
FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY
March 13, 1997
White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning:
What New Research on the Brain Tells Us About Our Youngest Children
Today, the President issued a statement announcing that he and Mrs. Clinton will host the
White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning: What New
Research on the Brain Tells Us About Our Youngest Children on April 17, 1997, at the
White House.
The President and First Lady chose this topic because of how critically important
children's experiences in their first few years of life are to their development and their
later success both in school and in life.
The Conference will focus on the practical applications of the latest scientific research on
brain development for parents and care-givers, as well as on ways that all members of
society can use this information to help strengthen America's families.
[NOTE: The President first announced this Conference in his State of the Union Address:
"Learning begins in the first days of life. Scientists are now discovering how young children develop
emotionally and intellectually from their very first days, and how important it is for parents to begin
immediately talking, singing, even reading to their infants. The First Lady has spent years writing about
this issue, studying it. And she and I are going to convene a White House Conference on Early Learning
and the Brain this spring, to explore how parents and educators can best use these startling new
findings. (State of the Union, 2/4/97)]
Q.
Who will be participating in this Conference?
A.
No formal invitations have been issued yet. The President and Mrs. Clinton will invite
leaders in the scientific and academic communities, leaders in the field of early childhood
development, as well as representatives from various sectors of society, including the business,
faith and medical communities. However, because the Conference will take place at the White
House, space will be very limited. We are exploring how best to involve as many people as we
can.
Q.
If people want to come or be involved, who should they call or write to?
A.
They should write to:
Office of Public Liaison
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20502
Attention: Ann Eder
Q.
Is the President going to make a big policy announcement at this Conference?
This Conference builds on the Administration's commitment to children and to early
development. For example, the Administration has increased participation in Head Start, created
Early Head Start for 0-3 year olds, increased participation in the WIC Supplemental Nutrition
Program, and raised the rate of childhood immunization to all-time high levels.
One of the things that will be explored at the White House Conference is how all members of
society -- including policy makers -- can use this information most effectively. The Conference
is certainly intended to focus the Administration's own attention on these early years and to spur
action, not necessarily for the day of the Conference, but for the course of the Administration.
Q.
How much does something like this cost?
Because the logistics of the Conference have not been finalized, we aren't in a position to
estimate yet.
Q.
How is this going to structured?
While the details are still being worked out, we expect that the Conference will be divided into
panel discussions, exploring the latest scientific research, addressing the practical applications of
that research for parents and care-givers, and examining how all sectors of society can use this
research to strengthen families.
Q.
Will the President be there the whole time?
That hasn't been decided yet.
Q.
Is this Conference part of Rob Reiner's 0-3 campaign?
A.
No. Rob Reiner is working on an important effort -- a National Engagement Campaign --
with a collaboration of foundations, corporations and media to spread the word about the
significance of the first few years of life. The President and the First Lady are supportive of his
efforts and believe they complement the White House Conference, but the two are separate.
Q.
Doesn't the research on the earliest years of life suggest that women should stay at home?
(NOTE: Joe Klein wrote a recent piece suggesting this)
No. What the research suggests is that we should support all parents, those who work outside the
home and those who don't. What's most important is that children are surrounded by loving,
nurturing care-givers who understand the importance of the first few years of life.
Q.
Will there be a record of the Conference, a Conference report?
We're in the process of exploring that, but do not yet know definitively.
FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY
March 13, 1997
White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning:
What New Research on the Brain Tells Us About Our Youngest Children
Today, the President issued a statement announcing that he and Mrs. Clinton will host the
White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning: What New
Research on the Brain Tells Us About Our Youngest Children on April 17, 1997, at the
White House.
The President and First Lady chose this topic because of how critically important
children's experiences in their first few years of life are to their development and their
later success both in school and in life.
The Conference will focus on the practical applications of the latest scientific research on
brain development for parents and care-givers, as well as on ways that all members of
society can use this information to help strengthen America's families.
[NOTE: The President first announced this Conference in his State of the Union Address:
"Learning begins in the first days of life. Scientists are now discovering how young children develop
emotionally and intellectually from their very first days, and how important it is for parents to begin
immediately talking, singing, even reading to their infants. The First Lady has spent years writing about
this issue, studying it. And she and I are going to convene a White House Conference on Early Learning
and the Brain this spring, to explore how parents and educators can best use these startling new
findings. (State of the Union, 2/4/97)]
Q.
Who will be participating in this Conference?
A.
No formal invitations have been issued yet. The President and Mrs. Clinton will invite
leaders in the scientific and academic communities, leaders in the field of early childhood
development, as well as representatives from various sectors of society, including the business,
faith and medical communities. However, because the Conference will take place at the White
House, space will be very limited. We are exploring how best to involve as many people as we
can.
Q.
If people want to come or be involved, who should they call or write to?
A.
They should write to:
Office of Public Liaison
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20502
Attention: Ann Eder
Q.
Is the President going to make a big policy announcement at this Conference?
This Conference builds on the Administration's commitment to children and to early
development. For example, the Administration has increased participation in Head Start, created
Early Head Start for 0-3 year olds, increased participation in the WIC Supplemental Nutrition
Program, and raised the rate of childhood immunization to all-time high levels.
One of the things that will be explored at the White House Conference is how all members of
society -- including policy makers -- can use this information most effectively. The Conference
is certainly intended to focus the Administration's own attention on these early years and to spur
action, not necessarily for the day of the Conference, but for the course of the Administration.
Q.
How much does something like this cost?
Because the logistics of the Conference have not been finalized, we aren't in a position to
estimate yet.
Q.
How is this going to structured?
While the details are still being worked out, we expect that the Conference will be divided into
panel discussions, exploring the latest scientific research, addressing the practical applications of
that research for parents and care-givers, and examining how all sectors of society can use this
research to strengthen families.
Q.
Will the President be there the whole time?
That hasn't been decided yet.
Q.
Is this Conference part of Rob Reiner's 0-3 campaign?
A.
No. Rob Reiner is working on an important effort -- a National Engagement Campaign --
with a collaboration of foundations, corporations and media to spread the word about the
significance of the first few years of life. The President and the First Lady are supportive of his
efforts and believe they complement the White House Conference, but the two are separate.
Q.
Doesn't the research on the earliest years of life suggest that women should stay at home?
(NOTE: Joe Klein wrote a recent piece suggesting this)
No. What the research suggests is that we should support all parents, those who work outside the
home and those who don't. What's most important is that children are surrounded by loving,
nurturing care-givers who understand the importance of the first few years of life.
Q.
Will there be a record of the Conference, a Conference report?
We're in the process of exploring that, but do not yet know definitively.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
March 13, 1997
Today, Hillary and I are pleased to announce that on April 17, 1997, we will host the
White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning: What New Research
on the Brain Tells Us About Our Youngest Children. The Conference, which will take place at
the White House, will spotlight exciting new findings about how our children develop, and
explore how we can make the most of this information to give our children what they need to
thrive.
We hope that this one-day Conference will make the latest scientific research, nearly all
supported by the federal government, more accessible and understandable to America's
families. The research clearly indicates the importance of children's first few years to their
later success in school and in life. This Conference is a continuation of my Administration's
commitment to children and, in particular, it follows Hillary's work over the years on issues
relating to early childhood development.
The Conference will examine how we can use this new research in practical ways -- to
be better parents, more informed care-givers and more responsive members of our
communities. It will also explore how this information can be used by all members of our
society -- from corporate executives to pediatricians, from ministers to elected officials -- to help
strengthen America's families.
Parents desperately want to do right by their children, and we all have a role to play in
making sure they have, the tools they need to do the best job they can. We believe this
Conference can make a valuable contribution.
-30-30-30-
A Call to
Action For
American
Education
In the 21st st Century
PRESIDENT CLINTON'S CALL TO ACTION
FOR AMERICAN EDUCATION
IN THE 21ST CENTURY
To prepare America for the 21st century, we need strong, safe schools with clear standards of
achievement and discipline, and talented and dedicated teachers in every classroom. Every 8-
year-old must be able to read, every 12-year-old must be able to log onto the Internet, every 18-
year-old must be able to go to college, and all adults must be able to keep on learning.
We must provide all our people with the best education in the world. Together, we must commit
ourselves to a bold plan of action:
Set rigorous national standards, with national tests in 4th grade reading and 8th
grade math to make sure our children master the basics.
Make sure there's a talented and dedicated teacher in every classroom.
Help every student to read independently and well by the end of the 3rd grade.
Expand Head Start and challenge parents to get involved early on in their children's
learning.
Expand choice and accountability in public education.
Make sure our schools are safe, disciplined and drug-free, and instill basic
American values.
Modernize school buildings and help support school construction.
Open the doors of college to all who work hard and make the grade, and make the
13th and 14th years of education as universal as high school.
Help adults improve their education and skills by transforming the tangle of federal
training programs into a simple skill grant.
Connect every classroom and library to the Internet by the year 2000 and help all
students become technologically literate.
1
PRESIDENT CLINTON'S CALL TO ACTION FOR AMERICAN
EDUCATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY
In his State of the Union address tonight, the President will make clear that his number
one priority for the next four years is to ensure that Americans have the best education in the
world. He will issue a 10-point call to action for American education in the 21st Century to
enlist parents, teachers, students, business leaders, local and state officials in this effort:
Set rigorous national standards, with national tests in 4th grade reading and 8th
grade math to make sure our children master the basics. Every 4th grader should be
able to read; every 8th grader should know basic math and algebra. To help make sure
they do, the President is pledging the development of national tests in 4th grade reading
and 8th grade math, and challenging every state and community to test every student in
these critical areas by 1999. These tests will show how well students are doing compared
to rigorous standards and to their peers around the country and the world. They will help
parents know if their children are mastering critical basic skills early enough to succeed in
school and in the workforce. Every state and school should also set guidelines for what
students should know in all core subjects. We must end social promotion: Students
should have to show what they've learned in order to move from grade school to middle
school and from middle school to high school. We must make sure a high school
diploma means something.
Make sure there's a talented and dedicated teacher in every classroom. In addition
to the talented and dedicated teachers already in the classroom, two million new teachers
will be needed over the next ten years to replace retirees and accommodate rapidly
growing student enrollments. We must take advantage of this opportunity to ensure
teaching quality well into the 21st Century by challenging our most promising young
people to consider teaching as a career, setting high standards for entering the teaching
profession, and providing the highest quality preparation and training. We should reward
good teachers, and quickly and fairly remove those few who don't measure up. The
President's education budget will make it possible for 100,000 master teachers to achieve
national certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards over
the next ten years.
Teach every student to read independently and well by the end of the 3rd grade.
Reading is the key to unlocking learning in all subjects. While America's 4th graders
read on average as well as ever, more than 40 percent cannot read as well as they must to
succeed later in school and in the workforce. Research shows that students unable to read
well by the end of the 3rd grade are more likely to become school dropouts and truants,
and have fewer good options for jobs. The President's "America Reads" challenge is a
2
nationwide effort to mobilize a citizen army of a million volunteer tutors to make sure
every child can read independently by the end of the 3rd grade. Parents, teachers, college
students, senior citizens, and others can all pitch in to give children extra help in reading
during the afternoons, weekends, and summers. At the same time, schools must
strengthen the teaching of reading in the school day, and the President's budget invests
more in programs that address reading achievement in school.
Expand Head Start and challenge parents to get involved early in their children's
learning. A child's learning begins long before he or she goes to school. That's why the
President's budget expands Head Start to cover one million children by 2002. Parents are
their children's first teachers, and every home should be a place of learning. The
President and First Lady will convene a Conference this spring to review recent scientific
discoveries on early child learning and to show how parents, teachers, and policymakers
can use this new knowledge to benefit young children. And in June, the Vice President
and Mrs. Gore will host their sixth annual family conference, and focus on the importance
of parents' involvement throughout a child's education.
Expand choice and accountability in public education. The President has challenged
every state to let parents choose the right public school for their children. Innovation,
competition, and parental involvement will make our public schools better. We must do
more to help teachers, parents, community groups, and other responsible organizations to
start charter schools-innovative public schools that stay open only as long as they
produce results and meet the highest standards. The President's budget doubles funding
to help start charter schools so that there will be 3,000 charter schools at the dawn of the
21st Century, providing parents with more choices in public education.
Make sure our schools are safe, disciplined and drug-free, and instill American
values. Students cannot learn in schools that are not safe and orderly and do not promote
positive values. We must find effective ways to give children the safe and disciplined
conditions they need to learn, such as by promoting smaller schools, fair and rigorously
enforced discipline codes, and teacher training to deal with violence. We should continue
to support communities that introduce school uniforms and character education, impose
curfews, enforce truancy laws, remove disruptive students from the classroom, and have
zero tolerance for guns and drugs. We should also keep schools open later as safe havens
from gangs and drugs, expanding educational opportunities for young people in the
afternoons, weekends, and summers, and providing peace of mind for working parents.
Modernize school buildings and help support school construction. Just as we face
unprecedented and growing levels of student enrollment, a recent report by the General
Accounting Office shows that a third of our nation's schools need major repair or outright
replacement. To keep children from growing up in schools that are falling down, the
Administration has proposed $5 billion to help communities finance $20 billion in needed
school construction over the next four years.
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Open the doors of college to all who work hard and make the grade, and make the
13th and 14th years of education as universal as high school. To prepare ourselves for
the 21st Century, we must open the doors of college to all Americans and make at least
two years of college as universal as high school is today. The President's HOPE
scholarship, a $1,500 tax credit for college tuition, would be enough to pay for a typical
community college tuition or provide a solid down payment for four-year colleges and
universities. The President also is proposing a $10,000 tax deduction for any tuition
after high school, an expanded IRA to allow families to save tax-free for college, and the
largest increase in Pell Grants for deserving students in 20 years.
Help adults improve their education and skills by transforming the tangle of federal
training programs into a simple skill grant. Learning must last a lifetime, and all our
people must have the chance to learn new skills. Adults should take on the responsibility
of getting the education and training they need, and employers should support their efforts
to do so. The President's G.I. bill for workers would provide a simple skill grant that
would enable eligible workers to get the education and training they need.
Connect every classroom and library to the Internet by the year 2000 and help all
students become technologically literate. Our schools must now prepare for a
transition as dramatic as the move from an agrarian to an industrial economy 100 years
ago. We must connect every classroom and library to the Internet by the year 2000, so
that all children have access to the best sources of information in the world. The
President is proposing to double the funding for America's Technology Literacy
Challenge, catalyzing private-public sector partnerships to put the Information Age at our
children's fingertips. CEOs of some of America's most innovative technology and
communications firms have already responded to the President's challenge to work with
schools to get computers into the classroom, link schools to the Internet, develop
effective educational software, and help train our teachers to be technologically literate.
4
NATIONAL STANDARDS OF ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
Student achievement is not improving fast enough. Across our nation-in our cities, suburbs,
and rural communities alike-far too many students are still not meeting the standards that will
prepare them for the challenges of today and tomorrow. What the top 20 percent of our students
typically learn in math in the 8th grade is learned by most students in Japan in the 7th grade.
And while America's 4th graders today on average read as well as ever, 40 percent cannot read as
well as they should to hold a solid job in tomorrow's economy.
As a nation, we do not expect enough of our students. Strong schools with clear and high
standards of achievement and discipline are essential to our children and our society. These
standards of excellence are important to help instill the excitement, knowledge and basic values,
such as hard work, that will set our children on the right track. Unfortunately, we currently give
far too many of our students a watered-down curriculum inadequate to prepare them for the
challenges of the global society and information age. For too many of our children, we create a
tyranny of low expectations. A watered-down and boring curriculum and low expectations are
the surest way of turning a child eager to learn into an angry, high school dropout who can't read.
Every child can learn. We know that every child in America can meet higher standards, if we
have the courage and the vision to set the standards, to teach up to them, and to test whether
children have learned what we taught. Every state and every school must establish meaningful
standards for what students should master in the core subjects. Only with a standard measure of
excellence can parents hold schools accountable for improved performance, teachers and
principals improve curriculum and instruction, and students have a guide for charting their own
progress.
Mastering the Basics: High National Standards in Reading and Math
Every 4th grader should be able to read independently; every 8th grader should know algebra. To
help make sure they do, we are going to provide states and local schools the opportunity to
participate in rigorous national tests based on these widely accepted standards for reading and
math. By 1999, every state should test every student in the 4th and 8th grades to make sure these
standards are met. No matter where they live and no matter their background, all our students
must master the basics.
Reading and math are critical starting points in our drive toward higher standards.
It is essential that our students master the basics of reading by the end of 3rd grade. At
4th grade, students are expected to read so they can learn science, history, literature and
mathematics. If they can read by then, they can read to learn for a lifetime. Students who
5
fail to read well by 4th grade often have a greater likelihood of dropping out and a
lifetime of diminished success.
It is also important that our students master the basics of math and the essentials of
algebra and even geometry by the end of 8th grade. They will then have the foundation to
take college prep courses in high school and compete in the world arena. The United
States ranks below average internationally in 8th grade math. We must do better.
A New National Test in 4th-Grade Reading and 8th-Grade Math
The Clinton Administration will support the development by 1999 of rigorous national
tests for use by individual students based on the widely accepted 4th-grade National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading test and the 8th-grade Third
International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) test of mathematics.
Although the national reading and math tests will be based on existing tests (National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading and the math portion of the Third
International Math and Science Study (TIMSS)), new tests must be developed. NAEP
and TIMSS test a random sample of students to produce estimates of overall statewide
and nationwide student achievement; no one student takes the entire test. In contrast, the
new tests will be expressly designed to produce individual student scores that will be
useful for parents and teachers.
The new tests will be developed during 1997 and 1998, with a pilot test in the spring of
1998 and the first full administration in the spring of 1999. They will be updated
annually. The US Department of Education will provide ongoing funding for the
development of the test, and funding for administering and scoring it during the first year.
Guidance for test development will come from the most successful math and reading
teachers across the country, as well as from parents, governors, and local and state
education, civic and business leaders.
The Administration is challenging every state and local school across the country to
participate in these tests so students, teachers, and parents will know how they are
progressing.
States and school districts can administer the test as part of their local testing program.
After each test's administration, the entire test (along with answers and scoring guides)
will be released, placed on the World Wide Web, and widely distributed with supporting
materials, so students, parents and teachers can know what is necessary to reach standards
of excellence. A new test each year will keep the content of the test current.
We need a national effort to ensure our students learn the basics and achieve world-class
6
standards of excellence in America's schools. These tests will help show us who needs
extra help and which schools need to be improved.
The Administration urges schools and teachers to work over the next two years to
improve instruction and prepare their students for these tests by 1999.
Preparing students for the national tests in 1999 means providing students the instruction
they need to read independently and well by the end of 3rd grade. And it means ensuring
that every student by the end of 8th grade has mastered the basics of mathematics and has
had a good introduction to algebra and even geometry. While this will require parents,
schools, communities and states to take a hard look at what teachers are now teaching and
children are now learning, we know it can be done.
For example, the results on the 8th Grade Third International Mathematics and Science
Study (TIMSS) test showed that the United States is below average in mathematics
achievement when compared with other countries. TIMSS also showed that U.S.
students receive a less demanding and less focused curriculum, and instruction focused
more on teaching mathematical procedures and less on helping students understand
mathematical concepts. However, the First in the World Consortium, a group of 20
Chicago-area school districts that joined together to try to become the best in the world in
math and science, defied these data, scoring among the top nations in science and second
only to Singapore in math.
Developing Challenging Academic Standards in All Core Academic Subjects
Many states and school districts-along with thousands of educators, parents and business and
community leaders-have been working to develop better academic standards for students. In
almost every core subject, we are better off today because of their efforts in defining essential
knowledge, skills and understanding in a range of subjects. But the work is not yet done.
7
Places that Set High Standards Have Shown a Difference
In Student Achievement
In 1993, the chancellor of the New York City Schools required all students to take
math and science courses at the level of the state's Regents honors exam. In 1995,
State Education Commissioner Richard Mills announced that all students would be
required to take Regents-level classes starting with that fall's freshman class (the
graduating class of 2000). Since the City University of New York (CUNY) began its
College Preparatory Initiative with the district, the number of New York City
freshman with four years of English has risen by 59 percent, the number of students
passing CUNY math entrance exams has increased by 7.5 percent, and the number of
Hispanic and black students who passed the science test has more than doubled.
Entering freshman at the City University of New York are reportedly the best
prepared academically in two decades.
Several important pieces of legislation developed by the Clinton Administration together with
Congress support the efforts of local schools, communities and states to develop challenging
standards and high-quality assessments and improve their teaching and learning to help all
children reach those standards:
The Goals 2000: Educate America Act, passed in 1994, is helping communities across
the country raise academic standards, improve teaching, increase parental involvement
and expand the use of technology in the classroom. Communities in all 50 states and
thousands of schools have decided to participate in Goals 2000 and many more than the
program currently has money to support want Goals 2000 funding to raise standards.
The Improving America's Schools Act of 1994 fundamentally reformed Title I-a $7
billion program for teaching basic and advanced skills in high-poverty schools-to get rid
of lower educational expectations for poor children and ensure that disadvantaged
students are held to the same standards as other children. The Improving America's
Schools Act also expands professional development focused on preparing teachers to help
students reach the new standards, provides opportunities for waivers of federal
requirements for the first time, and offers start-up funds for charter schools.
The Clinton Administration's proposal for the reauthorization of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) reinforces the importance of higher standards for all
children, including children with disabilities.
While the federal government can provide support and leadership through its programs, the
success of this drive toward high standards rests in the hands of teachers and parents, business,
community and religious leaders, and others at the grassroots level. Every community, school,
8
and state needs to continue its work to develop challenging standards and high-quality
assessments, measure whether schools are meeting those standards, cut red tape so that schools
have more flexibility for grassroots reforms, and hold schools, teachers, and students accountable
for results.
States Are Making Progress in Developing Standards and
Improving Achievement in Critical Areas
Since the early 1980s, the United States has made significant strides in raising
standards and improving student achievement. Across the country, 48 states are
developing common standards in core academic subjects, and 42 states either have or
are developing assessments to measure student progress towards those standards. The
proportion of students taking the core courses recommended in A Nation at Risk (4
years of English, 3 years of social studies, 3 years of science, 3 years of math) has
increased from 14 percent in 1982 to 52 percent in 1994. These efforts are beginning
to pay off. The number of students passing advanced placement (AP) exams has more
than tripled since 1982. Combined math and verbal Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)
scores are at their highest since 1974, while the number and diversity of students taking
the SAT has increased dramatically. American College Testing (ACT) scores have
increased or held steady in each of the last four years. Math and science achievement
on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has risen since the early
1980s. And in states like Kentucky, which established comprehensive school
improvements six years ago, student achievement is on the rise: more than 92 percent of
Kentucky's schools posted achievement gains in 1995-96, and 50 percent of schools in
the state met or exceeded their performance goals.
Holding Students and Schools Accountable for Reaching High Standards
It is not enough to set high standards; we must be willing to hold people accountable for meeting
them. Our schools and teachers must give all children the help needed to meet high expectations.
But we must also say: no more free passes. Today, only a handful of states in the country require
young people to demonstrate what they've learned in order to move from one level of school to
the next. Every state should do this and put an end to social promotion. No one in America
should graduate with a diploma he or she can barely read.
Not only students should be held to high standards. Schools must also be held accountable for
results. Despite the central importance of a school principal in leading a successful school, few
states hold their districts accountable for having good principals in every school and then give the
principals the authority they need to do the job. Too many school districts spend much too much
money on central administration and too little money on education and instruction. It is time to
9
hold administrators, as well as educators, accountable for results.
Every diploma must mean something, and students should pass tests to move from
one level of schooling to the next.
Once we set high expectations for students, we must help them believe they can learn,
challenge and motivate them so they want to learn, ask them to grasp challenging
subjects, assess whether or not they're learning, reward them when they succeed and hold
them accountable when they fall short. Every state should require a test for students to
move from elementary school to middle school, or from middle school to high school or
to receive a high school diploma. These tests should measure mastery of the basics and
the rigorous material expected in these tough new standards.
Some children may not measure up at first and may need extra help to lift themselves up.
Give them the extra help in afternoons, weekends and summers, keep schools open as
homework centers, involve their parents more-do whatever it takes to encourage and
help them master the basics and perform to the challenging standards we expect of them.
If we believe all students can learn, we have to give them a chance to demonstrate it.
Students, teachers, and schools will all perform better once we do.
We must begin holding schools and their states or school districts accountable for
results.
We must insist that schools and districts have good principals, recruit and hire talented
teachers, reduce administrative costs, and provide more options for parents. Moreover,
we should overhaul or shut down schools that fail, and allow new charter schools to start
over in their place. The Clinton Administration is urging states and districts to use their
authority under the reformed Title I program to hold schools accountable for the
assistance they receive, including reconstituting chronically failing schools.
10
TALENTED TEACHERS IN EVERY CLASSROOM
Every community should have a talented and dedicated teacher in every classroom and at least
one master teacher certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in every
school. Our most promising young people also must get encouragement and support to become
teachers.
This nation faces several challenges in sustaining and upgrading the quality of our teachers. Two
million teachers will be needed over the next ten years to replace retirees and accommodate
rapidly growing student enrollment. This presents an enormous opportunity for ensuring teacher
quality well into the 21st Century, if we recruit promising people into teaching and give them the
highest quality preparation and training.
As we demand higher levels of knowledge and skills from our students, we must honor and
support our teachers in the classroom today, equipping and expecting them to help our students
master the basics and be prepared for college, employment, and good citizenship. Without
quality teachers and teaching, our most serious efforts to raise standards and improve schools
will not succeed.
Everyone has a role to play in helping our teachers become the best in the world. Parents,
schools, community leaders, universities, state leaders-and most important, current and future
teachers themselves-can take many steps to address this challenge.
Identify and reward our most talented master teachers. For many years, many
educators, led by North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt and the National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards, have worked hard to establish nationally accepted
credentials for excellence in teaching. More than 400 of these master teachers have been
certified since 1995. Under the President's budget, 100,000 more teachers will be able to
seek certification from the National Board as highly accomplished master
teachers-enabling at least one teacher in every school to get certification from this
board. States, school districts, and the private sector can also establish rewards for master
teachers and other excellent teachers they identify in such ways as through teacher-of-the-
year competitions. School districts can call on these master teachers to become mentors
for other teachers.
Do more to challenge talented young people and mid-career professionals in other
areas to become teachers and help them make the transition into a teaching career.
Communities can start middle and high school academies for future teachers, and states
can establish centers for teacher recruitment that bring promising students into teaching.
States can make it financially easier for young people to teach in high-need areas through
fellowships and loan forgiveness programs. School districts can make sure that
beginning teachers get support and mentoring from experienced teachers. The Clinton
11
Administration will continue working to make college and teacher preparation more
affordable for young people who go into teaching.
Reinvent teacher preparation for
beginning teachers and professional
Teacher Recruitment-Starting Early
development for more experienced
School districts and universities can work
teachers so they get the training
together to create middle and high school
they need to help students master
the basics and reach high standards
programs that expose young people to the
in the core academic areas.
teaching profession. For example, the South
Carolina Center for Teacher Recruitment has
Colleges, universities and school
districts must provide current and
reached thousands of academically talented
future teachers ongoing, sustained
high school juniors and seniors through its
opportunities to learn how to be more
Teacher Cadet Program, offered in more than
effective and upgrade their skills. The
140 schools statewide. Teacher Cadets study
Clinton Administration has supported
education and have the opportunity to teach
their efforts by increasing funding
younger students under the tutelage of both
that may be used for sustained
school and university faculty. The center
professional development, stronger
also targets minority middle school students,
teacher standards, and performance
encouraging them to take rigorous courses in
evaluation for teachers. The
school and aspire to a career in teaching.
Eisenhower Professional
Development program, Goals 2000,
and the National Science Foundation's Teacher Enhancement Program also provide
substantial support for high-quality professional development.
Expand efforts to help teachers become technology literate and to use technology to
improve training available to teachers. The President's technology initiatives will play
a major role in helping teachers to become technology literate. For example, the
President's Technology Challenge Grant program supports private-public sector
partnerships to develop models for using technology in education, such as providing
"electronic field trips" for new teachers to learn from expert teachers and mentors around
the country. Moreover, the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund will leverage public
funds to target school districts and schools committed to helping teachers integrate
technology into the classroom. Finally, the Clinton Administration's 21st Century
Teachers initiative will recruit thousands of technology literate teachers to upgrade their
knowledge and help at least five of their colleagues learn how to use technology in the
classroom.
Set high standards to enter teaching and find ways to help-or quickly and fairly
remove-teachers who don't measure up. School districts and teachers can help start
and participate in peer assistance programs where they help identify, and then provide
intensive assistance to, burnt-out or low-performing teachers. School districts can
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develop fair and faster processes for holding teachers accountable and assisting or
removing teachers who are not making the grade. Educators and communities should not
look the other way if a teacher is burned out or not performing up to standard. The
Clinton Administration will share promising strategies for recruiting talented young
people and others into teaching, rewarding good teachers, and quickly and fairly
improving or removing teachers that don't make the grade. The Administration also will
provide guidance to schools, districts, and states on how existing federal funds can be
used to address these challenges.
Upgrading Teacher Skills: An Award Winning School
The Woodrow Wilson Elementary School, in Manhattan, Kansas, was established as a
"professional development school" where current and future teachers can go for assistance
in upgrading their skills and knowledge in math, science, and technology. The school
helps teachers understand the widely acclaimed math standards developed by the National
Council for Teachers of Mathematics, and prepares them to help students meet or exceed
these standards. At the school, student test scores on the Kansas Mathematics Assessment
Test have improved for the past three years, including especially strong gains for girls. The
school recently was one of five schools to win a national award from the U.S. Department
of Education for its efforts to give teachers the skills they need to help students succeed.
13
AMERICA READS CHALLENGE
"We ought to commit ourselves as a country to say that by the year 2000, 8-year-olds in
America will be able to pick up an appropriate book and say 'I can read this all by
myself."
Remarks by President Clinton to the Community of
Fresno, California, September 12, 1996
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 40 percent of America's 4th
graders are reading below the basic level-not nearly as well as they must to keep up with the
complexities of today's jobs and society. We need to do a real push toward improving our efforts
to help all children read.
While teachers and schools have the critical responsibility for making literacy and the basics a
top priority, study after study finds that sustained individualized attention and tutoring after
school and over the summer can raise reading levels when combined with parental involvement
and quality school instruction. Reading with children at the youngest age, quality pre-school, and
tutoring from pre-school to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade can work to help all our children read at an
early age-but certainly by the end of the 3rd grade. If families, schools, community groups,
employers and religious groups make improving the reading skills of children and adults a top
priority from the earliest years of a child's life at home until he or she becomes a successful
reader, then America can attain the goal of being a reading, literate society.
For this reason, in August 1996, President Clinton announced the America Reads Challenge to
ensure that every American child can read well and independently by the end of 3rd grade. And
he called on all Americans-parents, teachers, libraries, religious institutions, universities,
college students, the media, community and national groups, business leaders, senior citizens-to
join the effort to meet this challenge. Already, groups from JumpStart in Boston to the Reading
One-One program in Richardson, Texas, have responded enthusiastically to the President's
challenge.
The President has pledged $2.75 billion over 5 years toward the America Reads Challenge which
includes:
America's Reading Corps of 1 million tutors to provide individualized after-school and
summer tutoring for more than 3 million children in pre-K through 3rd grade who want
and need extra reading help. Thirty thousand reading specialists and tutor coordinators,
including Americorps volunteers, will mobilize and support this corps of 1 million
volunteer tutors who will work with teachers, principals and librarians to help children
succeed in reading.
Parents as First Teachers Challenge Grants that invest in success by supporting
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effective and proven local efforts, as well as regional or national networks, that assist
parents who request help for their children to become successful readers by the end of 3rd
grade. Research shows that reading to children in their first three years helps children
learn words and concepts and actually stimulates physical development of the brain.
Expansion of Head Start. The President's balanced budget will expand Head Start to
reach one million 3- and 4-year-olds by the year 2002, while continuing the new 0-3 year-
old Head Start initiative. The priority of providing all children with high-quality
preschool responds to studies stressing that literacy problems are best averted with the
earliest intervention possible, including pre-school.
Support for 100,000 College Work-Study Students to Serve as Reading Tutors. Last
year, the President signed into law a budget that increased the number of work-study jobs
for college students by a third-enabling an additional 200,000 young people to work
their way through college while serving their communities. The President has called for
half of all new work study funds to support 100,000 college students to serve as reading
tutors, thereby providing a unique opportunity for college students to be involved in
helping young children learn to read. To encourage this activity, the Secretary of
Education has waived the matching fund requirement for those students who perform
work study through the America Reads project. Also, the President has called upon
college presidents to rally other students and college resources to help America read.
Accountability for Results. The Administration will use the improvements in the
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to provide an annual measure of
the reading performance of 4th graders and their progress toward meeting the reading
challenge.
A challenge to every parent, teacher, principal, and community member
The success of the America Reads Challenge depends on the involvement of all
Americans-parents, teachers, principals, libraries, religious institutions, universities, college
students, the media, community and national groups, cultural organizations, business leaders, and
our senior citizens.
Parents should read to their children 30 minutes a day. Even as babies, children are
learning about language from their families. Parents need to turn off the TV, take their
child to the library and get a library card, talk with teachers about their child's progress,
and take time to read with their child at home. Parental involvement makes a real
difference. According to a recent study, 4th-grade average reading scores were 46 points
below the national average where principals judged parental involvement to be low, but
28 points above the national average where parental involvement was high.
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Schools should provide a high-quality reading program for all students, including
making sure teachers know how to teach kids to read and have the support they need to
do so. They must also identify those students who need extra help. The America Reads
Initiative is not a substitute for in-school reading programs. Instead, it is designed to
build on the work of teachers and schools to improve their in-school reading programs, as
well as on the Administration's investments in Title I, Even Start and other in-school
programs to strengthen in-school teaching and learning.
Community members should start an America Reads Challenge reading tutoring program
at the local school, library, or community center or become a reading tutor after school,
on weekends, and in the summer. The Clinton Administration, through the summer
Read Write Now! effort, already has begun working with organizations like the Boys
and Girls Clubs, the American Association of Retired People, and Reading is
Fundamental to mobilize reading partners for children during the summer months.
Businesses should work with schools and libraries. The Administration also is working
with the private sector in helping parents help their children learn to read, through the
Partnership for Family Involvement in Education. Employers can help start a summer
reading program in their community as part of the Read Write Now! effort to avoid the
summer drop-off in reading.
Colleges and universities should use half of their new funds for work study to provide
reading tutors, and if all colleges meet this challenge, 100,000 work-study students in
1998 would be tutoring young children in reading. Already 60 college presidents have
pledged almost 10,000 work-study slots in support of this goal, as well as thousands of
other students to do community service as reading tutors.
16
AmeriCorps SLICE Corps, Simpson County, Kentucky
In this program, 25 AmeriCorps members provided intensive tutoring in reading to 128 2nd
graders, helping the students improve their reading comprehension by an average of 2.8 grade
levels over nine months. One-third of the students improved by more than three grade levels.
Members visited each student's home every other week to show parents their children's
reading materials, update them on the child's academic progress and offer tips on how to help
their children read. The key is consistency. AmeriCorps SLICE members tutor students for
the entire school year. As a classroom teacher said about one student: "[The student] is in his
second year of being tutored by a SLICE Corps member. Last year he was very shy and
withdrawn. He was very adept verbally but not so at reading and writing. This year his
reading is better and he really enjoys writing. He's a real worker and seems to enjoy school
much more. [The student's] parents are very interested in his school progress. They are
willing to come whenever you call them and they spend time working with him on his school
work. He has thrived on the individual attention that only a SLICE Corps member could give
him."
Samuel W. Mason Elementary School, Boston, Massachusetts
Mason School, once cited in a 1990 Boston Herald article, with its then enrollment
of 133, as "The Least Chosen Elementary School In The City", turned itself around
through a variety of innovative approaches. The school has 296 students (43 percent
African-American, 23 percent Cape Verdian, 14 percent Latino, 13 percent white, 3
percent Asian-American, 2 percent Native American). Twenty-four percent of the
homes are non-English speaking. Reading has been a primary emphasis of Mason's
improvement efforts. Teaching teams include Reading Recovery and Resource
Room teachers. These teachers work with grade-level clusters in the morning to
reduce the student-teacher ratio from 26:1 to 13:1. In the afternoon, the team works
with the kindergarten and early childhood teachers in the early literacy program,
"Bright Start," in groups of nine students. Title I reaches all students and doubles the
time in reading instruction. Special attention is paid to learning styles, with emphasis
on accelerated reading instruction and problem-solving activities. In 1995, Boston
College's Urban District Assessment Consortium Project found that Mason's reading
performance exceeded the average score for the City of Boston and for the other 11
urban school systems in the project.
17
What It Means to Read Well by 4th Grade
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) defines three main levels of 4th-grade reading: basic,
proficient, and advanced, and they help explain what it means to read well by the 4th grade. The following
sample passage is from Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White. While not from the actual NAEP, it helps illustrate the
kinds of skills expected of students at each level of comprehending a work of fiction:
Having promised Wilbur that she would save his life, she was determined
to keep her promise. Charlotte was naturally patient. She knew from
experience that if she waited long enough, a fly would come to her web;
and she felt sure that if she thought long enough about Wilbur's problem,
an idea would come to her mind. Finally, one morning toward the middle
of July, the idea came. "Why how perfectly simple!" she said to herself.
"The way to save Wilbur's life is to play a trick on Zuckerman. If I can
fool a bug," thought Charlotte, "I can surely fool a man. People are not as
smart as bugs."
Students at the basic level are able to read the passage and tell what
Charlotte promised Wilbur.
Students at the proficient level are also able to describe why Charlotte
thought she could fool Zuckerman.
Students at the advanced level recognize that Charlotte compares waiting
for ideas to entrapping a fly.
The following sample item from the 1992 NAEP exam helps illustrate the kinds of
skills expected of students at each level in a text that presents information. The
passage is from Amanda Clement: The Umpire in a Skirt, by Marilyn Kratz.
It was a hot Sunday afternoon in Hawarden, a small town in western Iowa.
Amanda Clement was sixteen years old. She sat quietly in the grandstand
with her mother, but she imagined herself right out there on the baseball
diamond with the players. Back home in Hudson, South Dakota, her
brother Hank and his friends often asked her to umpire games. Sometimes
she was even allowed to play first base. Today, Mandy, as she was called,
could only sit and watch Hank pitch for Renville against Hawarden. The
year was 1904, and girls were not supposed to participate in sports.
Students at the basic level are able to read the passage and tell what
Mandy wanted to do.
Students at the proficient level are also able to describe what was getting
in the way of Mandy's dream.
Students at the advanced level are able to generalize about how Mandy's
experience might differ from a girl's experience today.
President Clinton's America Reads Challenge asks all Americans to pitch in and
help children read so that by the time they reach the 4th grade, they can at least read
at the "basic" level and many more than now are reading at the "proficient" level.
18
EARLY LEARNING
The latest research on the human brain and its development confirms what we have known for
decades -- that the early years of children's lives are critical to their cognitive, emotional and
physical development. Parents need to be their children's first teacher if their children are to start
at school ready to learn.
Since the beginning of the Clinton Administration, early childhood investment has been a top
priority. Over the last four years, the federal government has invested heavily in effective
programs, increasing funding for Head Start by 43 percent. The Clinton Administration is
committed to building on this progress to ensure that every parent is their child's first teacher and
every child arrives at school ready to learn.
Expanding Head Start
Head Start Helps Children Get Ready to Learn and Ready to Read. For more than 30
years, Head Start has been one of our nation's best investments in helping low-income
parents be their children's first teacher, and in making sure that children start school ready to
read and ready to learn. Head Start provides hundreds of thousands of three- and four-year
old children cognitive, social and language development, comprehensive health services and
healthy meals and nutrition. Head Start offers parenting skills, support, education and
training to parents seeking to improve their circumstances and their children's chances of
success.
President Clinton's Budget Expands Head Start Participation to 1 Million Three and
Four Year Olds. Today, 800,000 low-income children and their families -- but not all of
those who are eligible -- have a chance to benefit from Head Start. The President's budget
plan continues to expand enrollment so by the year 2002, one million of this nation's most
disadvantaged children and families will have the chance for a Head Start.
Head Start Works. Research findings overwhelmingly show that Head Start works. Last
year, a Packard Foundation study reviewed nearly 150 separate studies of the Head Start
program and concluded that it not only had the immediate impact of raising reading scores,
but had the lasting effect of making students less likely to be held back a grade, less likely to
be placed in special education classes, and more likely to graduate from high school. Even
later in life, former participants were less likely to go on welfare or enter the criminal justice
system.
19
Parental Involvement Is The Bedrock of Head Start. Last year more than 800,000 Head
Start parents demonstrated their commitment by volunteering in their local program. And
they get a great deal in return: Head Start staff work closely with parents to help them build
their skills, not only to become better parents but also to become contributing members of
their community. Parents are taught the importance of reading to their children. When
parents have difficulty reading, Head Start programs work with them to improve their
literacy skills.
Early Head Start and Quality Improvements Under the Clinton Administration. In 1994,
the Clinton Administration established the Early Head Start program, providing tens of
thousands of children ages zero to three and their families with family-centered and
community-based services. Over the last three years, the Clinton Administration has also
invested significantly in improving program quality, providing local programs with the
resources they need to attract and retain high quality teachers and to improve the quality and
safety of the Head Start centers.
Family Literacy is a New Priority in Head Start. Under new standards developed by the
Clinton Administration, family literacy is a new priority in Head Start -- all parents will be
offered training to help them be involved in their children's education and to help them be
their children's first teacher.
The America Reads Challenge Will Build on the Strong Foundation Provided by Head
Start. After-school and summer tutoring for young school-age children and for their older
siblings and parents builds on what Head Start begins. Through the Head Start Transition
Initiative, Head Start programs will dedicate at least one part-time staff person to work with
local school systems, parents, child care providers and other members of the community to
make sure children successfully make the transition from Head Start to public school.
Other Early Learning Opportunities
America Reads Parents As First Teachers Challenge Grants: To make sure that every
child can read well by the end of 3rd grade, the President's America Reads Challenge
includes Parents as First Teachers Challenge Grants that will invest in proven efforts to
provide assistance to parents who want to help ensure their children will read well. The
grants will fund national and regional networks to share information on how parents can
help children to read, and fund the expansion of successful local programs, such as the
Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) or the Parents as First
Teachers (PAT) program. The President's proposal includes $300 million over 5 years for
these grants.
White House Conference on Early Learning and The Brain. Thanks to the latest
scientific research and discoveries, we now know much more about a child's cognitive,
emotional and physical development in the first few years of life. For example, we now
20
know that reading to children in their first three years not only strengthens the emotional
bonds between a parent and a child and helps children learn words and concepts, but that it
actually stimulates their brain growth. The President and First Lady will convene a White
House conference this spring to explore the implications of these scientific discoveries and
research for parents and policy makers.
National Prescription for Reading Campaign. In December 1996, the First Lady
announced, along with representatives of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the
American Booksellers Association, the American Library Association, and the Reach Out
and Read program a national campaign to put books in the hands of parents who bring their
young children to the doctor, and to get doctors to prescribe daily reading. Doctors and
nurses across the country are beginning to "prescribe reading" to infants and young children
because they know the impact reading has on babies and young children, and they have a
unique opportunity at every check-up to encourage parents to read to their children daily.
Vice President's Conference on Family and Learning. In June, Vice President and Mrs.
Gore will hold their sixth annual family conference, this time on families and learning. We
know that children learn best when their parents are active partners in the process. The
conference will bring together leaders in the field of education, parents, teachers, and policy
makers to build on successful examples of partnerships between families, schools and
communities, including those that help children learn before they start school.
Partnership for Family Involvement in Education: Over 2,000 family, school, community,
employer and religious groups have joined with Secretary of Education Richard Riley to create
the Partnership for Family Involvement in Education. The Partnership's activities include
strengthening at-home activities that encourage reading, promoting and adopting family-friendly
business practices such as providing leave time to attend parent-teacher conferences and
volunteer in schools, and supporting learning communities through organized before- and after-
school and summer activities.
Goals 2000 Parent Resource Centers: In addition to involving parents in the development of
state and local Goals 2000 education plans, the President's Goals 2000 program provides
funding for each state to establish parent resource centers that help parents learn how to help
their children achieve high standards. The centers coordinate existing programs, provide
resource materials, and support a variety of promising models of family involvement programs.
In fiscal year 1997, $15 million in funding is available for support centers in 42 states, 14 more
than in 1996.
21
CHOICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN PUBLIC EDUCATION
One size does not fit all in American education. All students and their families need to be able to
choose a public school that meets their needs, and schools must be given more flexibility in
return for greater accountability to parents and the public for high standards. Public school
choice and public charter schools are especially promising strategies for expanding options and
accountability in public education.
Public School Choice
States and school districts should provide public school choice plans that give every
parent the ability to choose their child's public school. States and communities can provide
parents with their choice of school within a district, state, or even of smaller
schools-within-schools at their neighborhood public school. Local and state boards of
education can encourage and support the development of charter schools, magnet schools
and other choice strategies and undertake careful reviews of charter proposals to be sure
they are of the highest quality. The President has challenged states to provide parents with
more choice in their children's public education, and states and communities have been
responding.
Provide report cards on every school. States and school districts can publish in print and on
the Internet report cards on every school, providing parents the information they need to
choose their child's school. This can help parents compare things such as reading scores,
graduation rates, class size, courses offered, number of teachers with advanced certification,
safety records, and other key measures, with schools across the school district, state, and
country.
Public Charter Schools
Every state should pass a charter school law that enables parents and teachers to start
new public charter schools that stay open only as long as they do a good job. These
schools can be created by teachers, parents, community groups, businesses, universities,
museums, and others. Done right, they can be tailored to meet the needs of their students
and promote healthy competition within public education. State legislatures must enact
solid charter school laws to support the creation of a sizable number of high-performing
public charter schools, providing these schools with real flexibility while holding them
accountable for reaching high standards for all children. Five years ago, there was only one
charter school in America. Today, there are more than 400, and half the states have charter
school laws.
To support these efforts, the Clinton Administration, together with Congress, is
expanding start-up funding for charter schools. The Administration has proposed nearly
22
doubling the charter school start-up grant program to $100 million in FY 1998. The
President initiated this fund in 1994 to address the most commonly cited obstacle to creating
these schools-lack of access to start-up funding. The President's budget plan sets aside
enough funding to quickly bring more choices in public education to students and their
families, helping to start 3,000 charter schools over the next several years. The funding
requested for FY 1998 alone would support the development of about 1,000 charter schools
by teachers, parents, community groups, and other responsible organizations.
The Nation's First Charter School: A Teacher's Vision Becomes Reality
City Academy, in St. Paul, Minnesota, was the first charter school in the nation to open
its doors. Founded by two teachers with assistance from many of the first year students,
the school focuses on youth who have dropped out of school. City Academy, placing a
heavy emphasis on student responsibility and decision making, is a small school with a
personalized learning environment and has had significant success. Most of the students,
all former drop outs, have graduated and gone on to some kind of postsecondary
education. Like most charter schools in Minnesota, this school was started "from
scratch," rather than converted from an existing school. The school's director is also
helping teachers in other states to create charter schools.
The Clinton Administration will assist local teams of parents, teachers, community
leaders, and others to develop successful public charter schools. The Clinton
Administration will support regional meetings, helpful guidebooks, summer institutes, and a
World Wide Web site to help provide the information and assistance needed to start high-
quality schools, including developing the rigorous performance benchmarks by which
schools may be held accountable.
Accountability
Fix failing schools quickly and directly-even if it means closing them and then
reopening them in a way that meets the needs of students, parents, and communities.
Clear standards can be set to evaluate the success or failure of schools, and school districts
and states can intervene when schools are not meeting these standards. These efforts
should take advantage of the new approach to accountability in Title I of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act-the largest federal program in K-12 education-which now
requires states and school districts to intervene in low-performing schools with such
strategies as intensive technical assistance, mentoring, reconstituting failing schools, or
23
creating new charter schools.
School districts can support and reward principals and teachers who establish an atmosphere of
learning, a system of accountability, and a spirit of adventure that help students learn. At the
same time, school districts can find ways to improve or remove teachers or principals who are
not making the grade. In return for greater accountability, principals and teachers, in turn, should
be given the authority and support they need to do a good job.
Holding Schools Accountable for Results
Maryland has held its schools accountable for results by putting in place a system for taking
over schools with low student attendance rates and achievement on state assessments. Low-
performing schools are first given the opportunity to improve based on a state approved plan.
Though no schools have yet been taken over yet, the focus on accountability is making a
difference. After being identified as low-performing, Patterson High School in Baltimore
hired a new principal who focused her team on increasing student achievement by
reorganizing instruction and the school day. As a result, attendance has risen, more students
passed the state's graduation test, and more seniors graduated than in prior years.
Greater flexibility
In return for accountability, the Clinton Administration has pressed for greater flexibility
and local decision making in the use of federal program funds. Drawing on their
experiences as former governors, both President Clinton and Secretary of Education Richard
Riley came to Washington strongly committed to increasing flexibility for states and
communities, cuting red tape, and supporing states and communities in their own education
improvement efforts. Since 1993, they have implemented the Goals 2000 program with no
new regulations, cut nearly 80 percent of elementary and secondary education program
regulations, approved over 140 waivers of requirements of major federal education
programs, and cut the required paperwork to receive student loans. In addition, they have
given nine states the authority to grant waivers of federal requirements for their own school
districts and made over 20,000 schools eligible to combine most of their federal funds to
support schoolwide reform, freeing them from most federal requirements.
24
SAFE, DISCIPLINED, AND DRUG-FREE SCHOOLS
We cannot educate our children in schools where weapons, gang violence and drugs threaten
their safety. For students to learn well, their schools must be disciplined and feel safe. While
most schools do provide a secure learning environment, a growing number of schools in all types
of communities-urban, suburban, and rural-are experiencing problems with violence and with
alcohol and drug use.
Fortunately, schools, parents, and communities are finding practical ways to provide children the
safe and disciplined conditions they need and should expect to find in school, such as by
promoting smaller schools, respectful communities, fair and rigorously enforced discipline codes,
teacher training to deal with violence, school uniforms, and after-school programs that keep kids
productive and off the streets.
As a nation, we too must do everything possible to ensure that schools provide a safe and secure
environment where the values of discipline, hard work and study, responsibility, and respect can
thrive and be passed on to our children. We have a basic, old-fashioned bottom line. We must
get drugs and violence out of our schools, and we must put discipline and learning back in them.
Ensuring Safe, Disciplined and Drug-Free Schools
The Clinton Administration challenges all schools to have in place high standards of discipline
and behavior with tough measures to keep guns and drugs out: a "zero tolerance" policy. In
October 1994, the President signed into law the Gun-Free Schools Act, and issued a Presidential
Directive later that month to enforce "zero tolerance" in our schools: If a student brings a gun to
school, he or she does not come back for a year.
In last year's budget, the President
successfully protected the Safe and Drug-
Free Schools and Communities Program,
In 1994, the Long Beach, California School
which now provides school security, drug and
District implemented a mandatory school
violence prevention and education programs
uniform policy for nearly 60,000 elementary
in 97 percent of America's school districts.
and middle school students. District officials
found that in the year following
We must continue working to ensure that
implementation of the policy, overall crime
every child, every teacher, and the community
decreased 36 percent, fights decreased 51
can feel safe in and around the school
percent, sex offenses decreased 74 percent,
building.
weapons offenses decreased 50 percent,
assault and battery offenses decreased 34
Schools should consider adopting
percent and vandalism decreased 18 percent.
uniform policies. School uniforms are
25
one way to deter school violence, promote discipline and foster a better learning
environment. The Administration sent a Manual on School Uniforms to the nation's 16,000
school districts last year. The manual is a road map for communities and schools that want
children in their schools to wear uniforms and is a vital source of information about
successful programs.
Communities should enforce truancy laws. One of the most effective ways to reduce
juvenile crime is to crack down on truancy. The Administration has also provided every
school district in the country with a Manual to Combat Truancy to help communities
establish fair and effective laws to reduce truancy and keep kids in school and off the
streets.
Keep schools open late. The President's budget includes a new initiative to provide
additional safe havens and extended learning opportunities for children and their families at
schools around the country. The initiative will help highlight how after-school, summer and
weekend programs in Community Learning Centers can get us "back to basics" and foster
active community involvement. Keeping schools open late can help give young people a
safe haven from gangs and drugs, and provide peace of mind for working parents.
Bringing in Parents to Increase Safety
Fathers at Beech Grove City Schools in Indiana have joined together to be "Security Dads"
attending school-sponsored sporting events, dances and other student activities. "Security
Dads" ensure proper behavior, evict troublemakers when necessary, and generally keep the
peace. As a result of this effort, parental involvement in their children's education has
increased and student behavior has improved.
Making Schools Places for Values, Not Violence
Schools are a place for values, not violence. They must teach the basic American values of
respect, hard work, and good citizenship.
Promoting character education as part of every curriculum. We cannot raise standards in
every other subject if we fail to teach our children good values and how to be good citizens.
Toward this end, the President has hosted two White House Conferences on Character
Education and has encouraged the development of character education through the
Improving America's Schools Act.
26
Protecting the religious freedom of students and reaching out to America's religious
community to support the learning of young people. With the support of a diverse group
of religious and school leaders, Education Secretary Riley issued guidelines in August 1995
making clear that students' religious rights do not end at the schoolhouse door. As a result
of these guidelines, the National School Boards Association has reported a dramatic drop in
the need to help school officials clarify what is allowed in public schools when its students
practice their religion. In addition, 33 religious communities representing 75 percent of
religiously affiliated Americans signed onto the Partnership for Family Involvement in
Education. Two successful religion and education local summits also brought together
religious leaders, school officials, and the leadership of community organizations and
businesses.
Promoting greater parental involvement. Thirty years of research shows that greater
parental involvement in children's learning is a critical link to achieving a high-quality
education for every student. Through the Partnership for Family Involvement in Education,
the Department of Education has played a critical role in helping schools to be more
welcoming and inviting to families; encouraging employers to provide ways for parents and
employees to be involved in education, including volunteering in their local schools; and
expanding the support that youth, community, cultural and religious groups are giving to
back greater family involvement in education. Over 2,000 employers, schools, religious,
and community groups-including the Urban League, Hadassah and Pizza Hut-have
joined the Partnership and have pledged to support the education of children and the
involvement of their parents.
Service in Support of Safety
In Los Angeles, AmeriCorps members are working with thousands of students to reduce
school violence. AmeriCorps members mentor and tutor 2,000 community youth, train
them in conflict resolution skills, and help establish after school programs.
Promoting community service by high school and college students through Learn and
Serve and AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps is the new domestic Peace Corps that involves
Americans of all ages getting things done to meet community needs. In just two years,
AmeriCorps has given more than 50,000 Americans an opportunity to serve their country.
The vast majority of AmeriCorps members are working on the critical problems of children
and youth. They tutor, mentor, organize after-school programs, teach violence and drug
prevention, and organize safe havens and safe corridor programs. National service
promotes core values of hard work, self discipline, and personal responsibility. It
27
encourages people to give something back to their country. And it teaches its members to
take responsibility for others, not just for a year, but for a lifetime.
Through Learn and Serve America, more than a half million students from kindergarten
through graduate school are helping their communities and proving their academic skills in
the process. They are learning citizenship in a direct and vital way, not by textbooks, but by
service, by working on real problems in society. The skills and habits they develop—
teamwork, self-discipline, initiative-will help them become productive workers as well as
responsible citizens. We must spread and develop this idea in every school, college and
university, to engage an increasing number of students in America.
The Clinton Administration challenges all students, schools, parents, communities, religious and
other groups to do what they can to make all our schools safe, disciplined and drug-free
environments to engage and motivate students to learn, and to teach the values of hard work and
respect.
28
SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION AND MODERNIZATION
American schools face the twin pressures of rising enrollment and deteriorating buildings. To be
ready for the 21st Century, our children's schools should be safe and spacious places to learn.
The schools of the future should be equipped with computers, new media and state-of-the-art
science labs. Clean, well-maintained, up-to-date schools send every student a clear message: you
are important to us. We take your education seriously. In order to keep faith with our children,
we must ensure that our schools are prepared for the next century.
Distressingly, today our nation's schools, many built 50 years ago, are increasingly run-down,
overcrowded and technologically ill-equipped. Too many school buildings and classrooms are
literally a shambles. According to a report of the General Accounting Office, one-third of our
schools need major repair or outright replacement; 60 percent need work on major building
features-a sagging roof, or a cracked foundation; and 46 percent lack even the basic electrical
wiring to support computers, modems, and modern communications technology. These
problems are found all across America, in cities and suburbs and one-stoplight towns.
We have high expectations of our students, teachers and schools. But we cannot expect our
children and our teachers to build strong lives on a crumbling foundation. In order to keep faith
with our children, we must ensure that our schools are prepared for the next century. This is a
matter of real urgency. This year our schools opened their doors to the largest number of
students in the history of our republic-51.7 million. And enrollment is expected to continue to
rise over the next ten years, breaking all previous enrollment records.
Because of the unique circumstance of record enrollments and often run-down school buildings,
the President has proposed that the federal government for the first time join with states and
communities to modernize and renovate our public schools. The President's budget calls for $5
billion over the next four years to help pay for up to half the interest that local school districts
incur on school construction bonds, or for other forms of assistance that will spur new state and
local infrastructure investment. This financing assistance can help to spur $20 billion in new
resources for school modernization-a 25 percent increase above current levels over the next
four years.
29
This school construction initiative is
The Broward County, Florida, Public
flexible. It will give communities and
Schools already ranks among the largest
states the power to decide how to use the
school systems in the nation with more than
new resources. It will help those who
218,000 students, and it continues to grow at
help themselves-requiring local
a phenomenal rate (the district estimates it is
communities to take responsibility for this
adding 10,000 more students a year).
effort. And it will focus on sparking new
Although the district added 37 new schools
projects, not merely subsidizing existing
and refurbished many existing schools over
ones.
the past seven years, the district's projected
capital needs over the next seven years total
The federal government will do its part by
$2.4 billion. Funding from identifiable
subsidizing the interest that communities
sources to date totals only $1 billion, leaving
incur on school construction bonds or
a shortfall of $1.4 billion. The county's use
other financing mechanisms - making it
of 2,144 portable classrooms has earned it
cheaper and easier for communities to
the nickname "the portable capital of the
finance school construction.
world." Thousands of other students attend
Communities- with appropriate
classes in areas intended to be music and
assistance from states-must do their part
science rooms, labs or auditoriums.
by making a commitment in investing in
Meanwhile, the space crunch is impeding the
their schools. They must approve and
system's efforts to make greater use of
pay for local bond issues needed to repair
technology in the classroom, including
old schools and build new ones. And they
meeting the superintendent's goal of
must provide adequate maintenance for
providing a minimum of four computers in
today's schools so that they can continue
every classroom for student use and one
to serve students into the next century.
computer for teacher use.
30
OPENING WIDE THE DOORS OF COLLEGE
Today, more than ever before in our history, education is the fault line between those who will
prosper in the new economy and those who will not. Most of today's good jobs require more
skills and training than a high school diploma affords. Over half the new jobs created in the last
three years have been managerial and professional jobs requiring higher-level skills. Fifteen
years ago the typical worker with a college degree made 38 percent more than a worker with a
high school diploma. Today, that figure is 73 percent. Two years of college means a 20 percent
increase in annual earnings. People who finish two years of college earn a quarter of a million
dollars more than their high school counterparts over a lifetime.
One of the great challenges of our time is making the dramatic economic changes occurring all
over the world benefit our young people and open opportunities for our older adults as well.
While many people were managing to find education and training that prepared them for high-
skilled jobs without a college degree, too many young people lost their way between high school
and the world of work. And for those who are academically prepared for college, the cost limits
access for many working families and middle-income families, just as it does for low-income
families. The average cost of a public college increased from 9 percent of the typical family's
income in 1979 to 14 percent in 1994.
We must make two years of college-the 13th and 14th years of education-as universal for
young Americans as the first 12 are today. And, we must make college more affordable for all
Americans. To support these goals, the President has already initiated an unprecedented college
opportunity strategy that will make college more accessible and affordable to Americans than at
any time in their lives, while also reducing fraud and abuse and reducing costs to taxpayers.
Over the next five years, the President's budget will more than double the federal
commitment to postsecondary education from the time he entered office-going from $24
billion a year in 1993 to $58 billion in 2002-opening up the doors to college for millions of
students.
The Direct Lending Program
The Direct Loan program, signed into law by President Clinton in 1993, gives student loans
directly to people who need them, with new flexible repayment plans. This dramatic change is
making loans to students and their families more affordable and debt more manageable,
providing borrowers and participating schools with a simple, more automated and accountable
system, while saving taxpayers billions of dollars. In its third successful year, the program will
provide $10 billion in loans at over 1,600 schools. More than 2.1 million student and parent
borrowers have received direct loans since the program began. During the 1996-97 academic
year, it is expected that Direct Loans will make up approximately 36 percent of federal student
loans.
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An important aspect of the new Direct Loan program is that it provides students the ability to
repay their loans as a percentage of their income -- income-contingent repayment -- to
encourage community service, and to make debt more manageable and to reduce defaults. As of
November 1996, nearly 100,000 borrowers with loans totaling $1.5 billion have consolidated
into direct lending. About three-quarters of these borrowers are selecting non-standard repayment
options with 52 percent selecting income-contingent repayment.
Through the legislation that created the Direct Student Loan program we were able in 1993 to
reduce by 50 percent (from 8 percent to 4 percent) the student loan fees that lenders and
guarantee agencies were allowed to levy on student borrowers. But we need to do more. We
propose to further reduce these fees in both the new Direct Student Loan and the older Federal
Family Education Loan programs, cutting loan fees from 4 percent to just 2 percent on need-
based Stafford loans, and to 3 percent on other loans for students and parents. Furthermore,
because the Congressional Budget Office and other analysts have noted that lender costs are very
low during the in-school period, when students are not required to make payments on their loans,
we propose to reduce the interest rate paid to lenders during that period by one percentage point.
Increasing Grant Aid Available to Students - Pell Grants
The Administration has worked hard to increase funding for student financial aid programs. Aid
available to students increased by $12 billion between 1993 and 1997-an increase of 48 percent.
This year, aid available to students will increase by an additional $3.4 billion for a record total of
$36 billion (excluding consolidation loans) benefiting an estimated 8.1 million students in 1998.
Pell Grants are the most important form of student financial aid for the nation's neediest
students. In the decade preceding 1992, funding for this critical program did not keep pace with
inflatio, which seriously eroded the Pell Grants' purchasing power. The Clinton Administration
began immediately in 1993 to restore fiscal integrity to this program at a time when it had been
allowed to accumulate a projected internal program deficit of over $2 billion. After eliminating
that program deficit, the President secured bipartisan support for the largest Pell Grant increase in
recent history, a $230 increase (9 percent) in the maximum grant to $2,700 by FY97. This
represents a full $400 increase, more than 17 percent, in the maximum grant since 1993.
We now are proposing to increase the maximum award from $2,700 to $3,000, as well as greatly
expand eligibility to older independent students. Increasing the maximum award to $3,000
provides more aid to currently eligible students, and makes an additional 130,000 students
eligible for the grants. The President's budget also expands the eligibility of low income
students age 24 and older. This change will make an additional 218,000 students eligible for Pell
Grants, and expand aid for over 890,000 students by an average of $800. These changes,
contained in the President's balanced budget, will increase Pell Grant funding by $1.7 billion in
fiscal year 1998, a more than 25 percent increase over current funding levels.
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HOPE Scholarship and Other Tax Benefits: Making the 13th and 14th years of
education-at least two years of college-as universal in America as high school is today.
The President's plan includes five tax benefits for middle-class students and families that accept
the responsibility to pursue additional education for their children and themselves. We believe
that not only will these students and families reap substantial personal and financial benefits
from these education incentives, but these investments will also pay a huge long-term dividend to
the country. For much of the 20th century, tax policies included incentives to invest in capital
and equipment. At the beginning of the 21st century-the education and information age-we
must create incentives to invest long term in education and human capacity.
HOPE Scholarships. A centerpiece of President Clinton's HOPE and Opportunity Agenda for
higher education is the proposed HOPE Scholarship tax credit, which offers two years of
tuition at the typical community college for any student enrolled at least half-time. It provides
students with a maximum $1,500 tax credit for tuition and required fees in their first year, and
another $1,500 in their second year if they work hard, stay off drugs, and earn at least a B minus
average in their first year. This $1,500 tax credit will pay the full cost of tuition at a typical
community college-essentially making community college free or nearly so for every student.
In 1998, this credit is expected to help 4.2 million middle-income students pay for college.
Although the HOPE Scholarship tax credit is priced to pay the full cost of two years of tuition at
a typical community college, the credit can be applied to tuition at any college, including four-
year public and private colleges. The credit would be a substantial down payment for parents
sending their children to four-year colleges with higher tuition. Students receiving tax credits
would still be eligible for other federal student aid, including student loans, Pell Grants, and
Work Study. However, the maximum tax credit would be $1,500 minus any federal grants
awarded to the student.
The proposal builds on the enormously successful HOPE Scholarship program in Georgia,
which guarantees any student in the state of Georgia free college as long as they have earned a B
average and stay off drugs. This year the scholarships are helping 80,000 students-including 70
percent of the freshman class at the University of Georgia.
The HOPE scholarship tax credit will help open the doors of college opportunity to every
American who works hard and makes the grade, regardless of that student's ability to pay, since
education at the typical community college will now essentially be free. The program also makes
it clear that with opportunity comes the responsibility to work hard and achieve at a high level.
This benefit will initially be available without restrictions tied to previous academic performance
but the continued benefit will be reserved for those people who, by definition, are willing to work
for it. It's America's most basic bargain: we as a nation will help create opportunity if you'll take
responsibility.
$10,000 Tax Deduction for Education and Training. We have also proposed a tax deduction
33
of up to $10,000 per family per year for tuition and fees (minus grants) for college, graduate
school, community college and certified training and technical programs. In 1998, 8.1 million
students stand to benefit from this proposal for tax relief in 1998.
Students eligible for both the tax credit and the tax deduction would choose one or the other,
although students benefiting from the tax credit in the first two years would still be eligible for
the deduction in later years. Because the tax proposals are meant to help working families and
low- and middle-income students pay for college, eligibility for both the tax credit and the tax
deduction would be phased out for joint tax filers with incomes between $80,000 and $100,000
and for individual filers with incomes between $50,000 and $70,000.
Tax-Free Education Savings Accounts. We have proposed greater flexibility in using
Individual Retirement Accounts so that all funds saved in these accounts can be used for
postsecondary education expenses free from early withdrawal tax penalties. In addition, our
proposal makes more than 20 million families eligible for tax-deductible IRA contributions by
substantially extending the income cutoffs for IRA participation. Currently, if an individual or
spouse participates in an employer's retirement plan, eligibility is phased out for taxpayers filing
a joint return with adjusted gross income between $40,000 and $50,000 (between $25,000 and
$35,000 for single taxpayers). The proposal would expand the phase-out ranges to match the
ranges described for the HOPE Scholarship tax credit and $10,000 deduction. Families who save
through an expanded IRA, and then use the savings for higher education, can deduct up to
$10,000 of their withdrawals a year, making savings for college virtually tax free for middle-
class families.
Tax-Free Forgiveness of Educational Debt for Public Service and Income-Contingent
Student Loan Repayment. We propose that the tax law be changed to allow that the
forgiveness of a student loan extended by a charity or educational institution not be counted as
income, if it is forgiven as part of a program that enables graduates to work in public service
professions. We also plan to apply the same tax treatment to forgiveness provided through our
income-contingent repayment plan.
Extension of Tax Benefit to Employees Who Receive Employer-Provided Education
Assistance (Section 127). We propose reinstating through the year 2000 the current exclusion
from an employee's income of up to $5,250 per year of postsecondary educational assistance
provided by an employer for undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, for 1998-2000,
small businesses would be given a new incentive to provide educational assistance to their
employees through a 10 percent tax credit for amounts paid under an employer-provided
educational assistance program for education provided by a third party.
Other Forms of Aid
National Service Corps. Through creation of the National Service Corps, more than 70,000
34
AmeriCorps members have been able to provide service throughout the country to work on
projects to tutor children to read and learn and to improve the environment, health services, and
community policing. This creative new program is helping to regenerate an ethic of community
service in this country, particularly for a generation of young adults who were at risk of becoming
further alienated from the powerful societal needs of a sense of community and commitment to
those communities. The participants also receive scholarships or loan forgiveness for
postsecondary education, in return for their service.
Work-Study helps students earn money while they are in school. The President proposed a
multi-year plan to increase funding for this valuable federal program by 50 percent by the year
2002, so that 1 million students will be able to attain part-time employment. With strong
bipartisan support from the Congress we received an exceptional one-year increase of 35 percent
for FY 1997. This increase is substantial enough to allow an increase in the wages for student
workers, an expansion of traditional work study opportunities, and, perhaps most important, to
expand higher education's commitment to community service activities. To this end, the
President has challenged the higher education community to use one-half of the college work
study increase for community service, including to tutor young children in reading. Indeed, the
Secretary of Education has issued regulations to waive the match for those who use work-study
funds to help tutor young children to read.
Presidential Honors Scholarship. We propose a Presidential Honors Scholarship that further
emphasizes the importance of student achievement. This program would award one-year, $1,000
scholarships to the top 5 percent of graduating high school students in every high school in the
nation. We need to send a message to every high school in America that we are serious about
excellence.
***
Reducing Fraud and Abuse. The Administration has made aggressive accountability and
oversight efforts to remove ineffective schools from the student financial aid programs, both
protecting students and ensuring accountability for taxpayer funds. The U.S. Department of
Education's efforts, along with new statutory controls and lender and guarantor efforts, have cut
the student loan default rate by more than one-half, from 22.4 percent for the FY90 cohort to
10.7 percent for the FY94 cohort. About 700 institutions have been eliminated from eligibility to
participate in the federal student assistance programs, in an effort to assure that students
benefitting from these valuable programs receive a good education as well. At the same time, the
U.S. Department of Education has reduced the administrative burden on participating institutions
by streamlining our regulations and by reengineering our administrative processes to make them
less intrusive and more effective.
35
A call to parents, schools, colleges and universities to help students take advantage of these
expanded options.
Although the federal government can expand options for paying for college, it will be up to
students, parents, families, communities, colleges and universities, and states to make them
work.
Students must work hard, play by the rules, and assume responsibility for obtaining the
education they will need to get a job and succeed in life.
Parents must make sure their children have the classes they need to get into college and
take advantage of the savings afforded by the tax policies to help support their children once
there.
Schools can make sure students (as early as in middle school) and their families understand
the options available for paying for college and make sure students take the classes and
obtain the skills they need to enroll and succeed in college.
Colleges and universities must contain costs of postsecondary education to assure that the
benefits of these increases in federal support accrue to the intended beneficiaries-students
and their families.
States can build on the HOPE Scholarship plan by making scholarships available for four
years of college for students who maintain a B average.
36
LIFELONG LEARNING
A G.I. Bill for America's Workers
A centerpiece of President Clinton's G.I. Bill for America's Workers has been our proposal to
fundamentally reform the current federal job-training system. We have proposed consolidating at
least 70 separate job training programs, replacing them with an integrated system that minimizes
red tape and maximizes individual choice in each local community. Unemployed workers and
workers in transition from one job to another would receive Skill Grants of up to $3,000 to use as
they choose to learn new skills to find new and better jobs.
We would provide these workers access -- through computerized networks open to all and One-
Stop Career Centers already operating in many states -- to reliable information on jobs, careers,
skill sets required for those jobs, and the success records of various training institutions, so that
they can make informed choices about how best to improve their futures.
For our youth, federal education, training, and employment programs will be reshaped to support
the community-based school-to-work activities that have evolved in response to the innovative
School-to-Work initiative we began in 1994. These programs enable high schools, colleges, and
the private sector to offer all youth academically rigorous school- and work-based learning
opportunities and so that all youth graduate with the skills and habits of mind to benefit from
college education, lifelong learning, and rewarding careers.
Preparing Academically for College
To get ahead and navigate these changing times, our middle and high school students today need
to be preparing to go to at least two years of college and probably go back to college,
postsecondary training programs, and universities, several more times in their lifetime to
continually upgrade their skills and knowledge. That means our elementary and secondary
schools need to raise their standards for promotion and graduation. They need to make mastering
the basics universal and strengthen all of their core subjects from science to American history
and from the arts to foreign languages. Students can get on the path to college by mastering
successfully not only basic math but the essentials of algebra and geometry by the eighth grade.
High schools need to eliminate their general track and replace it with advance placement and
tech-prep classes. Students need to be preparing for college courses. That's why the President in
his 1998 budget is supporting expansion of advanced placement courses, raising standards for
students, teachers and schools and continuing support for tech-prep.
The School-to-Work Opportunities Act, signed by President Clinton in 1994, also creates a
pathway for many young people who cannot see the relevance of what they're doing in the
classrooms to the world of work and thus get bored and tune out. When the barrier between
37
academic learning and vocational education is broken, when work-based learning and
school-based learning are linked, these students not only stay in school, but they become engaged
in learning and do better and continue on to college.
Students at the Oakland Health and Bioscience Academy in Oakland, California
learn all aspects of the health care industry. Their knowledge of health care includes
planning, management, finance, technical and production skills, technology, labor
issues, community issues, safety, and environmental issues. They gain this broad
understanding through a variety of learning experiences and teaching techniques.
Interactive career explorations and a 200-hour hospital internship in the 11th and 12th
grades expose them to the business, administrative, and clinical departments of a health
care facility. Students also create work-based learning portfolios, which include
reflective journal entries and works samples keyed to health career standards. Projects
offer an opportunity to explore different aspects of health care and their relationship.
Projects may simulate the decision-making processes of a health care provider-for
example, reading a case study of a lead-poisoned child, interpreting the results of lab
tests, and creating a medical management plan. Student teams may explore health care
delivery systems by planning a school-based clinic, and operating a student-run health
education center.
All 50 states have received grants under School-to-Work to plan comprehensive training and
education and apprenticeship systems. By late 1996, 37 states had made sufficient progress in
their planning efforts to receive 5-year grants for implementing their plans. Over 500,000 young
people in 1,800 schools throughout the nation are participating in school-to-work systems that
integrate academic and vocational instruction and provide work-based learning, preparing them
for one to two years of college or more and careers. Over 135,000 employers have been involved
in these efforts.
The support of the business community and state and local governments is essential to maintain
local and state school-to-work systems that will help ensure a pathway to the middle class for
most Americans.
38
TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY
Just as 100 years ago the nation struggled with the transition from an agrarian to an industrial
economy, today we confront the transition from an industrial to a global, technological economy.
Technology - the World Wide Web, computer-aided design, word processing, data processing,
electronic transfers - has become an engine of our economic growth and has fundamentally
changed the ways we learn, how we do business, and the skills students in America need to
flourish in the world of work. States, communities, business, families and teachers need to
ensure that by the dawn of the next century every classroom in America is connected to the
information superhighway with high-quality computers, creative software, and well-trained
teachers.
Today, technological literacy-computer skills and the ability to use computers and other
technology to improve learning, productivity and performance-is a new basic that our students
must master. Preparing our children for a lifetime of computer use is now just as essential as
teaching them to read and write and do math. Every major U.S. industry has begun to rely
heavily on computers and telecommunications to do its work.
Technology also enriches education. Children with access to computers and trained teachers can
learn faster and learn better. In some cases, scores on standardized tests of basic skills for
children taught with computers rise by 10 to 15 percent compared to the scores of those taught
using conventional instruction. With computers, students can learn at their own pace and
practice as much as they need to. For students with disabilities, technology such as word
processing and speech recognition can give them the tools they need to participate fully in
challenging academic courses. Children master basic skills in 30 percent less time than would
normally have been the case. Using technology, quality software and good teachers, students can
also learn differently. For example, instead of reading about the human circulatory system in a
book and seeing textbook pictures, students can use technology to see blood moving through
veins and arteries, watch the process of oxygen entering the bloodstream, and experiment to
understand the effects of cholesterol on blood flow, gaining a better understanding of these
processes.
Despite the importance and promise of technology, America's schools are not yet prepared for
the technological era. About half of all teachers have little or no experience at all with
technology in the classroom. Only 4 percent of schools have a computer for every five
students-a ratio that allows regular use by each student. Only 9 percent of classrooms have
connections to the Internet.
The goal we have presented cannot be set and cannot be achieved unless we all work together. It
can only be met with communities, businesses, governments, teachers, parents and students all
joining together-in a sense, a high-tech barn-raising.
39
Technology in Support of Reform
A partnership between the Union City, N.J. school district and Atlantic Bell turned
around a failing middle school. Christopher Columbus Middle School demonstrates
how technology can improve student performance. Every classroom has several
computers and students and teachers have computers at home so that they - and
parents - can communicate with each other, get assignments and do homework. As a
result of intensive use of technology, reading, math and writing scores are up
significantly. Moreover, the school, which had a high absenteeism rate, now has the
best attendance record in the district.
Beginning in 1995, President Clinton challenged the nation's parents, teachers, government,
community, and business leaders to work together to ensure that all children in America are
technologically literate by the dawn of the 21st century-equipped with the communication,
math, science, and critical thinking skills essential for the 21st-century economy. He established
the four pillars of his technology literacy agenda:
1.
Connect every school and classroom in America to the information superhighway;
2.
Provide access to modern computers for all teachers and students;
3.
Develop effective and engaging software and on-line learning resources as an integral
part of the school curriculum; and
4.
Provide all teachers the training and support they need to help students learn through
computers and the information superhighway.
The response to the President's challenge was immediate and came from all parts of the
American community. While much remains to be done, an enormous amount has already been
accomplished and steady progress continues to be made.
The Private Sector Response. CEO's of some of the nation's largest and most innovative
technology and telecommunication companies have responded to the President's challenge by
contributing resources and energy to work in partnership with schools and communities in
meeting all four of the President's goals.
In October, the President announced the U.S. Tech Corp, a volunteer organization which enables
high-tech workers from the private sector to assist teachers and schools to put the information
age at the fingertips of their students.
America's Technology Literacy Challenge. In his 1996 State of the Union Address, President
Clinton asked Congress to fund a $2 billion, five-year Technology Literacy Challenge designed
to catalyze state, local, and private sector partnerships in each state to achieve the four
educational technology goals and to spur substantial additional private, state and local investment
in education technology. Congress supported the President's request for first-year funding and
40
appropriated $200 million for grants to states to launch this challenge. States will develop a
strategy for using the funds to achieve the President's four goals and for ensuring that no
students-especially students in low-income areas and students with special needs— are left
behind. The Challenge builds on the Secretary of Education's National Plan, Getting America's
Students Ready for the 21st Century, Meeting the Technology Literacy Challenge. The
President's FY 1998 Budget calls for more than double funding to $425 million.
The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE)
program is a national and international hands-on environmental science and
educational program that officially started on Earth Day 1995. GLOBE uses scientific
instruments and state-of-the-art technology to make science relevant to today's K-12
students. Through GLOBE, students conduct an array of measurements and
observations at their schools and share their data via the Internet with other students
and scientists around the world to detail an environmental picture of the globe. Vice
President Al Gore articulated his vision of the GLOBE program in his book, Earth in
Balance. He proposed a program "involving as many countries as possible that will
use school teachers and their students to monitor the entire earth
The Technology Innovation Challenge Grants. This component of the technology literacy
challenge invites school systems, colleges, universities, and private businesses to form
partnerships to develop creative new ways to use technology for learning. These local innovation
grants focus on integrating innovative learning technologies to improve teaching and learning.
Each federal dollar is matched by more than 3 to 1 by local and private funds. The 19 consortia
funded in FY95 out of 500 proposals are reaching schools with 1.2 million students and involve
partnerships with businesses, museums, libraries, and parks in school systems around the nation.
An additional 24 partnerships funded in FY96 will allow 24 school districts to work in
partnership with a total of 153 other school districts and 130 businesses in 34 states. Another
$57 million will be available for the program in FY97 to support a third round of grants and
FY98 will call for $75 million -- a more than 30% increase.
Universal and Affordable Access to Advanced Telecommunications. President Clinton
signed into law the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which ensures that all U.S. schools,
libraries, hospitals, and clinics have affordable access to advanced telecommunications services.
The President called on the Federal Communications Commission's regulators to ensure that
every school and library has access to the information superhighway and in November 1996, the
Federal/State Joint Board on Universal Service unanimously recommended that schools and
libraries receive discounts for telecommunications services, Internet access, and internal
connections. If approved by the FCC, the average discount would be about 60 percent, and
one-third of all schools and libraries will receive discounts of 80 to 90 percent.
41
NetDays. The President and Vice President launched an historic effort to mobilize communities
of volunteers to connect classrooms to the Internet. As a result, on March 9, 1996, the President
and Vice President and more than 20,000 volunteers laid 6 million feet of cable connecting
thousands of California schools with the technology needed to link classrooms, libraries, and
laboratories to the information superhighway. This effort sparked an enormous response around
the nation and in the fall of 1996 over 40 states organized and participated in NetDays, wiring
over 25,000 schools, using over 250,000 volunteers. More NetDays are scheduled for this year.
21st Century Teachers. The new technology cannot make much of an impact on learning
unless teachers help find creative new ways to exploit its power and make the new tools an
integral part of their teaching. The teachers, and the organizations that support teachers, all
stepped forward earlier this year to work together to meet the President's challenge. The National
School Boards Association, the National PTA, the National Education Association, the American
Federation of Teachers, and many other business and professional organizations have launched
this initiative to recruit thousands of teacher volunteers who will improve their own
understanding of how to use education technology and share their expertise with at least five of
their peers during the coming school year.
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From I HARARE STAFF OFFICE FAX No I 703576
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HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
GUEST COLUMN FOR NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE
FOR PUBLICATION APRIL 1997
Sometimes it seems that time hasn't always been an ally to us parents. As
Bill and I have discovered at every birthday and every milestone in our
daughter Chelsea's life, months and years fly much faster than we ever want.
Like other parents bracing themselves for a child's departure for college, we
ask ourselves every day: "How did the baby we brought home from the
hospital grow up SO fast?" "Is there any way we can move the White House to
her college campus?" "Can't she just take correspondence courses and live at
home?"
Of course, we know that Chelsea is ready to begin a new phase of her life
and that college will be a great experience. But it still doesn't keep us from
reviewing the past 17 years and wondering if we've made the most of every
minute to prepare her for the challenges of adulthood.
As science is now telling us, some of the most important preparation we
can give our children takes place during the earlicst years of life. New research
has confirmed what many parents have known instinctively: Infants begin
learning the minute they are born. They are acutely aware of their
surroundings and their brains crave and absorb all sorts of stimulation.
Recently we have learned that the combination of intellectual and emotional
interactions with infants and toddlers - holding a child in your lap while
reading a story, for example -- is crucial to their learning and emotional
development.
Although Bill and I didn't realize it at the time, the countless hours we
spent cuddling with Chelsea and reading her favorite stories not only
strengthened our relationship with her but literally helped her brain grow.
Unfortunately, too many children are still missing this early stimulation.
Just half of all infants and toddlers in our country are routinely read to by
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their parents or other adults. Over the years I have met parents who tell me
they never really talk to their babies because babies can't understand what
they are saying. I've also met parents who thought that they couldn't read well
enough themselves to read to a child.
We must help parents understand that, no matter their educational level
or reading ability, they can stimulate their children's cognitive and emotional
development by talking to and reading to their children, even if they stumble
over a few words here or there. Most likely, their children won't even notice.
But they will notice the power of reading and books to take them on fascinating
adventures and introduce them to the world of words and ideas. And just as
important, they will notice the time a parent has set aside to be with them, to
hold them close, and to share in a nurturing activity.
Earlier this year, I announced a nationwide effort to encourage early
reading in homes across our country. I believe that few efforts can make a
more dramatic difference over the next 10 years than to persuade parents of
all educational and economic backgrounds to take this mission of reading,
talking - and even singing - to babies more seriously.
At the same time, parents shouldn't go overboard. A friend of mine told
me that he became so obsessed with making sure that he and his son finished
reading two books a day that he rarely stopped for questions or allowed his son
to look closely at the pictures. And mothers and fathers don't need to feel that
they have to rush out and read the latest scientific paper on human brain
development for exact instructions on how to interact with their children.
The point is that learning is a life-long proposition - one that, in the best
of worlds, begins at the earliest stages and continues on for years. Yes, the first
three years of life are crucial, but they are not the only time that parents need
to be engaged with their children or help them develop the skills they need to
progress in the world. We should not use this new research to ignore the
learning needs of older children and adults. I thought about this recently when
I visited Robben Island in South Africa, the prison where President Nelson
Mandela and other political prisoners were jailed for many years. While doing
hard labor in a nearby limestone quarry, literate prisoners taught their fellow
inmates to read by writing letters and words in the dust with their shovels and
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picks. One prisoner who learned to read that way went on to educate himself
and now and is a top official in the South African government.
My greatest hope is that we can find effective ways to apply the
knowledge we are gaining from science and make it more easily available to
parents. This month, the President and I are convening a first-ever White
House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning. Our aim is
to bring together parents, scientists, policy makers, educators, business leaders
and childcare providers to discuss the new research on the brain and early
childhood development and determine how we can deliver this information to
more homes.
explore
Many things can conspire against parents as they try to provide children
with the attention and stimulation they need to develop. Parents are often
stretched for time and resources, and can use all the help they can get.
As I've been saying for years, it does take a village to raise a child.
That's why we can all work together to make sure parents have the tools they
need to raise their children - whether it is providing information about the
importance of reading and talking to children in the early years, strengthening
prenatal care, expanding Head Start or ensuring access to affordable, high-
quality child care.
Our children have so much potential to grow and thrive. Wherever there
is patience, love and commitment, the window of opportunity for raising a
healthy, happy, and well-adjusted child never closes.
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