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Education Convocation - University of Virginia 9/27/89 [OA 4390] [1]
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25
6
5
3
9-27-89
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
26 P 8
Sept. 26, 1989
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT
Through:
CHRISS WINSTON
3
PiT
From:
MARK DAVIS MD
Subject:
Convocation Address/Education Summit
more
I. SUMMARY:
You will address the governors, your Cabinet, University of
Virginia faculty, students and members of the Charlottesville
community at University Hall, a sports arena. It is
approximately 22 minutes in length, and will be teleprompted.
II. DISCUSSION:
This speech is both a philosophical overview of your
approach to education, and a direct presentation of the results
of the intensive two-day meeting: national goals, more
flexibility from Washington and the states, and more
accountability for all. It also presents five key areas Dr.
Porter suggests for turning around our educational system.
summt is
not This aliot
I
it is
is
alon
Darly
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Davis/Martin
Sept. 26, 1989
Draft: Seven
09 SEP 2 27 A10 : 20
Title: eduprez
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS:
CONVOCATION, UNIV. OF VIRGINIA
Thursday, Sept. 28, 11:30 a.m.
Thank you Secretary Cavazos, President O'Neil, Governors
Baliles and Branstad.
It's a delight to be back in Charlottesville. ((Imagine
this -- you have a President, the Cabinet and America's governors
visiting your school. And the big man on campus today is still
Sean Moore. ) ) ////
And then my son Marvin and daughter-in-law Margaret advise
me to be humble while I'm at U. Hall. ((You see, they told me
you only do the wave for Ralph Sampson. )) ////
Well, it's easy to be humble at a school so rich in history
and educational endeavor. And I have also been deeply impressed
by the commitment, the creativity and the knowledge that my
fellow chief executives from the states bring to education
reform.
It is you -- the governors -- along with state legislators
and school boards, leaders of business, parents and teachers --
those throughout this nation's vast decentralized education
system, who face tough decisions. I've heard eloquent advice
from many of you, and so many others, in the last few weeks.
I've listened. And I am deeply appreciative of all that I have
learned.
2
But I've also learned that we should listen to our children.
They have much to say to us, too. In many ways, they are the
luckiest generation in history. Just last month, our children
observed, in the clarity of Voyager's sight, the horizons of new
worlds, the majesty of space. Think what these images would have
meant to the ever-curious founder of this university, who could
only look through a primitive telescope at faint patches of light
and wonder.
But our children are growing up in an age where wonder is
commonplace, and peace and prosperity are often taken for
granted. Our children are also the beneficiaries of a nation
that lavishes unsurpassed resources on their schooling. So in
many ways, we are close to fulfilling the Enlightenment dream of
universal education, a dream that became a reality in the shadows
of the Shenandoahs, here at Mister Jefferson's school //
Every step we take at this University is truly a walk in
Thomas Jefferson's footsteps. When he first charted the ground
on which we gather today, there was just a field of grass, and a
horizon limited only by the blue mountains beyond. But Jefferson
surveyed a horizon no one else could see. He saw the graceful
dome of the Rotunda, and the elegance of the Lawn and its
pavilions. He saw meeting rooms, libraries and lecture halls
teeming with professors and students yet unborn.
Jefferson set out to fashion his rarified vision into solid
reality, brick by brick, book by book. And it is his University
3
-- and his dream -- that inspires us today to follow in his
footsteps.
Thomas Jefferson was a relentless advocate for universal
public education. You might say he was our first education
president. "He had a fundamental conviction that on the 'good
sense of' an educated citizenry, we could build and defend a
country of liberty and justice."
I borrowed this assessment from a friend of mine -- another
Renaissance man, a man of our time -- the late A. Bartlett
Giamatti. //
Like Jefferson, Bart's life was a metaphor for civility and
public service. And it is this commitment to public service that
Let your to make our
we must carry on, not just as an education President and as
education governors, but as an education society.
We have come close to the Jeffersonian ideal. Our
educational system is, in many ways, unrivaled in its scale and
diversity; in its commitment to meeting special needs and
individual differences. We are inspired by our best teachers,
who give more than we can rightly expect; and from our best
students, who surpass our highest expectations.
Jefferson wanted to redeem "that mass of talents which lies
buried in poverty." And for most of our history, education has
been the great champion of the poor, compensating for all
distinctions of class, race and background. ( (A century ago, the
poorest parents in the bleakest slum knew their children could go
4
anywhere, could be anything, if they could get an American
education. ))
Yet after two centuries of progress, we are stagnant. While
millions of Americans read for pleasure, millions of others don't
read at all. While millions go to college, millions will never
graduate from high school.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress estimates
that fewer than one in four of our high school juniors can write
an adequate, persuasive letter. Only half can manage decimals,
fractions and percentages. Barely one in three can locate the
Civil War in the correct half-century. No modern nation can long
afford to allow so many of its sons and daughters to emerge into
adulthood ignorant and unskilled. The status quo is a guarantee
of mediocrity, social decay and national decline. //
Education is our most enduring legacy, vital to everything
we are and can become. And come the next century -- just ten
years away -- what will we be? Will we be the children of the
Enlightenment, or its orphans?
Six years ago, the Commission on Excellence in Education
issued its powerful report; and yet today, our nation is still at
risk. The educational reform movement has done well in
articulating its criticisms. Now it is time to define goals.
Too much is at stake not to act now. Jefferson said that no
nation could long be both ignorant and free. The state of our
educational system is nothing less than the future of our
democracy. This is a time for action. //
5
I sent my proposals for federal action in education to
Congress last spring. The Educational Excellence Act of 1989
includes ways to reshape and expand federal efforts, to recognize
excellence, lift the needy, foster flexibility and choice, and
measure and reward progress. I remain solidly committed to these
principles, and I value your advice and ideas as we continue to
refine the federal role.
Some offer a completely different answer -- to spend more
money. And at the federal level, we have asked Congress to
provide nearly a half a billion dollars in new funding for ten
worthy programs. Your states may also choose to spend more. But
to those who say that money alone is the answer, I say that there
is no one answer. If anything, hard experience teaches that we
are simply not getting our money's worth in education. // Our
focus must no longer be on resources. It must be on results. / /
This is only the third time in our 200 years as a nation
that a President has called a summit with the governors. I have
called you together because you bear the Constitutional
responsibility for education. And I did not ask you to such an
historic occasion merely to bemoan what is wrong. We are here to
work; to work together; to put the future before the moment, and
progress before partisanship, once again to make an American
education the best in the world. //
You already are consulting with the state legislatures to
better our schools. Our teachers are already giving their heart
and soul to their jobs. But we have never before worked together
6
-- President and principal, governor and teacher -- to achieve
results in education.
A social compact begins today in Charlottesville, a compact
between parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, state
legislators, governors and the Administration. Our compact is
founded not on promises, but on challenges -- each one a radical
departure from tradition.
I challenge you to join me, for the first time, to define
national goals in education. From this day forward, let us be an
America of tougher standards,/ an America of higher goals// and a
land of bigger dreams.
And our goals must be "national," not "federal." That is
why I welcome the initiatives of the National Governors
Association, from the Time for Results report in 1986, to the
goal-setting project recently begun under the leadership of
Iowa's Terry Branstad, South Carolina's Carroll Campbell and Bill
Clinton of Arkansas. My Administration will work with you to
build on the National Assessment program's first state-by-state
achievement results. We will work with you to formulate national
goals. And then we will challenge superintendents and principals
to meet these higher goals.
( (In return, I accept your challenge, and will work with you
to loosen the grip of federal restrictions //// How many great
ideas, how many grand and noble experiments, have been impaled on
the narrow spike of a federal directive? Unnecessary restriction
7
is the enemy of the bold. And bold action is what we need most
of all. //
I ask Congress to allow Washington to be more flexible, by
passing reform legislation. And I ask you, in turn, to ease
state restrictions on local bodies. ))
Then we will judge our efforts not by our intentions, but by
our results.
So to get results, we need national goals, and more
flexibility from federal and state government.
To get' results, we will need a new spirit of competition
between students, between teachers and between schools -- a
report card for all.
And to get results, we will need discipline, structure and
goals.
Yet I do not counsel a naive nostalgia, a tame adherence to
the past. Business as usual is not getting us where we need to
go. So when hallowed tradition proves to be hollow convention,
then we must shatter tradition. The polls show what every P.T.A.
board member already knows: The American people are ready for
radical reforms. We must// not// disappoint// them. //
I envision tradition-shattering reform in five areas.
First, I see the day when every student is literate. But
literacy should mean more than the "three R's." We must be a
reading nation. We must grapple with the hard sciences. And
because education is as spiritual as it is practical, our
children must know why Americans died at Bunker Hill, at
8
Gettysburg, at Monte Cassino and Inchon. They must do more than
identify names on a multiple choice question. They must
understand the generosity of Andrew Carnegie, the genius of
Alexander Graham Bell and the heroism of Rosa Parks. //
Some youngsters will naturally take longer than others.
Some will need more study, and extra instruction. But we should
never send a student from school just because he or she has
passed an arbitrary birthday. //
Second, I see a day when our educational system will be
unafraid of diversity. Of course, all schools in a state will
share a core curriculum and minimum standards of achievement.
But the means by which that curriculum is taught, and those goals
met, should be as diverse and varied as our children, our
teachers and their communities. Let them blend, in myriad ways,
the traditional and the modern, the human and the technological.
Let us give our schools and our teachers the freedom to do what
they do best.
Children also differ -- in their interests, learning styles
and capabilities. So third, I see the day when choice among
schools will be the norm rather than the exception; when parents
will be full partners in the education of their children.
Too many parents have come to see education as a service we
can hand over to the school boards, in much the same way we
expect our cities to provide electricity or water. But education
is not a utility, not something to be delegated. Education is a
way of life, and educational reform is an urgent responsibility
9
for every parent, every student, every community. Those who do
not advance the cause of education, hinder it.
This means enlisting the parents, grandparents and other
adults who play large roles in children's lives in their formal,
as well as their informal education. This means that parents,
students and professional educators will be accountable to one
another, as a community.
But to be accountable, we need to know just how much
progress we're making. So fourth, I see the day when we use
accurate assessments, carefully linked to our educational goals.
We need to first know where we are; this means accepting the bad
news along with the good. We have always measured our progress
against our past performance. We must now evaluate ourselves on
a tougher grading curve -- one that includes the other major
industrial nations.
Accountability also means we must act on what we discover.
Weak performance in the classroom, or the principal's office,
will no longer be tolerated. But neither will indifference
toward good educators. Society has no greater benefactors than
outstanding teachers and principals. Let them get what they
deserve -- generous praise and solid rewards.
Fifth, I see an educational system that never settles for
the minimum, in academics or in behavior. Decades of research
bear out what the best teachers already know: when standards and
expectations are high, everyone does better. This includes both
the unusually gifted, and those with special needs and
10
disabilities. But it must also include the student we too-often
forget, the average student. For I believe, that with a little
care and a little work, we can unleash within each of these so-
called ordinary children an extraordinary potential.
This same potential can be found within every disadvantaged
child, those from troubled neighborhoods: children for whom our
schools must be a beacon of excellence; a sanctuary from
violence; a model of good character, sound values and exemplary
ethics. Let no child in America be forgotten and forsaken.
Some of our reforms and experiments are sure to come up
short. But for too many of our schools, experimentation is
preferable to the status quo, because the status quo could
scarcely be worse. The worthy and the useful will win out only
if we give our schools the freedom they need.
Such freedom will not lead to a quick and easy solution. It
is the work of years. And we have taken such a long-term view in
our meetings.
We have discussed the need for educational reform in terms
of our national competitiveness, even our national future. But I
am sure you agree that there is more to learning than just our
trade balance or the greying of our work force; it is broader
than the important, but narrow, compass of economics and
government.
A scholar once wrote that great books are not lifeless
paper, but minds alive on the shelves. He observed that just as
the touch of a button on a stereo will fill a room with music, so
11
by taking down one of these volumes, and opening it, one can call
into range the voice of a man far distant in time and space, and
hear him speak, mind to mind, heart to heart.
As a nation, we can again hear these voices, feel this
enchantment -- every time a parent reads a bedtime story to a
sleepy child; every time a young scholar turns to the great
books. The day must come when every young American can know the
life of the mind.
That is why we have gathered here, at Mister Jefferson's
school. He was just one man, but look at what one man can do.
Imagine what we can do, if we -- more than fifty strong -- are
united by this great cause. So let us dream. Let us talk. If
need be, let us argue. But in the end, let us walk together on a
journey to enlightenment, in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson.
////
Thank you for your hard work and dedication. God bless you
all, and God bless America.
#
#
#
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Charlottesville, Virginia)
For Immediate Release
September 27, 1989
REMARKS OF GOVERNOR TERRY BRANSTAD OF IOWA,
GOVERNOR CARROLL CAMPBELL OF SOUTH CAROLINA,
AND GOVERNOR BILL CLINTON OF ARKANSAS
Old Cabell Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
SECRETARY CAVAZOS: Ladies and gentlemen, it is now my
privilege to introduce Governor Terry Branstad, Governor of Iowa, who
is the Chairman of the National Governors Association.
Governor Branstad. (Applause.)
GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Secretary Cavazos, Mr. President,
Governor Sununu, members of the Cabinet, my colleagues in the
National Governors Association, spouses and friends: As Chair of the
National Governors Association, it's indeed a special pleasure for me
to express our deep appreciation to President Bush for convening this
historic education summit here in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Education must be a priority in America if we are to
compete in the global economy.
Mr. President, you have established education as a
priority for your administration. We as governors stand ready and
willing to work with you in addressing the difficult problems facing
American education today. And we are pledged to help you find
solutions that will afford every child in America the opportunity to
become a fulfilled and productive citizen.
We view this summit as a critical first step in that
process. This year, I've appointed a task force on education. The
goal of our task force is to build a national consensus on what we
expect from education in this great country. I've appointed two
distinguished governors to co-chair that task force, and I'm going to
ask each of those governors to make a brief statement.
The first governor is the Governor of the great state of
South Carolina, Governor Carroll Campbell.
Governor Campbell. (Applause.)
GOVERNOR CAMPBELL: Thank you very much. Mr. President,
Secretary Cavazos, ladies and gentlemen, all of my fellow governors,
it is indeed a pleasure for me to be here. And I want to thank you,
Mr. President, for giving us this historic opportunity to discuss an
issue that is vital to the nation's future if we are to indeed
continue to lead the world.
I'm sorry that my attention has been somewhat focused on
the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo, but my state has been devastated.
We have a lot of people out of work and a lot of schools that are
destroyed. It is a tragedy.
But there's another tragedy in this country, and that is
the tragedy that we're not fulfilling the goals that have been set
forth by our forefathers to provide that enlightened society that we
all believe in.
The fact is the subject of this summit is critically
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- 2 -
important. It's critically important to the people of my state today
and to the quality of our lives tomorrow. We have found that we're
pitiful when we stand against the forces of nature as men, but we
know that we can stand against the forces of illiteracy and the
forces of ignorance, and that we can prevail. For I see education as
the great equalizer in America. It is education that opens
opportunities for newcomers to this country. It is education that
provides hope for the disadvantaged. And it is education that
encourages each of us to expand our horizons of what we can
accomplish with our lives.
For education to fulfill its potential in our society it
must continue through a lifetime. Our international competition
rests as much on our willingness to reeducate adults as on our
capacity to educate our children. We need to view education as a
continuous process -- a process that enables every American to adapt
and benefit from rapidly changing circumstances.
Mr. President, I salute your goal to the education
community, to the education of our children, and I salute your goal
to be the Education President. The need is obvious. And there is a
need, too, for each of us as governors. We need to be education
governors. Revitalizing our education system demands a partnership
among all government officials, as well as educators and business
people, parents and students.
The governors bring a record of accomplishment and
innovation to this summit, for it is the states that have been the
cutting edge of education reform. Great education governors like
Lamar Alexander, or Bill Winter, or my own predecessor, Dick Riley,
pioneered the first round of education reform. Today's governors are
building on that foundation. We recognize that education is and must
remain primarily a state and local responsibility.
Thomas Jefferson, the first Education President,
reminded us of that fact 172 years ago in a letter to Joseph Cabell,
after whom this building is named. Jefferson argued that centralized
control of schools made them ineffective. "It is surely better, he
wrote, "to place each school at once under the care of those most
interested in its conduct.' Meaning, of course, parents and local
officials. I agree with Thomas Jefferson.
Yet there is a role for the federal government,
especially in encouraging creative state programs and ensuring equal
educational opportunity in this country. To carry out that
responsibility effectively, the federal government should provide
sufficient flexibility to the states in the use of the federal money
to meet widely differing needs.
And there is a vital role for you, sir, as President.
You are the man that can play that role in helping to identify the
national goals for student performance that must be attained.
While the means for reaching the goals should be left to
the states, we need nationwide goals that specify the knowledge that
any educated American should have in English and mathematics, science
and history. We must recognize the need for a broad liberal arts
foundation for our learned citizenry.
As we look ahead, this knowledge is going to be required
for us to succeed as a nation and remain competitive. Our students
must be able to think and to reason.
Mr. President, we come here today with high hopes, open
minds, and ready hands to embark on the next decade of education
reform. We offer and we seek a partnership with educators, with
business, with parents, and especially with children. A partnership
to restore the American educational system to international
prominence.
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- 3 -
Thank you. (Applause.)
GOVERNOR BRANSTAD: Governor Carroll Campbell, thank you
very much. And now it's my privilege to introduce another great
education governor -- co-chair of our education task force, Governor
of the great state of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. (Applause.)
GOVERNOR CLINTON: Thank you very much, Governor
Branstad. President and Mrs. Bush, distinguished members of the
Cabinet, and my colleagues: I come here to applaud President Bush
for calling this education summit. The stakes could not be higher
and the summit is occurring not a minute too early.
As has already been said, the governors have been hard
at work for better education at least since 1983, when the Nation At
Risk report removed all doubt about the trouble our schools are in
and the terrible economic consequences that will follow if we do not
change that. Even before the Nation At Risk report, Mississippi and
Florida had enacted major school reform programs. And since then, a
whole litany of governors, both Republican and Democrat, have
followed in the wake.
The states today provide well over 90 percent of the
funding for education. In this regard, the federal role has been
minor and, indeed, has declined in the decade of the '80s. I think
it is fair to say that we do not expect a big increase in federal
funding to flow out of this summit. We do appreciate the President's
willingness to bring renewed national attention to this education
problem on which we have worked so hard for so long. And we do
appreciate his willingness to discuss forthrightly in the governance
session to follow this opening ceremony what he believes his personal
responsibility and the responsibility of the Congress is in dealing
with educational problems. And we do hope that he will support a
reduction in federal mandates and elimination of federal mandates
that are unrelated to early childhood which take our state dollars
away from the education purposes we would like to spend them on.
Although our schools have improved dramatically in some
cases, by any measure we still have a long way to go before we can
guarantee an education system sufficient to keep alive the American
dream in the 21st century and to maintain America's position as a
world economic power.
We consistently rank near the bottom in every
international test of math and science ability and in other subjects
critical to our future. We consistently demonstrate an inability to
reduce the incredible loss of human potential when we have dropout
rates, drug abuse rates, teen pregnancy rates far higher than that of
any of our competitors. We are the only advanced country in the
world that has no comprehensive system for guaranteeing that every
five-year-old will be ready to start school and to succeed. We are
the only advanced country in the world that has no comprehensive
system to train the so-called forgotten half of our young people who
don't go on to college and today are getting murdered in the
international economy with alarming earnings declines. And we still
do not have a system that guarantees that every child, whether poor
or middle class, can have access to a higher education, even if some
financial assistance is needed.
Only in our system of higher education are we genuinely
internationally competitive. For there, we are still best in the
world. But even there, increasing numbers of our degrees in the most
difficult and critical areas are going to students who are not
Americans, because our children either do not enter those courses or
cannot make the grade.
These trends have developed at a time in our history
when education is more important than ever before. In the 1980s,
young high school dropouts and high school graduates have suffered
astonishing earnings declines, and growing numbers of our school
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- 4 -
children are coming from those very at-risk populations which
guarantee a greater likelihood of future failure.
Indeed, I think the most dramatic change in America in
my lifetime is the drastic alteration of the relationships between
parents and their little children. And no government program can
ever succeed unless we can find ways to reimpose fundamental parental
responsibility and parental involvement in the raising of those
little children, who have been cut adrift in a kind of earthly
purgatory that will condemn us all to a second-class future unless we
do something about it.
Teachers are increasingly in short supply. Why?
Because they can make more money at jobs that are less stressful.
We have all these problems in an education system that
we have invested more money in than ever before in the 1980s, but
with still significant gaps in investment and performance. That's
why this national performance goal of ours is so important.
As Governor Campbell has said, we don't want federal
goals, we don't want national curriculum. But if we don't have
national performance goals how will we ever know how we're doing
against the competition? And whether we're keeping up with all those
people around the world who also are investing in education and have
made the future a moving target? Without national goals, we won't
know that.
We also hope we can have a new federal-state partnership
to greater flexibility in the money we're already getting from the
federal government. There are all kinds of examples about how we can
make that money go further.
And finally, let me say this. I hope when this is over,
when the goals are established, when the strategies are developed, we
will all be willing to assume personal responsibility for the future
of this country through education, by saying that every year for the
next decade we'll have a report card not just on every schoolchild,
but on every school in America, on every state government in America,
and on the national government to see if we're doing what we promised
to do here, and whether we are doing what we ought to do to secure
our future.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
END
Document No.
WHITE HOUSE STAFFING MEMORANDUM
DATE: 9/27/89
ACTION/CONCURRENCE/COMMENT DUE BY:
SUBJECT:
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: CONVOCATION, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
ACTION FYI
ACTION FYI
VICE PRESIDENT
MCCLURE
SUNUNU
NEWMAN
SCOWCROFT
PORTER
DARMAN
STUDDERT
BATES
UNTERMEYER
BREEDEN
Bromley
CARD
Pinkerton
CICCONI
Anderson
DEMAREST
Winston
FITZWATER
Rogers
GRAY
HAGIN
REMARKS:
THe attanced has been forwarded to the President.
RESPONSE:
El : 11v L2 d38 68
James W. Cicconi
Assistant to the President
and Deputy to the Chief of Staff
Ext. 2702
Davis/Martin
Sept. 26, 1989
Draft: Seven
Title: eduprez
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: CONVOCATION, UNIV. OF VIRGINIA
Thursday, Sept. 28, 11:30 a.m.
Thank you Secretary Cavazos, President O'Neil, Governors
Baliles and Branstad.
It's a delight to be back in Charlottesville. ((Imagine
this -- you have a President, the Cabinet and America's governors
visiting your school. And the big man on campus today is still
Sean Moore. )) ////
And then my son Marvin and daughter-in-law Margaret advise
me to be humble while I'm at U. Hall. ( (You see, they told me
you only do the wave for Ralph Sampson. )) ////
Well, it's easy to be humble at a school so rich in history
and educational endeavor. And I have also been deeply impressed
by the commitment, the creativity and the knowledge that my
fellow chief executives from the states bring to education
reform.
It is you -- the governors -- along with state legislators
and school boards, leaders of business, parents and teachers --
those throughout this nation's vast decentralized education
system, who face tough decisions. I've heard eloquent advice
from many of you, and so many others, in the last few weeks.
I've listened. And I am deeply appreciative of all that I have
learned.
2
But I've also learned that we should listen to our children.
They have much to say to us, too. In many ways, they are the
luckiest generation in history. Just last month, our children
observed, n the clarity of Voyager's sight, the horizons of new
worlds, the majesty of space. Think what these images would have
meant to the ever-curious founder of this university, who could
only look through a primitive telescope at faint patches of light
and wonder.
But our children are growing up in an age where wonder is
commonplace, and peace and prosperity are often taken for
granted. Our children are also the beneficiaries of a nation
that lavishes unsurpassed resources on their schooling. So in
many ways, we are close to fulfilling the Enlightenment dream of
universal education, a dream that became a reality in the shadows
of the Shenandoahs, here at Mister Jefferson's school. //
Every step we take at this University is truly a walk in
Thomas Jefferson's footsteps. When he first charted the ground
on which we gather today, there was just a field of grass, and a
horizon limited only by the blue mountains beyond. But Jefferson
surveyed a horizon no one else could see. He saw the graceful
dome of the Rotunda, and the elegance of the Lawn and its
pavilions. He saw meeting rooms, libraries and lecture halls
teeming with professors and students yet unborn.
Jefferson set out to fashion his rarified vision into solid
reality, brick by brick, book by book. And it is his University
3
-- and his dream -- that inspires us today to follow in his
footsteps.
Thomas Jefferson was a relentless advocate for universal
public education. You might say he was our first education
president. "He had a fundamental conviction that on the 'good
sense of' an educated citizenry, we could build and defend a
country of liberty and justice." II
I borrowed this assessment from a friend of mine -- another
Renaissance man, a man of our time -- the late A. Bartlett
Giamatti. //
Like Jefferson, Bart's life was a metaphor for civility and
public service. And it is this commitment to public service that
we must carry on, not just as an education President and as
education governors, but as an education society.
We have come close to the Jeffersonian ideal. Our
educational system is, in many ways, unrivaled in its scale and
diversity; in its commitment to meeting special needs and
individual differences. We are inspired by our best teachers,
who give more than we can rightly expect; and from our best
students, who surpass our highest expectations.
Jefferson wanted to redeem "that mass of talents which lies
buried in poverty." And for most of our history, education has
been the great champion of the poor, compensating for all
distinctions of class, race and background. (A century ago, the
poorest parents in the bleakest slum knew their children could go
4
anywhere, could be anything, if they could get an American
education. ))
Yet after two centuries of progress, we are stagnant. While
millions of Americans read for pleasure, millions of others don't
read at all. While millions go to college, millions will never
graduate from high school.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress estimates
that fewer than one in four of our high school juniors can write
an adequate, persuasive letter. Only half can manage decimals,
fractions and percentages. Barely one in three can locate the
Civil War in the correct half-century. No modern nation can long
afford to allow SO many of its sons and daughters to emerge into
adulthood ignorant and unskilled. The status quo is a guarantee
of mediocrity, social decay and national decline. / /
Education is our most enduring legacy, vital to everything
we are and can become. And come the next century -- just ten
years away -- what will we be? Will we be the children of the
Enlightenment, or its orphans?
Six years ago, the Commission on Excellence in Education
issued its powerful report; and yet today, our nation is still at
risk. The educational reform movement has done well in
articulating its criticisms. Now it is time to define goals.
Too much is at stake not to act now. Jefferson said that no
nation could long be both ignorant and free. The state of our
educational system is nothing less than the future of our
democracy. This is a time for action. //
5
I sent my proposals for federal action in education to
Congress last spring. The Educational Excellence Act of 1989
includes ways to reshape and expand federal efforts, to recognize
excellence, lift the needy, foster flexibility and choice, and
measure and reward progress. I remain solidly committed to these
principles, and I value your advice and ideas as we continue to
refine the federal role.
Some offer a completely different answer -- to spend more
money. And at the federal level, we have asked Congress to
provide nearly a half a billion dollars in new funding for ten
worthy programs. Your states may also choose to spend more. But
to those who say that money alone is the answer, I say that there
is no one answer. If anything, hard experience teaches that we
are simply not getting our money's worth in education. // Our
focus must no longer be on resources. It must be on results. //
This is only the third time in our 200 years as a nation
that a President has called a summit with the governors. I have
called you together because you bear the Constitutional
responsibility for education. And I did not ask you to such an
historic occasion merely to bemoan what is wrong. We are here to
work; to work together; to put the future before the moment, and
progress before partisanship, once again to make an American
education the best in the world. //
You already are consulting with the state legislatures to
better our schools. Our teachers are already giving their heart
and soul to their jobs. But we have never before worked together
6
-- President and principal, governor and teacher -- to achieve
results in education.
A social compact begins today in Charlottesville, a compact
between parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, state
legislators, governors and the Administration. Our compact is
founded not on promises, but on challenges -- each one a radical
departure from tradition.
I challenge you to join me, for the first time, to define
national goals in education. From this day forward, let us be an
America of tougher standards,/ an America of higher goals// and a
land of bigger dreams.
And our goals must be "national," not "federal." That is
why I welcome the initiatives of the National Governors
Association, from the Time for Results report in 1986, to the
goal-setting project recently begun under the leadership of
Iowa's Terry Branstad, South Carolina's Carroll Campbell and Bill
Clinton of Arkansas. My Administration will work with you to
build on the National Assessment program's first state-by-state
achievement results. We will work with you to formulate national
goals. And then we will challenge superintendents and principals
to meet these higher goals.
( (In return, I accept your challenge, and will work with you
to loosen the grip of federal restrictions. How many great
ideas, how many grand and noble experiments, have been impaled on
the narrow spike of a federal directive? Unnecessary restriction
8
Gettysburg, at Monte Cassino and Inchon. They must do more than
identify names on a multiple choice question. They must
understand the generosity of Andrew Carnegie, the genius of
Alexander Graham Bell and the heroism of Rosa Parks. //
Some youngsters will naturally take longer than others.
Some will need more study, and extra instruction. But we should
never send a student from school just because he or she has
passed an arbitrary birthday. / /
Second, I see a day when our educational system will be
unafraid of diversity. Of course, all schools in a state will
share a core curriculum and minimum standards of achievement.
But the means by which that curriculum is taught, and those goals
met, should be as diverse and varied as our children, our
teachers and their communities. Let them blend, in myriad ways,
the traditional and the modern, the human and the technological.
Let us give our schools and our teachers the freedom to do what
they do best.
Children also differ -- in their interests, learning styles
and capabilities. So third, I see the day when choice among
schools will be the norm rather than the exception; when parents
will be full partners in the education of their children.
Too many parents have come to see education as a service we
can hand over to the school boards, in much the same way we
expect our cities to provide electricity or water. But education
is not a utility, not something to be delegated. Education is a
way of life, and educational reform is an urgent responsibility
7
is the enemy of the bold. And bold action is what we need most
of all. //
I ask Congress to allow Washington to be more flexible, by
passing reform legislation. And I ask you, in turn, to ease
state restrictions on local bodies. ))
Then we will judge our efforts not by our intentions, but by
our results.
So to get results, we need national goals, and more
flexibility from federal and state government.
To get results, we will need a new spirit of competition
between students, between teachers and between schools -- a
report card for all.
And to get results, we will need discipline, structure and
goals.
Yet I do not counsel a naive nostalgia, a tame adherence to.
the past. Business as usual is not getting us where we need to
go. So when hallowed tradition proves to be hollow convention,
then we must shatter tradition. The polls show what every P.T.A.
board member already knows: The American people are ready for
radical reforms. We must// not// disappoint// them. //
I envision tradition-shattering reform in five areas.
First, I see the day when every student is literate. But
literacy should mean more than the "three R's." We must be a
reading nation. We must grapple with the hard sciences. And
because education is as spiritual as it is practical, our
children must know why Americans died at Bunker Hill, at
9
for every parent, every student, every community. Those who do
not advance the cause of education, hinder it.
This means enlisting the parents, grandparents and other
adults who play large roles in children's lives in their formal,
as well as their informal education. This means that parents,
students and professional educators will be accountable to one
another, as a community.
But to be accountable, we need to know just how much
progress we're making. So fourth, I see the day when we use
accurate assessments, carefully linked to our educational goals.
We need to first know where we are; this means accepting the bad
news along with the good. We have always measured our progress
against our past performance. We must now evaluate ourselves on
a tougher grading curve -- one that includes the other major
industrial nations.
Accountability also means we must act on what we discover.
Weak performance in the classroom, or the principal's office,
will no longer be tolerated. But neither will indifference
toward good educators. Society has no greater benefactors than
outstanding teachers and principals. Let them get what they
deserve -- generous praise and solid rewards.
Fifth, I see an educational system that never settles for
the minimum, in academics or in behavior. Decades of research
bear out what the best teachers already know: when standards and
expectations are high, everyone does better. This includes both
the unusually gifted, and those with special needs and
10
disabilities. But it must also include the student we too-often
forget, the average student. For I believe, that with a little
care and a little work, we can unleash within each of these so-
called ordinary children an extraordinary potential.
This same potential can be found within every disadvantaged
child, those from troubled neighborhoods: children for whom our
schools must be a beacon of excellence; a sanctuary from
violence; a model of good character, sound values and exemplary
ethics. Let no child in America be forgotten and forsaken.
Some of our reforms and experiments are sure to come up
short. But for too many of our schools, experimentation is
preferable to the status quo, because the status quo could
scarcely be worse. The worthy and the useful will win out only
if we give our schools the freedom they need.
Such freedom will not lead to a quick and easy solution. It
is the work of years. And we have taken such a long-term view in
our meetings.
We have discussed the need for educational reform in terms
of our national competitiveness, even our national future. But I
am sure you agree that there is more to learning than just our
trade balance or the greying of our work force; it is broader
than the important, but narrow, compass of economics and
government.
A scholar once wrote that great books are not lifeless
paper, but minds alive on the shelves. He observed that just as
the touch of a button on a stereo will fill a room with music, so
11
by taking down one of these volumes, and opening it, one can call
into range the voice of a man far distant in time and space, and
hear him speak, mind to mind, heart to heart.
As a nation, we can again hear these voices, feel this
enchantment -- every time a parent reads a bedtime story to a
sleepy child; every time a young scholar turns to the great
books. The day must come when every young American can know the
life of the mind.
That is why we have gathered here, at Mister Jefferson's
school. He was just one man, but look at what one man can do.
Imagine what we can do, if we -- more than fifty strong -- are
united by this great cause. So let us dream. Let us talk. If
need be, let us argue. But in the end, let us walk together on a
journey to enlightenment, in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson.
////
Thank you for your hard work and dedication. God bless you
all, and God bless America.
#
#
#
Insert
In assessing the state of education in America today it is
appropriate to note its many strengths and virtues: its scale
and its diversity, the marvelous people who teach in many of its
classrooms, the extraordinary achievements of its best students,
Some
its commitment to meeting special needs and accommodating
individual differences, and the immense progress it has made in
the past several decades in the quest to eliminate racial
discrimination.
All this is true, and from it we can take much
satisfaction. But I would be less than straightforward with you
and the American people if I did not say that, in my judgment,
the shortcomings of our education system today rival its
accomplishments.
Six and one half years after the Commission on
Excellence in Education issued its powerful, critical report,
this nation is still at risk.
The productivity of our economy is at risk; the quality of
our technology and science is at risk; the vitality or our
culture and civic life is at risk; our capacity to deal
knowledgeably with friends and rivals across the seas is also at
risk.
Why? Because our education system isn't producing the
results we need.
The evidence is plentiful. Ask employers about the skills
evidence
and knowledge of the young people they are hiring. Talk to
college professors about the intellectual preparedness of their
students. Look at the illiterate and semi-literate adults
-2-
struggling to make up in their twenties and thirties for what
they didn't get when they were young. Or inspect the statistics,
those alarming but inescapable numbers. Look at the one
youngster in four who does not complete high school on time, the
three in twenty who never graduate. And look long and hard at
the dismaying evidence of weak educational achievement even by
those who stay in school.
According to the National Assessment of Educational
Progress, only five percent of our high school juniors can read
well enough to handle scientific, literary and historical
documents. Fewer than one in four dan write an adequate
persuasive letter. Only half can manage decimals, fractions and
percentages - - and these are eleventh graders! Barely one in
three can locate the Civil War in the correct half-century period
on a time-line.
These data come from the mid-eighties, but the results of
the 1988 assessment will soon be released and I understand that
they show little or no improvement.
No modern nation can afford for so many of its sons and
daughters to emerge into adulthood so ignorant and unskilled.
None of your states can afford it, either.
It is a recipe for
stagnation and decline, for mediocrity and social decay.
We know it does not have to be this way. As I have gone
around the country, it has been my privilege to see some of the
exceptional schools and to meet some of the extraordinary young
people who are just as bright and talented and eager as anyone
--3-
could wish. And as I have travelled in other lands I have seen
evidence that whole countries can get their educational act
together so that their average students comes out of school with
a high degree of skills and knowledge.
There is no need for American youngsters to be in the cellar
Internals into
on all those international comparisons. Rather, there is a need
to do something about the unsatisfactory performance of our
education system.
But we need to pause and ask ourselves: just what would we
regard as satisfactory? How good is good enough? Though some of
your states have done exemplary jobs of spelling out specific
learning objectives,
the education reform movement in general has
done a better job of articulating its criticisms than of
describing its goals.
It's time to do something about that. A recent poll
indicates that the American people, by a large majority, favor
national goals for education. We've never had these in the
United States, but I think the time has come to talk about what
goals
they should be, to see if we cannot come up with some educational
targets that make sense for this country at the dawn of the
twenty-first century.
I said "national." I didn't say "federal." As you well
know, the fifty states bear the constitutional responsibility for
education. Those of us in Washington can be your partners, but
we are junior partners.
Let me say it clearly; we have
nationwide problems in education, and I think we should devise
the wisest solutions we are capable of that would make sense
across the land.
But it is you, the governors, and the
legislators and school boards, the parents and teachers,
local
throughout this huge country with its decentralized education
system, who must ultimately decide what steps actually to take
and how to apportion the responsibility for taking them.
We'll do our part in the federal government. Last spring I
sent to Congress a set of recommendations, the "Educational
Excellence Act of 1989," for reshaping and expanding Federal
fed.
efforts so as to recognize excellence, address needs, foster
role
flexibility and choice, measure and reward progress. I remain
solidly committed to those principles, and look forward to our
continuing conversations at this "summit," because I know they
will yield thoughtful advice for further improvements and
refinements in the federal role.
Now allow me to sketch the progress I'd like to see us make
over the next half decade or so.
The best way I can do that is
to outline how I hope to see our education system function in
the future. I won't fill in all the details but will briefly
describe five major elements. Some may sound like abrupt changes
from traditional practice. So be it. The American people have
signaled their readiness for pretty radical reforms. Besides,
business-as-usual is not getting us where we need to go.
First, I see an education system in which every boy and girl
studies and learns at least until attaining a reasonable minimum
level of skills and knowledge, a level enabling that individual
minimum skills set leugza
no
-5-
to make a satisfactory entry into adult society civic
responsibility, further education, and productive employment.
When I say "skills and knowledge," please understand that I do
not refer only to the "three R's," or to basic literacy,
Madium
necessary though those are as the foundation. I also mean
facility with math, science and technology, knowledge of
history,, geography and literature, acquaintance with a foreign
language, exposure to the arts, understanding of the essential
elements of political democracy and of the requisites for
personal health and physical fitness.
Some youngsters will naturally take longer than others to
reach that level; some will need to study more; some will need
7
extra instruction and help. But instead of leaving school when
they reach a specified birthday, they will study until they learn
what they should.
Second, I see an education system in which schools differ
from one another and in which some learning occurs in settings
that may not even look like conventional schools. Though the
core of the curriculum and minimum standards of achievement will
be similar everywhere, the means by which that curriculum is
taught, and the routs that individuals follow to those standards,
will e as diverse and varied as our children, our teachers and
our communities. They will blend the traditional and the modern,
the human and the technological, in a thousand different
combinations. Those combinations will be designed buy able
educators, talented men and women who will enter this noble
teachersorriculum
--6-
profession through varied paths of preparation and experience and
who will enjoy wide latitude over the design and execution of
what takes place in their schools, with little regulation from
outside.
Third, because the schools will differ, because children
differ in their interests, learning styles and capabilities, and
because the priorities of their parents also differ, I see an
choice
education system in which choice among schools will be the norm
rather than the exception, one in which parents will full
&
account.
partners in the education of their children, and in which
parents, students, and professional educators will be accountable
to one another, as well as to the wider community, for their
schools' performance. This means enlisting the parents,
grandparents and other adults who play large roles in children;s
lives in their formal as well as their informal education, in
visiting their schools -- Jesse Jackson is exactly right about
this -- and in supervising their homework, in giving them a safe
and quiet place to study, and when necessary turning off the
television set.
Fourth, in order to know just how much progress we're
making, to make adjustments when they are needed, and to carry
out the principle of accountability, I see a system in which
accurate assessment, carefully linked to our educational goals
and standards, is common practice. We need prompt and reliable
feedback about educational performance at every level of the
system. And even when that information is disappointing, we need
-7-
to be honest with ourselves and with the public. But let us not
stop with feedback. We also need to build in incentives for
achievement at every level of the system. And when performance
in satisfactory, rewards and praise that follow. But when the
performance is unsatisfactory, intervention and change much
follow, lest the unsatisfactory results repeat themselves. That
is what accountability is all about.
Fifth, I see an education system that ensures adequate
achievement throughout, but that never settles for the minimum,
either in academic learning of in personal behavior. We know
when
norm cx lleur
from decades of experience and volumes of research that we're
standards and expectations are high, everyone does better. Where
excellence is the norm, fewer people will be content with the
merely adequate. I am not just talking about unusually gifted
individuals, though we must surely take pains to help them
achieve their potential, just as we much assist those with needs
and disabilities to do likewise. I am talking about ordinary
students, too. And I am talking about, perhaps especially about,
disadvantaged youngsters and those from troubled neighborhoods,
children for whom the education system has to go the extra mile,
to be a beacon of excellence, a sanctuary from mediocrity,
violence and evil, a model of good character, sound values and
unblemished ethics.
Jeachus
This norm of excellence is part of my vision for the
education profession, too, as are rewards for distinguished
accomplishment and impatience with mediocrity. Wonderful things
8
should happen to outstanding teachers and principals. Society
has no greater assets. But it must also be said that weak
performance in the classroom, or the principals; office, is a
prescription for weakly educated children. And that we must not
tolerate.
Is mine an unrealistic vision? I think not. If we look
about our country today, we will see that even though the
education system I have outlined is not the norm, there are
places where much of what I have mentioned is already happening.
These are not pipedreams, nor are they mysteries. We have a
pretty good idea what works in education, and what a first-rate
education system would look like. The questions is how to make
it standard practice everywhere.
I suggest that the place to start is to try to reach some
general agreement about the skills and knowledge that would
represent satisfactory achievement norms for young Americans on
the threshold of adulthood, and to make sure that we are ready to
install an assessment and accountability system to supply us with
essential information about how we are doing in reaching those
goals.
I welcome the initiatives that the National Governors
Association has been taking, from the Time for Results report in
1986 to the goal-setting project recently begun under the
leadership of governors Terry Branstad, Carroll Campbell and Bill
Clinton. We in the administration are prepared to join with you
in the enterprise of formulating national goals. We are also
-9-
prepared, building on the National Assessment program that this
year will begin to provide reliable state-by-state achievement
results for the first time in history, to assume substantial
responsibility for the information feedback system.
MASSACHUSETTS OFFICE WTR PRESIDENT STATES OF UNITED
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20503
NOTICE:
Enclosed are comments from staff members of the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) Such comments do not necessarily
represent the official position of the Director of OMB or of the
Office of Management and Budget. If you wish to have the
Director's personal comments, please let me know -- and contact
me if you have any questions.
David J. Haun
Executive Assistant
to the Director
21 23 68
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT STATES OF THE UNITED
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20503
Sept. Ayex.25, 1989
MEMORANDUM FOR CHRISS WINSTON
From:
Arlene Holen AH
Subject:
President's Remarks for the Education Summit
Convocation
The second "challenge", on page 8, concerning Federal
restrictions, is not correctly phrased and could cause severe
problems if left like this. None of the language accurately
reflects the situation. The rules at issue are nearly all
statutory, not purely administrative. Nearly all Federal rules
govern how money gets to the schools and who is to be served by
it. An executive order will do no material good, whatever merit
it might have for appearances' sake.
We must understand the flexibility issue as a kind of civil
rights issue. Major Federal education programs are primarily
meant to get money to the places where the poor and educationally
disadvantaged live, and to assure that those most in need of
remedial educational services get them. We are working for more
flexibility because many now believe that with it, schools can
raise the educational achievement of these children. Without
this other half of the equation, we set the President up for
fierce -- and justified -- criticism of reduced commitment to
those most in need.
The actual content of the waivers/flexibility deal will
presumably be determined at the Conference. For now, we suggest
you strike the second and third paragraphs on page 8 and use
instead language like:
Second, I accept your judgment that in return for more
flexible use of control over funds provided under Federal education and
training laws and regulations, we can raise the educational
levels of disadvantaged and other children. I will explore
seeking authorities from Congress to provide this
flexibility, linking it directly to sanctions and rewards
tied to changes in the achievement levels of the children
most in need. I will also instruct the Cabinet to do
everything in their power under current law to advance this
goal.
To make this new approach work, you must go back to your
States and take parallel steps. To the extent you have the
authority, give school districts and schools more
flexibility over resources, organization and operations, in
return for firm commitments for improved performance for all
children. And to the extent you do not have the authority,
work with your legislatures to obtain it.
Together, the State and Federal governments will challenge
superintendents and principals, parents and teachers, and
above all, students to strive for greater achievement.
The speech does not sufficiently acknowledge that the
problems in the education situation are not just for the poor and
minority groups. Young people across all economic levels are
failing to master complex, advanced reasoning skills vital to the
success of our economy.
Other points:
At the bottom of page 8, there is the notion of "back to
basics." Notwithstanding the preceding sentence, in
education, that phrase means basic reading, writing and
arithmetic. The need in the schools now is to go beyond
that to the teaching of higher order reasoning and
computation skills. I would strike the sentence.
At the bottom of page 9, there is the notion of reversing
the decades long trend of school district consolidation.
Why? Large is not deadly when it permits legitimate and
necessary economies of scale. This is purely a State and
local governance matter with little to do with the quality
of education; the President ought not intrude. Note that
over 90 percent of the school districts already have fewer
than 5,000 students each.
On page 5, there is a statement that both high school
graduation rates and SAT scores have "tumbled." True for
SAT, false for graduation rates, which have been stable for
over 15 years. Black and Hispanic rates are rising, but are
still below that of Whites.
On page 5, the 25% factor apparently refers to the
percentage of 18-19 year olds without a diploma. Since
1974, however, the percentage of 20-24 year olds with a
diploma has been around 84 percent. Many young people
return to school or get GEDs later on.
On page 9, the school year issue is objectively a good one.
However, to do this will cost the States many billions of
dollars per year. For a President anxious to deflect claims
for Federal aid, this is walking right into the biggest one.
c:
Bill Roper
Document No.
WHITE HOUSE STAFFING MEMORANDUM
DATE:
ACTION/CONCURRENCE/COMMENT DUE BY: 2:00 PM Monday, Sept. 25
CONVOCATION, UNIV. OF VIRGINIA,
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS:
THURSDAY, SEPT. 28, 11:30 A.M.
SUBJECT:
(9/21/89 - DRAFT FOUR)
ACTION FYI
ACTION FYI
VICE PRESIDENT
MCCLURE
SUNUNU
NEWMAN
SCOWCROFT
PORTER
DARMAN
STUDDERT
BATES
UNTERMEYER
BREEDEN
BROMLEY
CARD
PINKERTON
CICCONI
DEMAREST
FITZWATER
GRAY
HAGIN
REMARKS:
Please forward any comments directly to Chriss Winston, Rm. 122,
x2930, no later than 2:00 P.M., Mondav
copy to mv office
order
COMMENTS: See comments
would
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Davis/Martin
Sept. 21, 1989
09 SEP22 P1:51
Draft: Four
Title: Jefferson
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: CONVOCATION, UNIV. OF VIRGINIA
Thursday, Sept. 28, 11:30 a.m.
It's a delight to be back in Charlottesville. My son Marvin
and my daughter-in-law Margaret have told me to be humble while
I'm at U. Hall. ((You see, they told me you only do the wave for
Ralph Sampson. )) ////
( (Acknowledge governors, events of the last few days. )) I
have been deeply impressed by the commitment, the creativity and
the knowledge that you bring to education reform.
((I've also heard eloquent appeals from many authorities on
education in the last few weeks, from state legislators to
leaders in business and education. I have listened. And I am
deeply appreciative of all that I have heard. ))
( (But I want to share with you the concerns of someone from
an under-represented group in this debate -- grade-schoolers. I
got a letter from a boy from upstate New York who wrote me to
suggest several intriguing ideas. And his letter ended with the
most unusual proposal of all: He asked me to advance the cause
of science// by sending his teacher// to perform some research
//// in the Bermuda Triangle.) )
Of course, this little boy does not yet appreciate it, but
it will be the tough teachers that he will remember fondly as an
adult. The (("Johnnys)) of our schools are, in many ways, the
luckiest generation of children in history. Just last month,
2
these children observed, in the clarity of Voyager's sight, the
horizons of alien worlds, the majesty of space. Think what these
images would have meant to the ever-curious founder of this
university, who could only look through a primitive telescope at
faint patches of light, and wonder.
But our children are growing up in an age where wonder is
common place, and peace and prosperity are often taken for
granted. Our children are also the beneficiaries of a nation
that lavishes unsurpassed resources on their schooling. So in
on't
believe many ways, we are close to fulfilling the Enlightenment dream of
charlottesville
universal education, a dream that became a reality in the
shenandoah
S in
Shenandoah Valley, here at Mister Jefferson's school.
Every step we take at this University is a walk in Thomas
Haun 3060
Jefferson's footsteps. When Jefferson first charted the ground
on which we gather today, there was just a field of grass, and a
horizon limited only by the blue mountains beyond. But Jefferson
surveyed a horizon no one else could see. He saw the graceful
dome of the Rotunda, and the elegance of the Lawn and its
pavilions. He saw meeting rooms and lectures halls -- and hoped
they would be teeming with professors and students yet unborn.
Jefferson fashioned his ethereal vision into solid reality,
brick by brick, book by book. And it is his University -- and
his dream -- that inspires us today to follow in his footsteps.
Thomas Jefferson was our first education president. He was
a relentless advocate for universal public education. He did so
because he had a "fundamental conviction that on the 'good sense
3
of' an educated citizenry, we could build and defend a country of
liberty and justice.'
I borrowed these last few words from a friend of mine. This
assessment of Thomas Jefferson came from another Renaissance man,
a man of our time -- the late A. Bartlett Giamatti. //
Like Jefferson, Bart's life was a metaphor for civility and
public service. And it is this commitment to public service that
we must carry on, not just as an education President, but as
education governors, as an education society.
We have come close to this Jeffersonian ideal of an
education society. And yet, after two centuries of progress, we
are backsliding. While millions of Americans read for pleasure,
millions of others don't read at all. While millions of
Americans graduate from college, millions of others never finish
high school. Jefferson said that no nation could long be both
ignorant and free. The state of our educational system is
nothing less than the future of our democracy.
So I come to Jefferson's university to make a frank
observation: This nation is moving away from the aspirations of
its founders. The Founding Fathers were as fluent in geography
and science as they were in Latin and French. They began as rapt
students of antiquity, the statecraft of Marcus Aurelius, the
philosophy of thinkers from Socrates to Cicero. And yet they
surpassed their ancient teachers to become the greatest political
philosophers of all time.
4
Our founders lived at a time when the purpose of education
was to develop the character of young people. Schools taught
literature, physics and geometry. But they also taught honesty,
discipline and service to country. Judge for yourself (if we always
impart these lessons today.
Jefferson wanted to redeem "that mass of talents which lies
buried in poverty." And for most of our history, education has
been the great champion of the poor, leveling all distinctions of
class, race and background. A century ago, the poorest parents
in the bleakest slum knew their children could go anywhere, could
be anything, if they could get an American education. Again,
judge for yourself if the same could be said today.
We've heard of high school graduates who believe New Mexico
is in Latin America. We've seen schools that are overrun by
crack and coke. We've read about children who cannot identify
George Bush, or, for that matter, George Washington. We are all,
by now, fully aware of the extent to which our nation is at risk.
&
This is not a time for assessment. This is a time for action.
I have built my proposals for federal action in education
around four principles. First: Excellence in education should be
recognized and rewarded. Second: Federal funding should be
should promote,
targeted to those who need it most. Third: Choice and
flexibility -- we should give more freedom to educators, as well
Grody
4844
as to parents and students. And fourth and finally: Greater
accountability for all -- students, teachers, principals, and,
yes, ourselves -- elected officials.
5
Some say there is another answer -- to spend more money. I
do not wholly agree, although I have asked Congress to provide
in new funding
nearly a half a billion dollars for ten worthy programs.
Your states may also choose to spend more. But to those who say
that money alone is the answer, I say that there is no one
answer. Our nation already spends more to educate our youth than
it does to defend them -- this year, 353 billion dollars in all.
Over the decades, while the rate of spending has escalated, high
school graduation rates and SAT scores have tumbled. So hard
experience teaches that we are simply not getting our money's
Grady
worth in education. // Our focus must no longer (hotonly be on resources.
4844
It must be on results.
This is my program. Some support it. Some do not. But I
am sure we all agree this is no time to work at cross purposes.
This is a time for us to coordinate our efforts to save our
schools. //
Education reform is not a distant goal to be passively
pursued. It is urgent. Imperative. Vital. In the past, one
could rise to the middle class without a high school education or
a special skill. You know as well as I that in the service
economy of the future, this will no longer be possible. By the
year 2000, between five million and fifteen million low-skill
jobs will be replaced by positions that require vastly greater
knowledge and ability. If we do not find a way to reach that
quarter of young Americans who never attain a high school degree,
6
then the underclass will be truly permanent. And America will no
longer be synonymous with opportunity.
Education is our most enduring legacy, vital to everything
we are and can become. And come the next century -- just ten
years away -- what will we be? Will our descendants forget all
that we were and forsake all they could achieve? Will Americans
be the children, or the orphans, of the Enlightenment?
Bill Milliken, a friend of mine in the educational
community, told me a story last week about a boy he knows from an
inner-city neighborhood, a neighborhood where chaos and violence
reign. The child Bill knows was shot through his shoulder while
going to school.
Bill went to visit him in the hospital. The boy cried, and
Bill rose to get a nurse, thinking that the pain of his wound had
become unbearable. But it wasn't that; it wasn't that at all.
The boy said he was crying because he was afraid, afraid to go
home, afraid to walk the streets and afraid to go to school.
Before we do anything, we must first give these children what
they need most -- safety on the streets and sanctuary at school.
Then they can learn. ////
We must become a reading nation, to again fight for
universal literacy. We must grapple with the hard sciences. And
because education is as spiritual as it is practical, our
children must know why Americans died at Concord, at Gettysburg,
at Monte Cassino and Inchon. They must understand the generosity
7
of Andrew Carnegie, the genius of Alexander Graham Bell and the
heroism of Rosa Parks. 11
To beat illiteracy, to again lead the world in science and
to know history by heart -- these are ambitious goals. To some,
they may seem impossible to achieve. But Americans are not a
people who aim for half-way. Nothing less than a full-fledged
challenge will mobilize us as a people.
As President, I am here to make such a challenge. As
governors, you can provide the leadership to match it.
You already are consulting with the state legislatures to
better our schools. Our teachers are already giving their heart
and soul to their jobs. But we have never before worked together
-- President and principal, governor and teacher -- to achieve
results in education.
This is only the third time in our 200 years as a nation
that a President has called a summit with the governors. And I
did not ask you to such an historic occasion merely to bemoan
what is wrong. We are here to work; to work together; to put the
future before the moment, and progress before partisanship, to
again make an American education the best in the world. //
We must begin with a social compact, a compact between
parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, state
legislators, governors and the Administration. Our compact is
founded not on promises, but on challenges. Let us start with
three challenges.- three radical departures from tradition.
8
I challenge you to join me, for the first time, to define
national goals and standards in education. I seek tighter
standards/ / higher goals/ / greater aspirations. ( (Specifics to
come.))
Second, I accept your challenge to loosen the grip of
federal restrictions. //// How many great ideas, how many grand
and noble experiments, have been impaled on the narrow spike of a
federal directive? Regulation is the enemy of the bold. And
Plane
bold action is what we need most of all. //
In I
return for take greater responsibility flexibility for ensuring from Washington, that state ask and federal are ddlars well
that you, in turn, ease state restrictions on local bodies. And
CLet us togethers
sfent,
then we will challenge superintendents and principals to meet our
higher standards. I will start this process by issuing ( (an
executive order) ) on ( (date)) to (( language to come))
Third, let us judge our efforts not by our intentions, but
by our results. We need to first know where we are, no matter
how unpleasant that realization may be. We have always measured
our progress against our past performance. But to get results,
we must evaluate ourselves on a tougher grading curve -- one that
includes the other major industrial nations.
To get results, we will need a new spirit of competition
between students, between teachers and between schools -- a
report card for all.
And to get results, we will need discipline, structure and
goals. In a phrase, back to the basics.
9
Yet I do not counsel a naive nostalgia, a timid adherence to
the past. We should embrace only what works. And when hallowed
Grady
ptst
tradition proves to be hollow convention, then we must shatter
tradition. The public people is ready for sweeping and far-reaching
are
Note Gramma
changes, for lasting reform. We must/ / not / / disappoint them.
problem
as
////
written
Less than three percent of all families live on a farm; and
yet we still educate by an agrarian school calendar largely
unchanged since the 1880s. The school year could easily be
lengthened to more than 200 days, with generous breaks
throughout. Listen to the children. They will tell you that it
is a tossup as to which is more boring: nine straight months of
school, or three straight months of vacation. Let us shatter
this tradition.
Some school subjects may require hours a day; others
minutes. Yet we teach all subjects in rigid 55 minutes formats,
as if the human attention span were a Pavlovian ( (PAHV-Low-Vian) )
response to the ring of a school bell. School days, like school
years, are structured by custom, not by creativity. Let us
shatter this tradition.
Americans fully realize that when government bodies swell
beyond the boundaries of community interest, bureaucracy takes
control. We should scale our school districts to the communities
they serve, empowering parents and teachers alike. Large is
deadly. Let us shatter this tradition.
10
Reform requires even more of us. Too many parents have come
to see education as a service we can hand over to the school
brody
boards, in much the same way we expect our cities to provide
14844
electricity or water. But education is not a utility, not
passively received.
something to be delegated to public policy. Education is a way
of life, and educational reform is an urgent responsibility for
every parent, every student, every community. Those who do not
advance the cause of education, hinder it. ////
Look to those who are already in the lead.
process an requires
Look to Chelsea, Massachusetts, where Boston University has
been asked to assume control of a school system in trouble.
act
These schools will now stay open from 7:30 in the morning to 5:30
us.
in the evening, serving as day-care centers for children whose
parents work. Eventually, Boston University will offer pre-
school classes for all children ages three to five, and "after-
school" programs involving arts and exercise.
Look to Milton Goldman and Jeffrey Reed -- teachers in Los
Angeles who use video science to entice the children of the
television age to enjoy reading.
Look to ( (name of teacher to come) ) and every other teacher
who struggles to transform the dull and the rote into the magical
and the enterprising.
Some of these experiments are sure to come up short. But
for too many of our schools, experimentation is preferable to the
status quo, because the status quo could scarcely be worse. The
11
worthy and the useful will win out only if we give our schools
the freedom they deserve.
Choice is another form of freedom in education I referred to
earlier, and it is a demonstrated success. Parents should be
free to choose their schools. Principals should be free to
choose the best methods for their teachers. And schools should
be free to choose teachers with alternative certification --
those whose knowledge surpasses their credentials.
Of course, this summit will not, cannot, lead to a quick and
easy solution. We are embarking on the work of years. So let me
make a final proposal -- that we meet again in a less formal
setting to take stock of where we succeeded, and where we need to
redouble our efforts.
Every American must make the same assessment, for our
Grody 4844
education is the work of a lifetime. With the average lifespan
1wall be a tragedy for anyofus us
lengthening to three-quarters of a century, it is absurd that we
to
should quit learning at age 18 or 22. Education shouldn't begin
with kindergarten, and end with a diploma and a handshake.
Education begins when we draw our first breath. And it stops
/
only when we breathe our last.
Our homes and our workplaces must be places of learning;
schools that continually sharpen our skills and upgrade our
competence. Seventy-five percent of the work force of the year
is
2000 are already on the job today. This makes vocational and
adult education essential.
12
Yet our most basic need for lifelong learning has nothing to
do with the trade balance, or the greying of the work force; it
is broader than the narrow compass of economics and government.
A scholar once wrote that great books are not lifeless
Grady
paper, but minds alive on the shelves. He observed that just as
hast
the touch of a button on a stereo will fill of the room with music'
the
so. by taking down one of these volumes, and opening it, one can
and opening
call into range the voice of a man far distant in time and space,
It allows US to
and hear him speak to us mind to mind, heart to heart.
As a nation, we can again hear these voices, feel this
enchantment -- every time a parent reads a bedtime story to a
sleepy child; every time a young scholar turns to the great
books. The day must come when every young American can know the
life of the mind.
That is why we have gathered here, at Mister Jefferson's
Grody
school. He was just one man, but look at what one man can do.
4844
Imagine what we can do if we -- fifty-one strong -- are united by
And if all American 200 million strong make educat ion the national crosade it
a great cause So let us dream. Let us talk. If need be, let
desewes
us argue. But in the end, let us let us walk together on a
to
journey to enlightenment, in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson.
be
////
Thank you for your hard work and dedication. Thank you for
your partnership. Let us leave Charlottesville determined to
work with each other, to work for America. God bless you all.
#
#
#
Document No. 075341
WHITE HOUSE STAFFING MEMORANDUM
1/28
DATE: 9/22/89 ACTION/CONCURRENCE/COMMENT DUE BY: 2:00 PM Monday, Sept. 25
CONVOCATION, UNIV. OF VIRGINIA,
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS:
THURSDAY, SEPT. 28, 11:30 A.M.
SUBJECT:
(9/21/89 - DRAFT FOUR)
ACTION FYI
ACTION FYI
VICE PRESIDENT
MCCLURE
SUNUNU
NEWMAN
SCOWCROFT
PORTER
DARMAN
STUDDERT
BATES
UNTERMEYER
BREEDEN
BROMLEY
CARD
PINKERTON
CICCONI
Anderson
DEMAREST
Winston
FITZWATER
GRAY
HAGIN
REMARKS:
Please forward any comments directly to Chriss Winston, Rm. 122,
x2930, no later than 2:00 P.M., Monday, September 25, with a
copy to my office. Thank you.
RESPONSE:
89 SEP 25 P3: 07
James W. Cicconi
Assistant to the President
and Deputy to the Chief of Staff
Ext. 2702
Davis/Martin
Sept. 21, 1989
Draft: Four
Title: Jefferson
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS:
CONVOCATION, 51 UNIV. OF VIRGINIA
Thursday, Sept. 28, 11:30 a.m.
It's a delight to be back in Charlottesville. My son Marvin
and my daughter-in-law Margaret have told me to be humble while
I'm at U. Hall. ( (You see, they told me you only do the wave for
Ralph Sampson. )) ////
( (Acknowledge governors, events of the last few days.) ) I
have been deeply impressed by the commitment, the creativity and
the knowledge that you bring to education reform.
((I've also heard eloquent appeals from many authorities on
education in the last few weeks, from state legislators to
leaders in business and education. I have listened. And I am
deeply appreciative of all that I have heard. ))
( (But I want to share with you the concerns of someone from
an under-represented group in this debate -- grade-schoolers. I
got a letter from a boy from upstate New York who wrote me to
suggest several intriguing ideas. And his letter ended with the
most unusual proposal of all: He asked me to advance the cause
of science// by sending his teacher// to perform some research
//// in the Bermuda Triangle.) )
Of course, this little boy does not yet appreciate it, but
it will be the tough teachers that he will remember fondly as an
adult. The ( ("Johnnys)) of our schools are, in many ways, the
luckiest generation of children in history. Just last month,
2
these children observed, in the clarity of Voyager's sight, the
horizons of alien worlds, the majesty of space. Think what these
images would have meant to the ever-curious founder of this
university, who could only look through a primitive telescope at
faint patches of light, and wonder.
But our children are growing up in an age where wonder is
common place, and peace and prosperity are often taken for
granted. Our children are also the beneficiaries of a nation
that lavishes unsurpassed resources on their schooling. So in
many ways, we are close to fulfilling the Enlightenment dream of
universal education, a dream that became a reality in the
Shenandoah Valley, here at Mister Jefferson's school.
Every step we take at this University is a walk in Thomas
Jefferson's footsteps. When Jefferson first charted the ground
on which we gather today, there was just a field of grass, and a
horizon limited only by the blue mountains beyond. But Jefferson
surveyed a horizon no one else could see. He saw the graceful
dome of the Rotunda, and the elegance of the Lawn and its
pavilions. He saw meeting rooms and lectures halls -- and hoped
they would be teeming with professors and students yet unborn.
Jefferson fashioned his ethereal vision into solid reality,
brick by brick, book by book. And it is his University -- and
his dream that inspires us today to follow in his footsteps.
Thomas Jefferson was our first education president. He was
a relentless advocate for universal public education. He did so
because he had a "fundamental conviction that on the 'good sense
3
of' an educated citizenry, we could build and defend a country of
liberty and justice."
I borrowed these last few words from a friend of mine. This
assessment of Thomas Jefferson came from another Renaissance man,
a man of our time -- the late A. Bartlett Giamatti. 11
Like Jefferson, Bart's life was a metaphor for civility and
public service. And it is this commitment to public service that
we must carry on, not just as an education President, but as
education governors, as an education society.
We have come close to this Jeffersonian ideal of an
education society. And yet, after two centuries of progress, we
are backsliding. While millions of Americans read for pleasure,
millions of others don't read at all. While millions of
Americans graduate from college, millions of others never finish
high school. Jefferson said that no nation could long be both
ignorant and free. The state of our educational system is
nothing less than the future of our democracy.
So I come to Jefferson's university to make a frank
observation: This nation is moving away from the aspirations of
its founders. The Founding Fathers were as fluent in geography
and science as they were in Latin and French. They began as rapt
students of antiquity, the statecraft of Marcus Aurelius, the
philosophy of thinkers from Socrates to Cicero. And yet they
surpassed their ancient teachers to become the greatest political
philosophers of all time.
4
Our founders lived at a time when the purpose of education
was to develop the character of young people. Schools taught
literature, physics and geometry. But they also taught honesty,
discipline and service to country. Judge for yourself we always
impart these lessons today.
Jefferson wanted to redeem "that mass of talents which lies
buried in poverty." And for most of our history, education has
been the great champion of the poor, leveling all distinctions of
class, race and background. A century ago, the poorest parents
in the bleakest slum knew their children could go anywhere, could
be anything, if they could get an American education. Again,
judge for yourself if the same could be said today.
We've heard of high school graduates who believe New Mexico
is in Latin America. We've seen schools that are overrun by
crack and coke. We've read about children who cannot identify
George Bush, or, for that matter, George Washington. We are all,
by now, fully aware of the extent to which our nation is at risk.
This is not a time for assessment. This is a time for action. / /
I have built my proposals for federal action in education
around four principles. First: Excellence in education should be
recognized and rewarded. Second: Federal funding should be
targeted to those who need it most. Third: Choice and
flexibility -- we should give more freedom to educators, as well
as to parents and students. And fourth and finally: Greater
accountability for all -- students, teachers, principals, and,
yes, ourselves -- elected officials.
5
Some say there is another answer -- to spend more money. I
do not wholly agree, although I have asked Congress to provide
nearly a half a billion dollars for ten worthy programs.
Your states may also choose to spend more. But to those who say
that money alone is the answer, I say that there is no one
answer. Our nation already spends more to educate our youth than
it does to defend them -- this year, 353 billion dollars in all.
Over the decades, while the rate of spending has escalated, high
school graduation rates and SAT scores have tumbled. So hard
experience teaches that we are simply not getting our money's
worth in education. // Our focus must no longer be on resources.
It must be on results.
This is my program. Some support it. Some do not. But I
am sure we all agree this is no time to work at cross purposes.
This is a time for us to coordinate our efforts to save our
schools. / /
Education reform is not a distant goal to be passively
pursued. It is urgent. Imperative. Vital. In the past, one
could rise to the middle class without a high school education or
a special skill. You know as well as I that in the service
economy of the future, this will no longer be possible. By the
year 2000, between five million and fifteen million low-skill
jobs will be replaced by positions that require vastly greater
knowledge and ability. If we do not find a way to reach that
quarter of young Americans who never attain a high school degree,
6
then the underclass will be truly permanent. And America will no
longer be synonymous with opportunity.
Education is our most enduring legacy, vital to everything
we are and can become. And come the next century -- just ten
years away -- what will we be? Will our descendants forget all
that we were and forsake all they could achieve? Will Americans
be the children, or the orphans, of the Enlightenment?
Bill Milliken, a friend of mine in the educational
community, told me a story last week about a boy he knows from an
inner-city neighborhood, a neighborhood where chaos and violence
reign. The child Bill knows was shot through his shoulder while
going to school.
Bill went to visit him in the hospital. The boy cried, and
Bill rose to get a nurse, thinking that the pain of his wound had
become unbearable. But it wasn't that; it wasn't that at all.
The boy said he was crying because he was afraid, afraid to go
home, afraid to walk the streets and afraid to go to school.
Before we do anything, we must first give these children what
they need most -- safety on the streets and sanctuary at school.
Then they can learn.
We must become a reading nation, to again fight for
universal literacy. We must grapple with the hard sciences. And
because education is as spiritual as it is practical, our
children must know why Americans died at Concord, at Gettysburg,
at Monte Cassino and Inchon. They must understand the generosity
7
of Andrew Carnegie, the genius of Alexander Graham Bell and the
heroism of Rosa Parks. //
To beat illiteracy, to again lead the world in science and
to know history by heart -- these are ambitious goals. To some,
they may seem impossible to achieve. But Americans are not a
people who aim for half-way. Nothing less than a full-fledged
challenge will mobilize us as a people.
As President, I am here to make such a challenge. As
governors, you can provide the leadership to match it.
You already are consulting with the state legislatures to
better our schools. Our teachers are already giving their heart
and soul to their jobs. But we have never before worked together
-- President and principal, governor and teacher -- to achieve
results in education.
This is only the third time in our 200 years as a nation
that a President has called a summit with the governors. And I
did not ask you to such an historic occasion merely to bemoan
what is wrong. We are here to work; to work together; to put the
future before the moment, and progress before partisanship, to
again make an American education the best in the world. //
We must begin with a social compact, a compact between
parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, state
legislators, governors and the Administration. Our compact is
founded not on promises, but on challenges. Let us start with
three challenges -- three radical departures from tradition.
8
I challenge you to join me, for the first time, to define
national goals and standards in education. I seek tighter
standards/ higher goals/ greater aspirations. ((Specifics to
come.))
Second, I accept your challenge to loosen the grip of
federal restrictions. //// How many great ideas, how many grand
and noble experiments, have been impaled on the narrow spike of a
federal directive? Regulation is the enemy of the bold. And
bold action is what we need most of all. //
In return for greater flexibility from Washington, I ask
that you, in turn, ease state restrictions on local bodies. And
then we will challenge superintendents and principals to meet our
higher standards. I will start this process by issuing ((an
executive order) ) on ((date)) to ( (language to come))
Third, let us judge our efforts not by our intentions, but
by our results. We need to first know where we are, no matter
how unpleasant that realization may be. We have always measured
our progress against our past performance. But to get results,
we must evaluate ourselves on a tougher grading curve -- one that
includes the other major industrial nations.
To get results, we will need a new spirit of competition
between students, between teachers and between schools -- a
report card for all.
And to get results, we will need discipline, structure and
goals. In a phrase, back to the basics.
9
Yet I do not counsel a naive nostalgia, a timid adherence to
the past. We should embrace only what works. And when hallowed
tradition proves to be hollow convention, then we must shatter
tradition. The public is ready for sweeping and far-reaching
changes, for lasting reform. We must// not// disappoint them.
////
Less than three percent of all families live on a farm; and
yet we still educate by an agrarian school calendar largely
unchanged since the 1880s. The school year could easily be
lengthened to more than 200 days, with generous breaks
throughout. Listen to the children. They will tell you that it
is a tossup as to which is more boring: nine straight months of
school, or three straight months of vacation. Let us shatter
this tradition.
Some school subjects may require hours a day; others
minutes. Yet we teach all subjects in rigid 55 minutes formats,
as if the human attention span were a Pavlovian ( (PAHV-Low-Vian))
response to the ring of a school bell. School days, like school
years, are structured by custom, not by creativity. Let us
shatter this tradition.
Americans fully realize that when government bodies swell
beyond the boundaries of community interest, bureaucracy takes
control. We should scale our school districts to the communities
they serve, empowering parents and teachers alike. Large is
deadly. Let us shatter this tradition.
10
Reform requires even more of us. Too many parents have come
to see education as a service we can hand over to the school
boards, in much the same way we expect our cities to provide
electricity or water. But education is not a utility, not
something to be delegated to public policy. Education is a way
of life, and educational reform is an urgent responsibility for
every parent, every student, every community. Those who do not
advance the cause of education, hinder it. ////
Look to those who are already in the lead.
Look to Chelsea, Massachusetts, where Boston University has
been asked to assume control of a school system in trouble.
These schools will now stay open from 7:30 in the morning to 5:30
in the evening, serving as day-care centers for children whose
parents work. Eventually, Boston University will offer pre-
school classes for all children ages three to five, and "after-
school" programs involving arts and exercise.
Look to Milton Goldman and Jeffrey Reed -- teachers in Los
Angeles who use video science to entice the children of the
television age to enjoy reading.
Look to ( (name of teacher to come) ) and every other teacher
who struggles to transform the dull and the rote into the magical
and the enterprising.
Some of these experiments are sure to come up short. But
for too many of our schools, experimentation is preferable to the
status quo, because the status quo could scarcely be worse. The
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worthy and the useful will win out only if we give our schools
the freedom they deserve.
Choice is another form of freedom in education I referred to
earlier, and it is a demonstrated success. Parents should be
free to choose their schools. Principals should be free to
choose the best methods for their teachers. And schools should
be free to choose teachers with alternative certification --
those whose knowledge surpasses their credentials.
Of course, this summit will not, cannot, lead to a quick and
easy solution. We are embarking on the work of years. So let me
make a final proposal -- that we meet again in a less formal
setting to take stock of where we succeeded, and where we need to
redouble our efforts.
Every American must make the same assessment, for our
education is the work of a lifetime. With the average lifespan
lengthening to three-quarters of a century, it is absurd that we
should quit learning at age 18 or 22. Education shouldn't begin
with kindergarten, and end with a diploma and a handshake.
Education begins when we draw our first breath. And it stops
only when we breathe our last.
Our homes and our workplaces must be places of learning;
schools that continually sharpen our skills and upgrade our
competence. Seventy-five percent of the work force of the year
2000 are already on the job today. This makes vocational and
adult education essential.
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Yet our most basic need for lifelong learning has nothing to
do with the trade balance, or the greying of the work force; it
is broader than the narrow compass of economics and government.
A scholar once wrote that great books are not lifeless
paper, but minds alive on the shelves. He observed that just as
the touch of a button on a stereo will fill the room with music,
so by taking down one of these volumes, and opening it, one can
call into range the voice of a man far distant in time and space,
and hear him speak to us, mind to mind, heart to heart.
As a nation, we can again hear these voices, feel this
enchantment -- every time a parent reads a bedtime story to a
sleepy child; every time a young scholar turns to the great
books. The day must come when every young American can know the
life of the mind.
That is why we have gathered here, at Mister Jefferson's
school. He was just one man, but look at what one man can do.
Imagine what we can do if we -- fifty-one strong -- are united by
a great cause. So let us dream. Let us talk. If need be, let
us argue. But in the end, let us let us walk together on a
journey to enlightenment, in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson.
////
Thank you for your hard work and dedication. Thank you for
your partnership. Let us leave Charlottesville determined to
work with each other, to work for America. God bless you all.
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