12:10 AM 07 Jan 1999
| from: |
Paul D. Glastris |
| to: |
Broderick, Bruce N. Reed, Elena Kagan, Jennifer L. Klein, Jonathan H., Joshua S., Linda, Michael, Neera, Paul K., Tanya E. Martin |
Final 1/6/99
Paul Glastris
PRESIDENT WILLIAM J. CLINTON
REMARKS ON AFTER SCHOOL
EAST ROOM, THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
Thursday, January 7, 1999
Our Founding Fathers believed that American democracy could
survive only if its citizens were well-educated. In 1787 they declared
that all new territories set aside land for public schools, thereby
establishing the principle that public education, though a state and local
responsibility, is a national priority. In 1867, the federal government
created the land grant college system. In 1917, federal aid for
( ',~
vocational training began flowing to public high schools. In 1944, the GI
bill gave millions of returning veterans tickets to the middle class. In
1958, the launch of Sputnik led to federal funds to improve science and
math instruction in public schools. In 1965, federal support for
education expanded further to bring minorities long shut out of the
classroom inside.
At each of these turning points in history, America strengthened
public education to match the challenges of the times. Today, America
faces another great challenge: The emergence of a global economy that is
fast-paced, technologically sophisticated, and driven by information. An
economy in which the workplace is no longer just for men and the work day
is no longer bound by the hours of nine-to-five. An economy in which, more
than ever before, what you earn depends on what you learn.
To meet the challenge of the new economy and help our people
compete, our public schools must change, and change dramatically. They
must reflect the way we work and live now, on the threshold of the 21th
century. They must provide every child in American a world-class
education. Today, I want to talk about the progress we have already made
towards meeting these goals, and another crucial step we must take.
In the last six years, we have made progress. Forty-eight of 50
states have now adopted the tougher academic standards we called for in
our Goals 2000 program back in 1994. Thousands of schools have cracked
down on guns, gangs, violence and discipline problems, and the percentage
of students who report being threatened or injured at school nationwide is
down.
We have begun to organize an army of tutors to help elementary
school children learn to read and middle and high school students prepare
for college. We have increased investment in early childhood learning
through Head Start. We are making progress towards connecting every
school and library in America to the Internet by the year 2000. Last
fall, we fought for and won from Congress a down payment on 100,000 new,
highly-trained teachers to reduce class sizes in the early grades. I
trust that the new Congress will keep up those payments, and I hope they
will work with me to build or modernize 5000schools.
All these efforts and more are beginning to show results. SAT
scores are up. Math scores have risen in nearly all grades nationwide.
This is good news. We should be pleased. We should be thankful. But we
should not be fooled into complacency. Reading scores have hardly budged
and many of our foreign competitors are improving their educational
systems faster than we are.
Nor have the majority of our schools kept pace with new patterns
of work and family life. A new economy bringing our nation unparalleled
prosperity is also drawing more and more parents into the workforce. On
any given day in America, as many as 15 million school-aged children are
left to fend for themselves at home, idle in front of the television or
out on the streets exposed to gangs and drugs and crime. On any given
day, when schools let out, juvenile crime soars, as does the number of
children victimized by crime. On any given day, when school lets out,
tens of millions of working parents look nervously at the clock, hoping
and praying that their children will be safe.
It is no secret that I believe that the best way for our nation to
meet these challenges is to expand the number and quality of after school
programs. With quality after school, working parents have the tool they
i... '!
need to succeed at work and as parents. Students learn their lessons in
the schoolhouse, not on the street. Youth crime and victimization
plummet. Quality after school programs enhance opportunity, bolster
responsibility, and strengthen communities. They honor our values and
benefit our nation.
That is why I have supported grants for quality after school
programs through the 21st Century Community Learning Center Initiative,
first introduced by Sen. Jeffords and championed by Senators Boxer and
Kennedy, and Congresswoman Lowey. This crucial effort has grown from $1
million two years ago to $40 million last year to $200 million in the
budget I signed last fall. Yet the demand for quality after school, the
bipartisan support it has gained, and its potential to transform public
education in America, far outweigh the investment we have made so far.
We must do more. Today, I am pleased to announce that the new balanced
budget I will submit to Congress next month triples our investment in
academically-enriched after school programs. This new investment will
give over a million school children all across America somewhere to go
other than the streets when school lets out--a place where they can play,
study, explore the Internet, and be safe. It will give millions of
working parents peace of mind as they fight the traffic home at night. It
will make the streets safer for all Americans.
In addition to adapting public schools to the new patterns of work
and life in America, we must also provide our children--all our
children--with the world-class educations they will need to prosper in the
new economy. For that to occur, we must have a revolution of rising
expectations and greater accountability in our schools. Quality after
school is a key to that revolution.
I have seen the revolution with my own eyes in the many visits the
First Lady and I have made to schools in Chicago. Mayor Richard Daley has
made many changes, the most crucial of which was ending the practice of
social promotion, in which students proceed to the next grade level
regardless of whether they have mastered the material in their current
grade level.
In Chicago, students who fail tests at the end of 3rd, 6th, and
8th grades are placed in academically-enhanced summer school and after
school programs and tutored until they do pass--and most students
eventually do. ChicagoD,s Lighthouse after school program keeps 112,000
children in 248 Chicago schools off the street and in the classroom, while
its summer school program is now the sixth largest school district in
America. Citywide math and reading scores have gone up three years in a
row in Chicago, with the biggest gains coming from some of the most
disadvantaged schools.
Now other cities such as the District of Columbia, and states such
as Delaware and South Carolina, are also ending social promotion and
offering after school and other help to students who need it. We should
encourage more communities follow their lead. That is why, in the
competition for these new after school grants, I want priority to be given
to those communities that end social promotion.
Today, Education Week published a survey showing that in high schools
that require students to pass an exit exam before graduating, 68 percent
of students say the tests D&make them work harder.DS Think about that.
Sixty eight percent. That means that over two-thirds of these students,
by their own admission, were not doing their best, until adults had the
courage to challenge them and hold them accountable. Now imagine what
(.. .,~
would happen if we started holding all public school students in America
accountable.
A quality after school program cannot be a substitute for a poor
quality program during the regular school day. We will make sure that
these investments go to schools that end social promotion the right way.
We must insist on more accountability not just from students but from
parents, teachers, principals, school superintendents, and elected
officials. We must have more high-quality child care so that all children
are ready to learn on the first day of .kindergarten. I will be talking
about all this and more in my State of the Union address. But today, by
raising our investment in quality after school, we are taking a crucial
step towards transforming our public schools so that every child in
America has a worldcclass education for the 21st Century.
Thank you and God bless you.
###
EMAILS RECEIVED
ARMS - BOX 042 - FOLDER -005
[01/07/1999]
12:10 AM 07 Jan 1999
| from: |
Paul D. Glastris |
| to: |
Broderick, Bruce N. Reed, Elena Kagan, Jennifer L. Klein, Jonathan H., Joshua S., Linda, Michael, Neera, Paul K., Tanya E. Martin |
Final 1/6/99
Paul Glastris
PRESIDENT WILLIAM J. CLINTON
REMARKS ON AFTER SCHOOL
EAST ROOM, THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
Thursday, January 7, 1999
Our Founding Fathers believed that American democracy could
survive on~y if its citizens were well-educated. In 1787 they declared
that all new territories set aside land for public schools, thereby
establishing the principle that public education, though a state and local
responsibility, is a national priority. In 1867, the federal government
created the land grant college system. In 1917, federal aid for
vocational training began flowing to public high schools. In 1944, the GI
bill gave millions of returning veterans tickets to the middle class. In
1958, the launch of Sputnik led to federal funds to improve science and
math instruction in public schools. In 1965, federal support for
education expanded further to bring minorities long shut out of the
classroom inside.
At each of these turning points in history, America strengthened
public education to match the challenges of the times. Today, America
faces another great challenge: The emergence of a global economy that is
fast-paced, technologically sophisticated, and driven by information. An
economy in which the workplace is no longer just for men and the work day
is no longer bound by the hours of nine-to-five. An economy in which, more
than ever before, what you earn depends on what you learn.
To meet the challenge of the new economy and help our people
compete, our public schools must change, and change dramatically. They
must reflect the way we work and live now, on the threshold of the 21th
Century. They must provide every child in American a world-class
education. Today, I want to talk about the progress we have already made
towards meeting these goals, and another crucial step we must take.
In the last six years, we have made progress. Forty-eight of 50
states have now adopted the tougher academic standards we called for in
our Goals 2000 program back in 1994. Thousands of schools have cracked
down on guns, gangs, violence and discipline problems, and the percentage
of students who report being threatened or 'injured at school nationwide is
down.
We have begun to organize an army of tutors to help elementary
school children learn to read and middle and high school students prepare
for college. We have increased investment in early childhood learning
through Head Start. We are making progress towards connecting every
school and library in America to the Internet by the year 2000. Last
fall, we fought for and won from Congress a down payment on 100,000 new,
highly-trained teachers to reduce class sizes in the early grades. I
trust that the new Congress will keep up those payments, and I hope they
will work with me to build or modernize 5000 schools.
All these efforts and more are beginning to show results. SAT
scores are up. Math scores have risen in nearly all grades nationwide.
This is good news. We should be pleased. We. should be thankful. But we
should not be fooled into complacency. Reading scores have hardly budged
and many of our foreign competitors are improving their educational
systems faster than we are.
Nor have the majority of our schools kept pace with new patterns
of work and family life. A new economy bringing our nation unparalleled
prosperity is also drawing more and more parents into the workforce. On
any given day in America, as many as 15 million school-aged children are
left to fend for themselves at home, idle in front of the television or
out on the streets exposed to gangs and drugs and crime. On any given
day, when schools let out, juvenile crime soars, as does the number of
children victimized by crime. On any given day, when school lets out,
tens of millions of working parents look nervously at the clock, hoping
and praying that their children will be safe.
It is no secret that I believe that the best way for our nation to
meet these challenges is to expand the number and quality of after school
programs. With quality after school, working parents have the tool they
need to succeed at work and as parents. Students learn their lessons in
the schoolhouse, not on the street. Youth crime and victimization
plummet. Quality after school programs enhance opportunity, bolster
responsibility, and strengthen communities. They honor our values and
benefit our nation.
That is why I have supported grants for quality after school
programs through the 21st Century Community Learning Center Initiative,
first introduced by Sen. Jeffords and championed by Senators Boxer and
Kennedy, and Congresswoman Lowey. This crucial effort has grown from $1
million two years ago to $40 million last year to $200 million in the
budget I signed last fall. Yet the demand for quality after school, the
bipartisan support it has gained, and its potential to transform public
education in America, far outweigh the investment we have made so far.
We must do more. Today, I am pleased to announce that the new balanced
budget I will submit to Congress next month triples our investment in
academically-enriched after school programs. This new investment will
give over a million school children all across America somewhere to go
other than the streets when school lets out--a place where they can play,
study, explore the Internet, and be safe. It will give millions of
working parents peace of mind as they fight the traffic home at night. It
will make the streets safer for all Americans.
In addition to adapting public schools to the new patterns of work
and life in America, we must also provide our children--all our
children--with the world-class educations they will need to prosper in the
new economy. For that to occur, we must have a revolution of rising
expectations and greater accountability in our schools. Quality after
school is a key to that revolution.
I have seen the revolution with my own eyes in the many visits the
First Lady and I have made to schools in Chicago. Mayor Richard Daley has
made many changes, the most crucial of which was ending the practice of
social promotion, in which students proceed to the next grade level
regardless of whether they have mastered the material in their current
grade level.
In Chicago, students who fail tests at the end of 3rd, 6th, and
8th grades are placed in academically-enhanced summer school and after
school programs and tutored until they do pass--and most students
eventually do. ChicagoD,s Lighthouse after school program keeps 112,000
children in 248 Chicago schools off the street and in the classroom, while
its summer school program is now the sixth largest school district in
America. Citywide math and reading scores have gone up three years in a
row in Chicago, with the biggest gains coming from some of the most
disadvantaged schools.
Now other cities such as the District of Columbia, and states such
as Delaware and South Carolina, are also ending social promotion and
offering after school and other help to students who need it. We should
encourage more communities follow their lead. That is why, in the
competition for these new after school grants, I want priority to be given
to those communities that end social promotion.
Today, Education Week published a survey showing that in high schools
that require students to pass an exit exam before graduating, 68 percent
of students say the tests D&make them work harder.D8 Think about that.
Sixty eight percent. That means that over two-thirds of these students,
by their own admission, were not doing their best, until adults had the
courage to challenge them and hold them accountable. Now imagine what
would happen if we started holding all public school students in America
accountable.
A quality after school program cannot be a substitute for a poor
quality program during the regular school day. We will make sure that
these investments go to schools that end social promotion the right way.
We must insist on more accountability not just from students but from
parents, teachers, principals, school superintendents, and elected
officials. We must have more high-quality child care so that all children
are ready to learn on the first day of kindergarten. I will be talking
about all this and more in my State of the Union address. But today, by
raising our investment in quality after school, we are taking a crucial
step towards transforming our public schools so that every child in
America has a world-class education for the 21st Century.
Thank you and God bless you.
###
