[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 46 (Thursday, April 17, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3383-S3384]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     TRIBUTE TO DR. VARTAN GREGORIAN, PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

 Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to commend a fellow 
Rhode Islander and friend, Dr. Vartan Gregorian. On January 6, Dr. 
Gregorian announced that he will leave his post as president of Brown 
University in Providence, RI, to become President of the Carnegie Corp. 
After 9 years on College Hill, he leaves behind a flourishing campus 
and community. Brown has more than doubled its endowment during his 
tenure. An ambitious capital campaign has raised over $500 million 
under Dr. Gregorian's leadership, and he has brought 275 new faculty 
members to Brown, including 72 new professors.
  But, Mr. President, the true measure of Vartan Gregorian is not his 
skill as an administrator, booster, and fund raiser, it is his passion 
for teaching and learning. Even in the midst of the demands of his 
presidency, he has managed to find time to continue to teach, and I 
understand that he also continues to serve as an advisor for several 
fortunate students. In this regard, he is unique among his peers, and 
they recognize his prodigious efforts. James Freedman, president of 
Dartmouth, said of Dr. Gregorian, ``He communicates the joy of 
learning.''
  Vartan Gregorian's interest in education is not limited to Brown or 
to other institutions of higher learning. He is deeply concerned about 
the condition of the Nation's public schools. As his colleague, 
Theodore Sizer, said recently, ``No Ivy League president has put his 
shoulder to the wheel of public education more than Vartan Gregorian.''
  Last month, Dr. Gregorian wrote an article in Parade magazine 
entitled ``10 Things You Can Do to Make Our Schools Better.'' Mr. 
President, I commend this article to my colleagues, and I hope all 
Senators read and benefit from Dr. Gregorian's observations, 
particularly that it is everyone's job to help improve our public 
schools. Mr. President, I ask that Dr. Gregorian's article be printed 
in the Record following my remarks.
  Mr. President, no matter where he has gone, Vartan Gregorian has 
taken his appreciation for education and left behind him successful 
institutions and inspired students. Brown, Providence, and Rhode Island 
will miss him, but we know he will stay in close touch and that he will 
continue to lead at his new post at the Carnegie Corp. We wish him 
well.
  The article follows:

            10 Things You Can Do To Make Our Schools Better

                         (By Vartan Gregorian)

       When I was invited by Parade to write an article about 
     improving our public educational system, I thought for a 
     moment of titling it ``In Praise of Public School Teachers.'' 
     This is because, while our schools badly need reform and 
     upgrading, the responsibility for their problems cannot 
     simply be dumped on our teachers, who by and large are a 
     dedicated, hardworking and undervalued corps of 
     professionals.
       In fact, even as we acknowledge that our public schools 
     need help, we ought to recognize their achievements and 
     successes along with their shortcomings. They face problems 
     that reflect those of our entire society, and they have to 
     contend with burdens and restrictions that don't affect most 
     of the private and parochial schools with which they

[[Page S3384]]

     are sometimes unfairly compared. Nevertheless, our public 
     schools should be better--much better--than they are, and 
     improving them is a job for everyone from parents to college 
     presidents.
       What are some of the things that you, as a concerned 
     individual, can do right now to better the schools and the 
     educational process in your own area? Here are 10 practical 
     steps you can take in this direction.
       1. Visit your schools. It's not enough for parents to go 
     once or twice a year for PTA meetings. I'd like to see 
     schools make it easier for parents to visit regularly, even 
     holding weekend and evening open houses for parents who can't 
     get there during their working hours.
       2. Involve the grandparents. This is especially important 
     in cases of single parents.
       3. Make the public school a magnet for the community. Hold 
     social and community functions in school buildings.
       4. Volunteer to help in your school. When rules permit, 
     parents or others should offer to take over nonteaching jobs, 
     such as hall monitors or cafeteria supervisors. Teachers 
     should be treated as professionals whose job is teaching.
       5. Read to your children. Nothing is more important than 
     this. Start your children with nursery rhymes and go on from 
     there.
       6. Give every schoolchild a library card. When I was 
     president of the New York Public Library, we arranged with 
     Mayor Ed Koch to give one million library cards to the city's 
     schoolchildren. We found that the majority of them were put 
     to good use. Every town library should issue a card to each 
     child in the community.
       7. Organize and attend shows that the children put on. They 
     encourage children to work together and also serve as a bond 
     with the community.
       8. Recognize that too much television has a terrible 
     effect. Consider making television a chore rather than an 
     amusement. Let children watch four hours a day if they want 
     to, but require them to write papers on what they see. My 
     objection to television is not only the time it wastes but 
     also the passivity it brings. It produces isolation, not 
     communication. If children had to critique what they watched, 
     it might even serve to reduce the violence on the screen.
       9. Let our children go. Schools should take children on 
     expeditions, and not just to a museum or zoo. Business and 
     civic leaders could invite whole classes to visit workplaces 
     for a day--banks, hospitals, universities, factories, police 
     stations, places of worship, government offices.
       10. Restore the arts as a major element in education. We've 
     made a tremendous mistake in diminishing or eliminating art, 
     music and dance as fluff or frills. The arts like sports, 
     play a vital role in bringing students together and promoting 
     teamwork. Athletics provide stability and a way to release 
     energy. The arts allow children to develop creativity and 
     imagination. The Duke Ellington School in Washington, D.C., 
     has one of the lowest dropout rates anywhere. Ninety percent 
     of the participants in The Boys Choir of Harlem go to college 
     following high school. It's almost impossible to 
     overemphasize the significance of the creative arts in 
     education. Make sure that your own school district recognizes 
     this.
       An important challenge faced by today's schools that didn't 
     exist in the past is the changed expectations of the public. 
     Today, it is assumed that almost everybody has to go to 
     college. A university education is regarded more as a 
     necessity than as something extraordinary. And we glamorize 
     the past. The 1930s and '40s had high dropout rates too, but 
     fewer people then were deeply concerned about that. American 
     society has changed and raised its expectations of what an 
     educational system should provide.
       How can we meet those expectations? The core of the 
     teaching process is, and always will be, the teacher. I 
     believe that to become a teacher is to join a noble 
     profession. Teachers have an awesome responsibility: We 
     entrust our sons and daughters to teachers to help prepare 
     them for life. Yet too often teachers are held in low esteem. 
     We pay them less than we pay plumbers and mechanics, and we 
     complain about them more readily. As I have suggested, 
     teachers today are not just teachers--they're called upon to 
     be supervisors, custodians, counselors, hall and cafeteria 
     monitors, law and order officers. Despite all this, thousands 
     and thousands of men and women are public school teachers 
     because they are dedicated people.
       Are teachers' unions part of the solution? Yes. They are 
     interested in the economic aspects of teaching, and they 
     should be. But they have a moral; professional and historical 
     obligation to help rescue and reform our public schools. The 
     burnout rate among teachers in our nation's public schools is 
     very high. Unions should join in an effort to allow teachers 
     to be retrained, re-educated and immersed in the very 
     disciplines in which they need renewal so they can further 
     the horizons of education and knowledge.
       There is a great need for strengthening the schools of 
     education in our colleges and universities, so we can raise 
     our standards of teaching. This is something in which college 
     presidents can play a part, for too often the school of 
     education is not regarded as highly as the rest of the 
     university. The arts and science faculties in many 
     universities have no close affinity with the schools of 
     education. Schools of education often stress the technique 
     rather than the substance of the subject matter. We really 
     need to rethink our teacher-education and teacher-retraining 
     programs.
       I don't agree with those who feel that school vouchers are 
     a panacea for our educational ills. Vouchers may solve 
     individual problems, but not society's. Choice is meaningless 
     for the millions of Americans who live in rural areas with 
     few schools. Choice between bad schools is not useful to city 
     dwellers.
       Parents who want their children to attend private schools 
     learn quickly that parents don't choose private schools--
     private schools choose children. I have a drastic solution 
     for a school that is bad: Shut it down. We don't allow a bad 
     hospital to function: why should we allow a bad school?
       A national consensus exists on the need for school reform. 
     According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken just 
     before the election, four in 10 voters said education should 
     be one of the next President's two top priorities. It ranked 
     evenly with keeping the economy healthy as the No. 1 concern. 
     During the last decade, there has been a nationwide movement 
     for school reform, and there is a major national effort now 
     being made to bring this about--the Annenberg Challenge, 
     which deserves to be widely recognized.
       The Annenberg Challenge is a metaphor for change in our 
     schools. It was launched in 1993 with a five-year, $500 
     million grant by Walter Annenberg, our former ambassador to 
     Great Britain. Since it was a 2-for-1 matching challenge, the 
     total amount will reach $1.5 billion, the largest such grant 
     ever made to American public education. The Annenberg 
     Challenge is not for budget relief; it is for enhancement. A 
     full 90 percent must go to teaching and to the classroom, 
     with only 10 percent to be spent on overhead.
       The Annenberg Challenge operates on a variety of fronts. It 
     includes grants to some of the nation's largest urban school 
     systems, a rural schools initiative and an arts initiative, 
     as well as aid to such organizations as the New American 
     Schools Development Corporation, the Education Commission of 
     the States and the Annenberg Institute of School Reform to 
     carry forward their respective programs.
       Wherever it has been put in operation, the Annenberg 
     Challenge has required a cooperative effort by the school 
     boards, labor leaders and legislators, as well as corporate 
     and foundation executives. In New York City, Chicago, 
     Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Detroit and other localities where 
     the Challenge now functions, I actually have witnessed the 
     encouraging phenomenon of such groups working together to 
     produce results. As of now, some 4500 schools throughout the 
     country are benefiting from the program. The Annenberg 
     Challenge money itself will not reform the entire system, but 
     it has created laboratories for change.
       So I am optimistic about the possibilities of improving our 
     schools. As a college president, especially, I know how 
     important it is that we do so, for I do not want to see our 
     universities turn into remedial schools. The superstructure 
     cannot stand without a healthy infrastructure. When the 
     Titanic sinks, you cannot say, ``I was traveling first 
     class.'' We all are our future's guardians, and our future is 
     our children.

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