[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 126 (Monday, September 21, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10654-S10656]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     SECRETARY OF EDUCATION DICK RILEY'S ``BACK TO SCHOOL'' ADDRESS

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, on September 15, 1998, at the National 
Press Club, Secretary of Education Dick Riley, delivered an impressive 
``Back to School'' Address on the state of education in the nation.
  No one has been more thoughtful and effective in the effort to 
improve public schools for all children. I believe all of us will be 
interested in seeing this important address, and I ask unanimous 
consent that it be printed in the Record.

  The Challenge for America: A High Quality Teacher in Every Classroom

       Good afternoon. At the beginning of every school year, I 
     have the good fortune to come to the National Press Club to 
     give my ``Back to School'' address. I have been traveling 
     from Georgia to the Pacific Northwest as part of my annual 
     back to school push, and I can tell you that America's 
     schools are overflowing with children. It is an exciting time 
     for children and parents; but in too many cases our schools 
     are overcrowded, wearing out and in desperate need of 
     modernization.
       As I noted in our annual report on the ``baby-boom echo'' 
     which we released last week, we are once again breaking the 
     national enrollment record. There are currently 52.7 million 
     young people in school and more on the way. And in the next 
     ten

[[Page S10655]]

     years we will need to recruit 2.2 million teachers to teach 
     them.
       This is why I believe that the education of our children 
     should be this nation's number one national priority in this 
     time of peace and prosperity. I also believe that this is the 
     patriotic thing to do as well.
       Like many of you I had the opportunity to see the movie, 
     ``Saving Private Ryan.'' It is a wonderful movie that 
     acknowledges the sacrifice of a generation of Americans who 
     did their duty in World War II. Tom Hanks plays Captain 
     Miller, an English teacher, who does what he has to do, even 
     at the risk of his own life. I believe that the new patriots 
     of our time will be those Americans, young and old, who go 
     into teaching to educate this generation of children.
       And I will tell you this--as I travel around the country, 
     parents tell me again and again that they have very clear 
     priorities about what we should be doing here in Washington. 
     They want safe schools, our help in building new schools and 
     modernizing old ones, smaller classes, and the assurance that 
     there is a good teacher in every classroom. This is the 
     nation's business and we need to get on with it.
       If Congress is serious about getting dollars to the 
     classrooms, I urge them to enact our legislation to modernize 
     our schools and reduce class size by hiring 100,000 new 
     teachers. Rearranging existing programs, which seems to be 
     the intent of the Congress, does nothing to address the real 
     challenges facing schools today. In addition, Congress should 
     fund the President's initiatives in the Appropriations bill 
     that they are now considering.
       The focus of my speech is on what we must do to prepare the 
     next generation of teachers and this is why I am releasing a 
     report today entitled ``Promising Practices'' which 
     highlights new ways that we can improve teacher quality. This 
     publication was developed following a national search for 
     models of excellence that address the needs at every stage of 
     a teacher's career.
       In preparing my remarks I have had the good advice of three 
     members of my staff--two former National Teachers of the 
     Year--Terry Dozier and Mary Beth Blegen--as well as that of 
     Paul Schwarz, the former principal of a nationally recognized 
     high school--Central Park East in New York City. Like all 
     good teachers Terry, Mary Beth and Paul have clear opinions 
     about how we can improve American education. In other words, 
     they do not mince words. So I won't either.


              Missing the Mark in Recruiting New Teachers

       I am concerned that we are missing the mark when it comes 
     to preparing the next generation of teachers. We do not seem 
     to recognize the magnitude of the task ahead. In the next ten 
     years, we need to recruit 2.2 million teachers. One-half to 
     two-thirds of these teachers will be first time teachers.
       We have more than a million veteran teachers on the verge 
     of retiring. The first chart attached to my speech makes this 
     point very vividly. By my reckoning, we are about five years 
     away from a very dramatic change in our teaching force.
       The vast majority of these experienced teachers who are 
     about to retire are women. This, in fact, may be the last 
     generation of women who went into teaching because there were 
     limited opportunities in other fields. In 1998, women have 
     many more career options--and that is a very good thing for 
     our nation. These new opportunities for women will require 
     us, then, to work much, much harder to recruit and train a 
     new generation of teachers.
       Many people ask me whether we have a teacher shortage. My 
     answer is yes. We face a shortage of high quality teachers. 
     We are already seeing spot shortages developing in specific 
     fields of expertise--math, science, special education and 
     bilingual education. The recent news that New York City 
     recruited math teachers from Austria highlights this growing 
     dynamic.
       School districts usually find a way to put somebody in 
     front of every classroom, and that is the problem. Too many 
     school districts are sacrificing quality for quantity to meet 
     the immediate demand of putting a warm body in front of a 
     classroom. This is a mistake. Even now, too many school 
     districts are issuing emergency licenses.
       Many of these emergency teachers are dedicated and want to 
     do their best. But I have heard about and read too many 
     horror stories about provisional teachers who are teaching by 
     the seat of their pants with no preparation and no guidance.
       The coming wave of retirements has enormous implications in 
     our continuing effort to raise standards, to develop 
     successful recruitment strategies, and prepare new teachers. 
     We also need to recognize that the teaching profession is 
     dramatically changing--the use of computers, teaching in 
     teams, and the recognition that children learn in many 
     different ways--are just three of the many factors reshaping 
     this demanding profession.
       Three other dynamics also require our attention: the 
     increasing diversity of our classrooms and the lack of 
     diversity of our teaching force; the increasing number of 
     special education children and Limited English Proficient 
     (LEP) children in the regular classroom and teachers who lack 
     the training to teach them; and the need for many more 
     incentives to keep veteran teachers up-to-date and in the 
     classroom.


                     what is wrong with the system

       I believe we also need to take a hard look at the very 
     structure of our current teaching system and get on with the 
     task of modernizing it as well. We cannot allow an outdated 
     teaching system to frustrate and even destroy the hopes and 
     dreams of too many teachers.
       The task is multi-dimensional. For example, too many 
     teacher education programs are focused on theory and not 
     enough on clinical experience.
       Also, the current certification process is a cumbersome 
     obstacle course that has little to do with excellence and 
     much more to do with filling out paperwork.
       And once a new teacher enters the classroom we allow a 
     perverse ``sink or swim'' approach to define the first years 
     in teaching. New teachers are usually assigned the most 
     difficult classes in addition to all the extra-curricular 
     activities that no one else wants to supervise. Then we 
     wonder why we lose 22% of new teachers in the first three 
     years--and close to 50% in our urban areas.
       This churning process and over-reliance on emergency 
     teachers just doesn't cut it in my opinion. Imagine the 
     outcry if a quarter of all new doctors left the profession 
     after their first three years. This is why I encourage local 
     school districts to develop some type of long-term induction 
     or mentoring program to help new teachers stay in the 
     profession.


                    creating a national partnership

       Education, as I have said many times before, is a state 
     responsibility, a local function and a national priority. We 
     cannot address the task at hand in a piecemeal fashion. We 
     need a nationwide partnership among K-12 leaders, our higher 
     education community, and political leaders at all levels.
       Now a great deal of effort has gone into improving and 
     supporting the teaching profession in the last decade. The 
     National Commission on Teaching led by Governor Jim Hunt of 
     North Carolina and Linda Darling Hammond has provided an 
     excellent ``road map'' to improve the teaching profession. 
     This is all to the good. But now we need to make things 
     happen and go to a new level of intensity.
       And I assure you--we will place a very strong emphasis on 
     teacher quality when we ask the Congress to reauthorize the 
     Elementary and Secondary Education Act next year. The 
     bipartisan leaders of the Congressional education committee 
     understand that need, and we will be working with them to 
     shape that legislation.


                         improving recruitment

       There are other steps we can take now to encourage more 
     Americans to enter the teaching profession.
       The Clinton Administration strongly supports the Feinstein-
     Boxer Amendment to the Higher Education Act that will provide 
     Pell Grants for a fifth year to those college students who 
     want to become teachers and need another year to meet state 
     fifth year requirements. This is particularly important to 
     the state of California which has the daunting task of 
     recruiting 250,000 teachers in the next decade.
       I am pleased that strong support is developing in the 
     Congress for improvements in teacher education and standards. 
     The Administration will continue to press the Congress to 
     pass our proposals to recruit nearly 35,000 teachers over the 
     next five years for underserved areas. As members meet today 
     to advance this higher education legislation, I urge them to 
     support our recruitment proposals.
       This important piece of legislation will almost certainly 
     include valuable new teacher loan forgiveness provisions that 
     have been championed by Senator Kennedy.
       I also urge Congress to fund the President's initiative to 
     train new teachers in technology.
       I support the creation of some type of national job bank to 
     match teachers with districts with a growing shortage of 
     quality teachers. There are wide regional variations in the 
     need for teachers. We can do a lot to help get teachers in 
     different parts of the country matched with school districts 
     in other regions that are facing growing shortages.
       At the same time, the increasing mobility of Americans is 
     going to require states and school districts to take a 
     serious look at the portability of teacher credentials, their 
     years in service, and pensions. We do not need artificial 
     shortages developing because states have not brought their 
     policies up-to-date.
       Our federal efforts to enlist millions of Americans to go 
     into teaching can have an impact. Our best hope, however, is 
     the strong encouragement of parents and grandparents whose 
     lives have been touched by good teachers. I get distressed 
     when I hear stories about parents discouraging their 
     children from going into teaching. Teaching is about 
     serving your country and being patriotic.
       I also challenge the myth that teaching is only for those 
     who can't cut it in other professions. Anyone who has ever 
     spent an hour in a classroom full of demanding second graders 
     or had the challenge of motivating a group of teenagers knows 
     how difficult the job can be.
       America's teachers are some of the most idealistic and 
     patriotic Americans in this country. I am extremely proud of 
     them. So many of them have entered teaching because they want 
     to change the world and many of them do.
       What are our other challenges?


           challenges to america's higher education community

       I challenge the leaders of America's great colleges and 
     universities to make teacher

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     education a much higher day-to-day priority. Teaching 
     teachers has to be the mission of the entire university.
       Our nation's colleges of education can no longer be quiet 
     backwaters that get a mere mention in the annual report to 
     university trustees. College administrators who complain 
     about the high cost of remedial classes would do well to pay 
     more attention to how they prepare teachers. Here several 
     suggestions come to mind.
       First, colleges of education should give basic skills tests 
     to students entering teacher education programs prior to 
     their acceptance and at the same time hold themselves more 
     accountable for their graduates. This is why I endorse the 
     thrust for accountability by Senator Bingaman and 
     Representative George Miller.
       Second, stronger links must be developed between our 
     colleges of arts and sciences and colleges of education. 
     Future teachers should major in the subject they want to 
     teach, and that type of course work takes place in the 
     colleges of arts and sciences.
       Third, I urge teacher prep programs to put a much stronger 
     focus on giving future teachers rigorous grounding in 
     developing the skills they need to teach. It is harder than 
     you think. Knowing your content is not enough. There is a 
     skill and a craft to it all, and that is especially true when 
     it comes to teaching reading. This is why I believe that 
     every teacher who is seeking a certificate in elementary 
     education should have solid preparation in reading.
       One of the major aspects of the reading bill now up in the 
     Congress is strong support for increased professional 
     development for reading. I support this effort and ask the 
     Congress to pass this needed legislation. We will never raise 
     standards if we just stay with the status quo when it comes 
     to improving literacy.
       Fourth, colleges of education need to recognize that our 
     special education and LEP populations are growing and deserve 
     much more of their attention as they prepare teachers.
       Finally, I urge colleges and universities to develop much 
     stronger links with local schools. The El Paso school 
     district, which we feature in our report ``Promising 
     Practices,'' has dramatically improved its test scores by 
     working hand-in-hand with the University of Texas in El Paso 
     to improve teacher education.


       challenges to state government and local school districts

       State governments and local school districts have a 
     powerful role to play in reshaping the teaching profession.
       This is why I challenge every state to create a demanding 
     but flexible certification process. Becoming a teacher should 
     not be an endurance test that requires future teachers to 
     overcome a bureaucratic maze of hoops and paperwork.
       I believe a much stronger focus should be placed on 
     assessing the knowledge and skills of future teachers however 
     they got them. This is why I support rigorous alternative 
     pathways to teaching which can be so helpful in recruiting 
     mid-career professionals to the teaching profession.
       I challenge every state to eliminate the practice of 
     granting emergency licenses within the next five years. You 
     cannot set standards and then immediately discard them when 
     the need for another warm body arises. New York State has 
     taken the lead in doing away with emergency licenses and 
     other states should follow this good example.
       At the same time, we cannot challenge high poverty schools 
     to raise their standards and then shortchange them by doing 
     nothing to help them recruit the best teachers. This is why 
     we are pushing the Congress to pass our strong teacher 
     recruitment initiative. At the same time, our nation's urban 
     areas have to do their part as well. Outdated hiring 
     practices sometimes seem to be the reason that they are 
     losing good candidates for teaching positions to suburban 
     school districts.
       State and local school districts must also end the practice 
     of teaching ``out of field.'' (Over 30 percent of all math 
     teachers, for example, are now teaching out of field.) I 
     believe that every teacher, at a minimum, should have a minor 
     in the subject that they teach.
       I cannot even begin to tell you how baffled foreign 
     education ministers are who visit me when I explain our 
     unusual habit of allowing teachers to teach ``out of field.''


                    incentives for veteran teachers

       As we seek to raise standards for our students, we need to 
     work much harder at giving veteran teachers the opportunity 
     to keep on learning. Current professional development courses 
     with their emphasis on workshops that put a premium on ``seat 
     time'' really need to become a thing of the past.
       We are developing more and more evidence that school 
     districts that invest in quality professional development for 
     their teachers see positive results in the classroom. The 
     good work of Tony Alvarado in District 2 in New York City, 
     who made sure learning new skills was an everyday experience 
     for his teachers is a wonderful national model.
       We need other incentives as well. The current system of 
     providing salary increases for credits earned seems flawed. 
     There is often no connection between the credits earned by a 
     teacher and what he or she actually teaches in the classroom. 
     And, there is little incentive to encourage teachers to gain 
     more knowledge or improve specific skills for their 
     classrooms. Excellence, in a word, is not rewarded.
       Only 14 states, for example, currently provide salary 
     supplements to those teachers who set out to become master 
     teachers through the National Board Certification process. As 
     a result many of the best teachers leave the classroom to get 
     a bigger paycheck as a school administrator.
       This is why I ask states and local school districts to take 
     a good look at a new and developing concept called 
     ``knowledge and skill-based pay.'' Put simply, teachers are 
     paid extra for new skills and knowledge they acquire. 
     Teachers under this system get rewarded for specific skills 
     and knowledge that help a school reach its own established 
     goals.
       Now, a word about teacher salaries. As I have said many 
     times before, we cannot expect to get good teachers on the 
     cheap. Mary Beth Blegen, the national teacher of the year in 
     1996, was being paid a $36,000 salary with 30 years of 
     experience--a fraction of what she deserved--and what other 
     professionals expect after years in service.
       If we are going to entice more Americans to enter teaching 
     we need to offer them fair and competitive salaries. And, if 
     we are going to ask teachers to meet new and demanding 
     standards we also need to pay them for their effort.
       States like Connecticut and North Carolina have had the 
     good sense to raise standards for teachers and raise salaries 
     at the same time. The results in the classroom are promising. 
     I believe every state would be wise to follow their good 
     example.
       If we really want to recruit and retain good teachers we 
     need to let them teach in first class school buildings. What 
     kind of message do we send our children and our teachers when 
     we ask them to go to a run down school building just a mile 
     down the road from an immaculate prison? President Clinton 
     has proposed a very strong school construction initiative. 
     Congress needs to get off the dime and pass it.
       In this speech, I have challenged many different groups to 
     come forward and join a national partnership for excellence 
     in teaching. It seems appropriate to end my remarks by taking 
     a moment to talk to America's teachers. You are the heart and 
     soul of the renaissance of American education. As I travel 
     throughout the country, I have the opportunity to meet many 
     of you. Each time I am struck by how important, yet how 
     difficult, your job is.
       As teachers, you are being asked to know more and do more 
     than ever before. Please continue your good work and go out 
     of your way to recruit new teachers. Let others know the joy 
     you get from teaching. Help the struggling teacher to 
     improve--and help to counsel out of the profession those who 
     cannot. And make the effort to measure yourselves against the 
     best.
       I end now with a quote from an old friend of mine from 
     South Carolina, the writer Pat Conroy. This quote is from his 
     novel ``Prince of Tides.'' In this passage, Tom, a teacher 
     who is the main character of the book is asked why he chose 
     to ``sell himself short'' when he was so talented and could 
     have done anything in his life.
       Tom's reply goes like this, ``There's no word in the 
     language that I revere more than `teacher.' '' None. ``My 
     heart sings'' he says, ``when a kid refers to me as his 
     teacher and it always has. I've honored myself and the entire 
     family of man by becoming a teacher.''
       With that I thank all teachers on behalf of the American 
     people. Thank you.

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