[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10880-10884]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                       STATE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, not long ago, I came across a letter from 
Thomas Jefferson to his nephew, Peter Carr, which discussed the 
elements of a good education. In his letter dated August 19, 1789, 
Jefferson advised his nephew to divide his studies into three main 
areas: Give the principal to History, the other two, which should be 
shorter, to Philosophy and Poetry.
  ``Begin [with] a course of ancient history,'' Jefferson wrote, 
``First read Goldsmith's history of Greece. . . . Then take up ancient 
history in the detail, reading the following books, in the following 
order: Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophontis Anabasis, Arrian, Quintus 
Curtius, Diodorus Siculus, Justin.'' This, Jefferson wrote, would form 
his ``first stage of historical reading.'' Next, Jefferson wrote, he 
should read Roman history.
  I remind Senators, this is Thomas Jefferson speaking. He then 
recommended reading ``Greek and Latin poetry.'' He advised reading 
Virgil, Terence, Horace, Anacreon, Theocritus, Homer, Euripides, 
Sophocles, Milton's ``Paradise Lost,'' Shakespeare, Pope and Swift.
  Regarding the subject of morality, Jefferson advised, ``read 
Epictetus, Xenophontis Memorabilia, Plato's Socratic dialogues, 
Cicero's philosophies, Antoninus--I don't know whether he meant Pius 
Antoninus or Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; it could well have been both--
and ``Seneca.''
  I was pleased to see what Jefferson found to constitute a quality 
education. Those of my colleagues who have heard me speak to any degree 
over the years are probably a bit amused by at least some of the 
readings suggested by Jefferson. I suppose, to some extent, it sounds 
like a list of books that might be in my own personal collection. But, 
lest anyone get the wrong impression, I do not consider myself to be on 
par with that master thinker, Thomas Jefferson. But I have these, and 
more.
  Although Jefferson did not have a degree as an educator, given his 
vast accomplishments, it seems foolhardy to

[[Page 10881]]

argue with the merit of his advice to his nephew. As a contemporary 
wrote of the young Thomas Jefferson, he was ``a gentleman of 32 who 
could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an 
edifice, try a cause, break a horse, dance a minuet, and play the 
violin.'' May I also add, that he was the author of the Declaration of 
Independence and ``Notes on Virginia,'' the founder of the University 
of Virginia, an ambassador to France, a Secretary of State, a Vice 
President, and President of the United States.
  In his closing lines to his nephew, Jefferson said, ``I have nothing 
further to add for the present, but husband well your time, cherish 
your instructors, strive to make everybody your friend; and be assured 
that nothing will be so pleasing as your success.''
  Do you hear what he said? ``Cherish your instructors, strive to make 
everybody your friend.'' These simple but fundamental guidelines are as 
appropriate today as they were when Jefferson wrote them.
  There is great wisdom in that letter. Wise council that I think we 
would do well to follow today. Jefferson obviously knew that a good 
education can make the difference in the life course of any individual. 
He knew the value of good teachers.
  I have spoken on this floor, many times before, about my early years 
as a student in a two-room schoolhouse. I imagine that to those much 
younger than I, the pictures I paint with my remarks about my school, 
my teachers, and what I think makes for a good, sound education must 
seem distant and archaic. Sadly my experiences are a world away from 
the usual classroom climate of today.
  Yet, I caution the skeptics to consider that there may be some 
advantages to accumulated years. I believe, for example, that our 
nation's experiences and experiments with education have taught at 
least one essential truth: the basic underpinnings of a solid education 
have been essentially the same throughout the history of civilized men 
and women.
  I readily concede that the environment in my old two-room schoolhouse 
was a good deal different from the environment of the overcrowded 
schools of today. But I believe that those things which made for a good 
education then, those things which contributed most to learning, are 
the same today as they were when I spent my weekdays in a tin-roofed 
wooden building, overheated by the pot-bellied stove, reading Muzzy's 
history, in the 1920's.
  In the school of my youth, we did not have computers, but we were 
plugged into our own imaginations. I had no television set.
  Parenthetically, I doubt that I am better off. I probably would have 
been much worse off by having a television set.
  But I had no television set with which to watch videos about distant, 
faraway lands, but I had the vision of my own mind's eye to see life 
beyond my own little corner of the world. Air conditioning? We opened 
the windows. Water fountains? We had waters from a nearby spring.
  I used to go out in the summertime and lie down in the old 
springhouse--lie down on my belly, let the damp, cool ground touch my 
breasts, put my face, as it were, into that spring, and drink that cool 
water that bubbled from the white sands of the spring. And in school, I 
was always hoping I would be one of the two boys who would be sent by 
the schoolteacher over the hill to the spring to bring back water in a 
bucket for all of the children in the room. We drank out of one 
dipper--all of us. We didn't think anything about sanitation so much in 
those days, although we did read ``Hygiene.'' That was one of the books 
we read in school.
  But I can remember in later years when my mom kept boarders in the 
coal camp, and we got our drinking water from a pump, one pump for 
every half dozen houses in a row of coal miners' homes. We would go out 
to the pump and bring up the water, pumping it up and down, and bring 
the water to the house. And the boarders, those coal miners who boarded 
at my mom's house, and I all drank from the same dipper.
  We didn't have hard drives, but we were driven hard, to work, to 
learn, to succeed.
  We had only two rooms in the little schoolhouses that I first 
attended, beginning in 1923, but those rooms were filled with students 
respectfully seeking to learn. We had dedicated teachers who expected 
the best from their students and they did not tolerate mediocrity nor 
did they tolerate bad behavior.
  There was a category on that report card that had a designation 
spelled D-E-P-O-R-T-M-E-N-T: Deportment. I always knew that in taking 
that grade card home to my coal miner dad, he would look it over 
carefully, and he would look at that designation: Deportment. It had 
better be good.
  In those modest two rooms, we were close to one another and we were 
close to our dear, dear teachers who loved us, who inspired us to 
learn, who inspired us to seek excellence. We sometimes had to share 
desks and rub elbows and actually touch--which meant that, whether we 
liked our classmates or not, we were forced to be civil to one another 
and to recognize our human bonds.
  Teachers got to know their students. And, my, how I swelled with 
pride when my teacher would pat me on the top of the head and say: 
Robert, you did a good job. You did well on your test.
  Teachers got to know their students, got to recognize their moods and 
individual needs. Teachers could see in the twinkle of their charges' 
eyes what motivated their charges, and they could hear in the 
collective groans of frustration what bewildered their charges. I had 
teachers who inspired me to learn.
  I wanted that pat on the head. I wanted that pat on the back.
  I wanted the other students to hear the teacher compliment me on 
having passed a hard test in spelling, doing a good job: 100 percent. 
Robert, you got 100 percent on your spelling test, and so on. And other 
boys and girls were likewise inspired.
  I had teachers who seemed to be truly fulfilling a calling. Teachers 
in my youth could give hugs, and did. Teachers in my youth could 
enforce the rules, and they did.
  Today, though crowded, distance seems to be the norm. Don't touch. 
Don't get too close. Don't get too involved. Don't spend too much time 
with one student.
  After school, students walk out of the schoolhouse door and into an 
apathetic culture where passers-by don't bother to say hello, where 
neighbors often don't bother to learn other neighbors' names. Young 
people are growing up in our society lacking respect for their elders, 
lacking respect for their peers, and lacking respect, all to often, 
even for themselves. And, in our world of two-parent working families 
and single mothers, it is harder than ever for parents to provide the 
discipline, the guidance, and the moral compass that our children so 
desperately need.
  Teachers are being led to feel that their place in a student's life 
ends at the last bell of the day. A well-meaning teacher, in our 
society today, can rarely take a real interest in a student's life 
beyond the schoolyard, without fear of being reprimanded by the school, 
without fear of being accused of some transgression, without fear even 
of being the subject of some lawsuit. There are plenty of well-meaning, 
talented, inspiring teachers in our schools today. But, they are up 
against a lot. Too often today, parents resent a teacher who 
disciplines their child. They put pressure on teachers to pass children 
who should fail, and they put pressure on principals to bestow honors 
on students who do not earn them. As a result, achievement is 
downgraded. Excellence is not encouraged. Expectations are lowered.
  In my youth, we were less sheltered from the responsibilities and the 
realities of life than are the children of today. I know that may seem 
hard to believe. But I think it is true. Particularly in the coal camps 
where I grew up, we saw, up close, the consequences of our actions. 
Chores left undone, meant hardships for the entire family. Death was 
always lingering around the entrance to the coal mines. Hunger was a 
regular visitor. Money was scarce and it had real value. We saw what it 
was

[[Page 10882]]

to work hard for a day's wages, only to have those wages eaten up 
paying for the most basic of life's necessities.
  May I say to the youth of the country, and to the youth who sit in 
these Chambers on each side of the Presiding Officer's chair, my first 
job was in a gas station. They were not service stations in those days, 
they were gas stations. I remember the cold mornings of January and 
February 1935--my first job in a gas station. My pay? Fifty dollars a 
month. That is $600 a year. I walked 4 miles to work and 4 miles home, 
if I wasn't fortunate enough to be able to catch a ride on a milk truck 
or a bread truck.
  My parents demanded a lot of me. They did not accept excuses. I knew 
that if I got a whipping at school, another was waiting for me when I 
got home or as soon as my parents heard about the whipping at school. 
As much as my mom and dad may have wanted me to have a better life than 
they had known, they seemed to know that the path to a better life was 
also a rocky one. They didn't try to pave my way. They told me the 
truth. They taught me to cut through the brush, to work hard to push 
barriers out of my way, and to climb over the hurdles that 
circumstances erected.
  This is where I think we have failed, in many instances, our young 
people today. We shower them with material goods. We buy them a car to 
drive just around the corner to the schoolyard. We protect their egos 
like fine china. We encourage them to take the easy route. Books are 
dumbed down to make studies easier. Tests are abandoned or graded on a 
curve because too many students can't pass them. Our history books, so-
called history books, are bland and inaccurate because we have changed 
the story, left out the heroes, and glossed over the ugly realities of 
our past.
  Make no mistake about it, this country has made its fair share of 
mistakes. We have had more than a helping or two of ugliness. But to 
pick up a history book today and read of the politically correct 
Shangri-La portrayed within, you would hardly know it. How can we 
possibly expect our children to learn from our mistakes if we hide the 
realities of our mistakes from them? Sugar-coated history cannot teach.
  My experiences have led me to conclude that for the sake of our 
children and for the future of our Nation we must insist upon a return 
to excellence. We need to teach the value of hard work. We ought not be 
afraid of it. I never knew anyone who died from hard work, except John 
Henry, the steel-driving man.
  We need to honor and reward real achievement. We need to temper 
reward with reality. We need to insist on civility. We could do a lot 
of that right here in this Chamber. We need to encourage understanding, 
not deny differences. We need less high tech and more high standards. 
Above all--we have heard it so many times, I will say it again because 
it is true--we need to get back to basics.
  We need to ensure that our children are provided a firm foundation in 
reading, in writing, in arithmetic, in science, in history. We need to 
ensure that our schools are places in which our students can learn. 
That is much of what we have been talking about for the last 8 weeks in 
this Chamber. That is much of what this legislation we passed today is 
about.
  We need to ensure that the schoolhouse is a place of study, of hard 
work, not revelry. We need more, not less, discipline. It is time for a 
return to the days when traditional values like respect, loyalty, 
honor, and integrity meant something. A lot of us could also learn 
these things anew.
  I truly believe that in our desire to find the cure to our 
educational problems, we have gone far afield. We have neglected 
perhaps the most important ingredient. High-tech gadgets, glossy 
textbooks filled with pictures but little narrative, costly frills, and 
bigger buildings are not the answer. The innate desire to learn that 
resides in the human spirit is the commodity that we are wasting. It is 
a precious commodity, indeed, and it will flow abundantly if given the 
attention, the direction, the encouragement that it needs to take firm 
root.
  Challenge is the component which we seem to fear: Let's don't have 
challenge; Let's don't have too much competition.
  Challenge a child to learn something difficult. Challenge a child to 
be the best in his class. I say that almost to every young person with 
whom I stop to talk: Be the best in your class; be the best. Make that 
child know that hard work pays off. Ask him for more, not less. 
Encourage him to find his unique talents. Then work with those 
youngsters who have a tougher time; don't lower the standards, lift the 
sights. Encourage our children to reach as high as they can. Don't 
tolerate less. Reward them, then, for achievement.
  Yet instead of challenging our children to do their best, I believe 
that all too often the focus of today's education system has become 
quite different. We have all been told that new theories and creative 
methods would bring new life to our failing public schools. We have put 
billions into almost every trendy remedy offered. We have tried 
everything from audio language labs to personal computers to team 
teaching to new math to teacher empowerment, and still we flounder.
  According to the testing, we still suffer from a pervasive inability 
to pass on the accumulated knowledge of civilization from one 
generation to the next.
  What is the problem? Well, the problems are legion. But the major 
problem, I suspect, is the systematic discarding of traditional 
scholarship as an agreed-upon goal. Instead many in the education 
establishment have opted for a strange form of psychological and social 
experiments in our schools and often with disastrous results that 
shortchange and even denigrate true academic achievement and 
excellence.
  The goals, the ideals, the practices, and curricula have been altered 
over the past three decades, usually without the clear awareness of 
parents. The result is inferior standards both for the teaching of 
students and for the training of teachers.
  The usual answer to such complaints is ``we need more money.'' Surely 
if we pour enough money into our education coffers, something of value 
will be produced. I used to firmly believe this golden rule of 
educational cause and effect. I am a little skeptical of it now.
  In 1959-60, we were spending, on average, $375 per student in our 
public elementary and secondary schools. That amounts to $2,065 per 
student adjusted for inflation. In 1997-98, we were spending $6,662 for 
every child, roughly three times the amount we spent in 1959-60.
  In inflation adjusted dollars, we are now spending three times more 
per child than in 1960, when in 1960 performance was generally higher 
than it is today.
  According to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for 
Education Statistics, in the fall of 1959, there were a total of 35 
million students enrolled in America's public elementary and secondary 
schools.
  In the fall of 1999, 40 years later, there were 46,800,000 students, 
an increase of 11 million students in 40 years. The pupil-to-teacher 
ratio in 1959-1960 was roughly 26 students for every teacher. In 1999, 
again, 40 years later, the student-to-teacher ratio had improved to 
roughly 16 students for every teacher. I am talking about full-time 
teachers. In other words, the data shows that there were fewer students 
for each teacher in 1999 than there were in 1959-1960.
  I remember in my high school graduation class, there were 28 students 
who ended up with diplomas. That was in 1934. We had 28 students in my 
class, not 90 or 100. But there was discipline. We paid attention. We 
had teachers who demanded that of us, teachers who could teach, 
teachers who loved us, teachers who were dedicated, and we learned from 
them.
  The growth of support personnel in the education area has mushroomed. 
Such things as reading specialists, guidance counselors, special ed 
teachers, clerical assistants, teacher's aides, have grown from 700,000 
in 1960 to 2.5 million in 1999--almost a fourfold increase. And 
although America has one of the highest costs of education per student, 
it is not first in teacher salaries.

[[Page 10883]]

  What do our dollars buy? We had 2,826,146 teachers in our elementary 
and secondary schools in 1998, as opposed to 1,353,372 teachers in 
1959-1960. So we have roughly doubled the number of teachers we had 40 
years ago. But we had 93,058 guidance counselors in 1998 compared to 
14,643 in 1959-1960, or more than 5 times the number of guidance 
counselors.
  We have poured money--and I have voted for it--we have poured money 
into title I funding. Yet we skimp on funding for the gifted and the 
talented. I got in on the ground floor when it comes to Federal 
education programs and funding for education. I was in the House of 
Representatives when there was a great debate as to whether or not we 
should spend Federal moneys on Federal programs for education. I have 
no problem with helping truly disadvantaged children gain good skills, 
but I fear that the definition of ``disadvantaged'' has been broadened 
to cover a variety of learning problems, and a good solid education is 
becoming less of a priority than identifying children for counseling or 
special help so that more title I funds will flow.
  Our children's failure to learn is not, I suspect, the fault of 
poverty always. In some of the most poverty-stricken families I have 
seen in my lifetime, many of the best students were nurtured. So our 
children's failure to learn is not, I suspect, the fault of poverty 
always, or of being emotionally damaged by their environment, as much 
as it is due, in many instances, to faddism, political correctness, and 
a general failure to teach with tried and true methods.
  I may be a bit vain--we are all vain--but I believe I could teach 
students. I don't know anything about the modern methods of teaching. I 
don't care about that. As far as I am concerned, I could teach those 
children. I am not a teacher, nor is every Senator in this body. A few 
Senators here have been schoolteachers. But I think most, if not all, 
of the Senators on both sides of the aisle could be good teachers--
certainly in some subjects. I am not saying I would be a good teacher 
in chemistry or physics. But put me in a classroom with children, give 
me a good text book, and I could teach history, reading, spelling, and 
so on. So perhaps we spend too much time on methodology. I speak as a 
layman today, but I have some perception of what is going on in this 
country and some opinion as to what ought to be done.
  One of my perceptions is that many teachers would have to spend a 
great deal of time on methodology, the newest method of teaching this 
or that subject. Just give me Muzzy's American History, and I am vain 
enough to think that I could teach. What I am saying is we probably 
expect too much of our teachers in many ways--teaching this new method 
and that new method--but not enough of substance, which has been here 
from the beginning. H2O was H2O when Adam and Eve were in the garden, 
you see. CO2 was CO2 way back yonder. So H2O hasn't changed since Adam 
and Eve were driven from the garden. It is still plain old water, 
drinking water; it tastes the same. It has not changed, much like human 
nature. That hasn't changed from the beginning, since Cane slew Abel. 
Men and women are still slaying one another.
  So, in my view, we need to take an entirely new look at the way we 
fund education, at the way we train teachers, and at the curricula and 
the methods used on our children.
  Our public school system has become top heavy with a whole host of 
people who are not directly involved with getting our kids to learn. We 
have more teachers, but fewer of them have degrees in the subjects they 
teach, and fewer of them see teaching as a lifelong career. We are 
turning our kids loose on the job market with too few tools and little 
or no appreciation for what a good education means for their futures.
  Children who fail to achieve a college education will lose some 
$20,000 a year in income as adults. The former CEO of Xerox, David 
Kearns, estimates that poor schooling costs businesses some $50 billion 
a year in remedial work.
  We are failing our kids and we are failing our kids in the most 
fundamental responsibility that we have to them--the responsibility to 
provide them with a good education.
  Children need to know what is expected of them. Then they need to be 
given the tools with which to achieve their goals. They need to be told 
that it is a tough old world out there--a tough old world--and that the 
competition is global--not just in Sophia, my hometown of 1,160 souls. 
The competition is global. There will be no dumbing down of standards 
out there in that world. There will be no grade inflation out there in 
the real world. There will be no social promotion out there in the real 
world of global competition. It is going to be rough.
  The consequences for a poor education will be lifelong, and the 
consequences will be harsh. And that is another thing that we should be 
teaching our children, namely, that there are consequences for one's 
actions and inactions. I do not view this bill through rose colored 
glasses as the definitive cure to what ails our educational system, but 
I think that bill that passed a little earlier today is at least a 
departure from the status quo. That legislation looks at education from 
new angles, and offers the chance--the chance--to get a better handle 
on the challenge before us.
  The public school choice provisions offer some degree of hope, though 
limited, to parents who are fighting failing schools and trying 
desperately to give their children a solid education.
  These are the most important people in the world: their children. 
These are the parents' most priceless possession: their children. No 
wonder people are searching for some other way. No wonder. They want 
their children to have the best. They want their children to have good 
teachers.
  Furthermore, this legislation we passed today puts our public schools 
on notice that they must improve. So we are saying to the public school 
system, we are saying to the administrators in that system, we are 
saying to the principals and the teachers in that system, we are saying 
to the teachers union they must improve.
  The bill also creates consequences if schools do not improve. So the 
time of reckoning is at hand. The legislation requires annual testing 
to track our children's progress in the areas of mathematics, science, 
reading, and history.
  Moreover, the legislation insists upon a national gauge to more 
accurately measure public schools and to help compare what works and 
what does not work.
  This bill also places an emphasis on teacher quality. When will we 
come to know in this country that no pricetag can be placed upon 
teacher quality? No pricetag. An emphasis is put on recruiting 
qualified teachers. When are we going to learn that a qualified, 
dedicated, conscientious teacher is worth far more than the finest 
athlete in this country, far more than the most clever, sharpest, most 
attractive network anchor man or woman? The teacher is worth far more--
the teacher.
  The teacher holds in his or her hands that most priceless resource 
possessed by this Nation. That teacher molds that child, its outlook, 
its attitude.

       I took a piece of plastic clay
       And idly fashioned it one day,

       And as my fingers pressed it still
       It moved and yielded to my will.

       I came again when days were past,
       The bit of clay was hard at last.

       The form I gave it, it still bore,
       And I could change that form no more.

       I took a piece of living clay
       And gently formed it day by day,

       And molded with my power and art
       A young child's soft and yielding heart.

       I came again when years were gone,
       He was a man I looked upon.

       He still that early impress wore,
       And I could change him nevermore.

  That is the teacher. The responsibilities placed on a good teacher 
are heavy in today's world certainly.
  How can we expect as a nation to continue to be a world leader with a 
population that is ignorant of the worth of a good teacher, a 
population that is ignorant of the basics in math, science, and 
history?
  I understand that in some States history is not a required course in 
the curricula of public schools. What a shame. What a mistake. Cicero 
said: To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain 
always a child.

[[Page 10884]]

  I am not talking about social studies. Social studies are all right 
in their place. I am talking about history. It has been considerably 
garbled these days. We try to change the facts of history, but the 
facts are there, and they ought to be taught. We ought to be plain 
about it, upfront about it, and try to profit by our mistakes.
  Provisions that I supported in this bill are aimed at addressing the 
lack of qualified math and science teachers in this Nation.
  At this point, I should also say that whatever dollar figure emerges 
from the House-Senate conference on this bill will place a burden on 
the appropriators to fund, given the tight budget constraints under 
which we will be laboring and the behemoth tax cuts which siphoned off 
many of the dollars which could have been used to pay for this bill, 
but if the President signs the bill that emanates from the conference, 
then I will assume--and I think I will have a right to assume--that the 
Appropriations Committee will have the help of the White House and the 
help on both sides of the aisle to provide the money to fund the bill.
  I hope some of the new approaches contained in the bill will foster 
increased excellence among our Nation's schools, but I believe we are 
going to need further reform. While I can agree with the ``leave no 
child behind'' slogan which has characterized the President's education 
initiative and much of the debate on this legislation, I hope we also 
will endeavor to slow no child down if that child has extraordinary 
abilities. And the child does not have to come out of an affluent home 
to have extraordinary abilities.
  I fear that sometimes in our approach to education we concentrate so 
much on bringing the slower students up to speed that we fail the child 
who can and should race ahead. And while testing for achievement is a 
good idea, it will mean little if the focus is on manipulating scores 
in order to make parents feel good or in order to capture more 
education dollars from the Federal Government for the school.
  I don't believe in bumper sticker politics. I don't believe in bumper 
sticker education policy. It is time to look afresh at why we are 
failing our kids, regardless of whose flaws that fresh look may reveal. 
More money won't help if it is not properly used. More teachers won't 
help much if they are not properly trained. Our society has changed. 
There are more single-parent families and more families where both 
parents work today. Simple changes such as a 9-to-5 schoolday might do 
more to address some of the problems in our schools than all the 
counselors and afterschool programs we can fund.
  Look at the other industrial countries of this world. They don't make 
life quite so easy as we like to do here in this country, apparently. 
We spend gobs of money, train loads of money--and I have voted for it 
for more than 50 years, 49 years to be exact--yet today we are not 
turning out the quality of students with quality education that many of 
our industrial competitors are turning out. They go to school longer in 
those countries and so the work is harder.
  School uniforms might make students focus more on their heads and 
less on their bodies. The longer schoolday might do more to address 
some of the problems in our schools than all of the counselor and 
afterschool programs we can find. Better textbooks that utilize the 
tried and true methods of teaching could certainly go a long way toward 
shoring up basic skills. It might not be a bad idea to bring back the 
old McGuffy readers. An emphasis on classic literature and poetry could 
provide our youngsters with a glimpse of beauty and a sense of the 
spiritual side of human nature so absent in our empty, vulgar, popular 
culture. Clearly, there is much more to do in education than can be 
done in one single piece of legislation.
  We cannot afford to lose another generation of children to fads. 
James A. Garfield, a President of the United States, who was 
assassinated, said: Give me my old teacher, Mark Hopkins, on one end of 
the log and me, myself, on the other end, and there will be a 
university.
  So, it is the teacher, the child, and the attitude that count.
  We cannot afford to deafen our ears to all views except those in the 
education establishment. We must strive again for excellence in 
learning and to return to proven methods, no matter whose toes it may 
step on. The public is outraged. The survival of the public school 
system is at stake, not to mention the future of our children and our 
Nation. I think the education establishment--meaning the 
administrators, the principals, the teachers, the teachers unions, and 
all--had better read the handwriting on the wall. A good public school 
system is what this Nation needs. It is what we want. That is what we 
have been spending millions of dollars for. But it is time to wake up, 
time for an accounting, time to understand that all things are not well 
in this public school system. And if we don't shape up--you talk about 
vouchers, talk about private schools--you better be watching the 
handwriting on the wall.
  Some years ago I traveled down to the old Biblical city of Babylon by 
the side of the Euphrates River and I visited a place where it was said 
that Belshazzar feasted with 1,000 of his lords. And as he feasted, 
blind and dying, there appeared on the wall near the candlestick, a 
hand. That hand wrote on the wall. And Belshazzar summoned all of his 
magicians and his wise men and asked them to interpret the handwriting 
that appeared on the wall. It seems to me the handwriting said: mene, 
mene, tekel, upharsin. I hope that is right. It has been a while since 
I read it: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. And the queen said, this young 
man who can interpret that writing, his name is Daniel. And so the king 
who was trembling, his knees were shaking, summoned Daniel.
  Daniel was asked to interpret the writing. And he interpreted the 
writing to mean: God, thou art weighed in the balances and art found 
wanting. God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it.
  That night, Belshazzar was slain and his kingdom was taken over by 
the Medes and Persians. So we should see the handwriting on the wall. 
We better learn that the public school system needs to shape up. We 
spend billions on it. Parents need to back up their teachers and 
participate in the PTAs, and we should pay teachers, good teachers, 
salaries that are commensurate with their worth.
  No football player was ever equal to the worth of a good teacher. No 
television anchorperson was ever worth more than a good teacher. That 
may sound like an extremist talking, but there is something to what I 
am saying. You better believe it. And I might say this, too. There is 
no politician who is ever worth more than a good teacher.
  When American students do so poorly in international mathematics 
assessments that they score 19th out of 21 nations, the handwriting 
should be on the wall. It is clear that it is not vouchers that 
threaten our public schools. It is the inadequate education that our 
public schools offer and parental frustration that threaten to 
undermine confidence in public education. And it is high time that we 
realize that.
  There are many public schools that are great schools. There are a lot 
of good schools in this country, and a lot of good teachers. But we 
need to lift the level of all the boats.
  According to the U.S. Department of Education, nearly 1 million 
children have been pulled out of public schools and are being educated 
at home by their parents. That number is sure to grow.
  Yes, parents are concerned by the violence that is occurring in the 
schools, concerned by the falling grades of their children, concerned 
by the lack of discipline in the public schools, concerned that for the 
money spent we are turning out worse students, generally speaking, than 
it used to be when we were spending far less money.
  It is up to us who do believe in public schooling to see what is 
happening and to do whatever it takes to restore confidence in public 
education. We owe that to our kids. We owe that to their parents. And 
we owe it to the country we all claim to love.




                          ____________________