    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1991, Book I)]
    [April 18, 1991]
    [Pages 395-399]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Address to the Nation on the National Education Strategy
    April 18, 1991

        Thank you all for joining us here in the White House today. Let me
    thank the Speaker for being with us, and the majority leader; other
    distinguished Members, committee heads and ranking members, and very
    important education committees here with us today. I want to salute the
    Governors, the educators, the business and the labor leaders, and
    especially want to single out the National Teachers of the Year. I
    believe we have 10 of the previous 11 Teachers of the Year with us here
    today, and that's most appropriate and most fitting.
        But together, all of us, we will underscore the importance of a
    challenge destined to define the America that we'll know in the next
    century.
        For those of you close to my age, the 21st century has always been a
    kind of shorthand for the distant future--the place we put our most far-
    off hopes and dreams. And

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    today, that 21st century is racing towards us--and anyone who wonders
    what the century will look like can find the answer in America's
    classrooms.
        Nothing better defines what we are and what we will become than the
    education of our children. To quote the landmark case Brown versus Board
    of Education, ``It is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected
    to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.''
        Education has always meant opportunity. Today, education determines
    not just which students will succeed but also which nations will thrive
    in a world united in pursuit of freedom in enterprise. Think about the
    changes transforming our world: the collapse of communism and the cold
    war, the advent and acceleration of the Information Age. Down through
    history, we've defined resources as soil and stones, land and the riches
    buried beneath. No more. Our greatest national resource lies within
    ourselves: our intelligence, ingenuity, the capacity of the human mind.
        Nations that nurture ideas will move forward in years to come.
    Nations that stick to stale old notions and ideologies will falter and
    fail. So I'm here today to say America will move forward. The time for
    all the reports and rankings, for all the studies and the surveys about
    what's wrong in our schools is past. If we want to keep America
    competitive in the coming century, we must stop convening panels to
    report on ourselves. We must stop convening panels that report the
    obvious. And we must accept responsibility for educating everyone among
    us, regardless of background or disability.
        If we want America to remain a leader, a force for good in the
    world, we must lead the way in educational innovation. And if we want to
    combat crime and drug abuse, if we want to create hope and opportunity
    in the bleak corners of this country where there is now nothing but
    defeat and despair, we must dispel the darkness with the enlightenment
    that a sound and well-rounded education provides.
        Think about every problem, every challenge we face. The solution to
    each starts with education. For the sake of the future of our children,
    and of the Nation's, we must transform America's schools. The days of
    the status quo are over.
        Across this country, people have started to transform the American
    school. They know that the time for talk is over. Their slogan is: Don't
    dither, just do it. Let's push the reform effort forward. Use each
    experiment, each advance to build for the next American century--new
    schools for a new world.
        As a first step in this strategy, we must challenge not only the
    methods and the means that we've used in the past but also the
    yardsticks that we've used to measure our progress. Let's stop trying to
    measure progress in terms of money spent. We spend 33 percent more per
    pupil in 1991 than we did in 1981--33 percent more in real, constant
    dollars. And I don't think there's a person anywhere, anywhere in the
    country, who would say that we've seen a 33-percent improvement in our
    schools' performance.
        Dollar bills don't educate students. Education depends on committed
    communities, determined to be places where learning will flourish;
    committed teachers, free from the noneducational burdens; committed
    parents, determined to support excellence; committed students, excited
    about school and learning. To those who want to see real improvement in
    American education, I say: There will be no renaissance without
    revolution.
        We who would be revolutionaries must accept responsibilities for our
    schools. For too long, we've adopted a no-fault approach to education.
    Someone else is always to blame. And while we point fingers out there,
    trying to assign blame, the students suffer. There's no place for a no-
    fault attitude in our schools. It's time we held our schools--and
    ourselves--accountable for results.
        Until now, we've treated education like a manufacturing process,
    assuming that if the gauges seemed right--if we had good pay scales, the
    right pupil-teacher ratios--good students would just pop out of our
    schools. It's time to turn things around--to focus on students, to set
    standards for our schools and let teachers and principals figure out how
    best to meet them.

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        We've made a good beginning by setting the Nation's sights on six
    ambitious national education goals--and setting for our target the year
    2000. Our goals have been forged in partnership with the Nation's
    Governors, several of whom are with us here today in the East Room. And
    those who have taken a leadership are well-known to everyone in this
    room. And for those who need a refresher course--there may be a quiz
    later on--let me list those goals right now.
        By 2000, we've got to, first, ensure that every child starts school
    ready to learn; second one, raise the high school graduation rate to 90
    percent; the third one, ensure that each American student leaving the
    4th, 8th, and 12th grades can demonstrate competence in core subjects;
    four, make our students first in the world in math and science
    achievements; fifth, ensure that every American adult is literate and
    has the skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the
    rights and responsibilities of citizenship; and sixth, liberate every
    American school from drugs and violence so that schools encourage
    learning.
        Our strategy to meet these noble national goals is founded in common
    sense and common values. It's ambitious and yet, with hard work, it's
    within our reach. And I can outline our strategy in one paragraph, and
    here it is: For today's students, we must make existing schools better
    and more accountable. For tomorrow's students, the next generation, we
    must create a new generation of American schools. For all of us, for the
    adults who think our school days are over, we've got to become a nation
    of students--recognize learning is a lifelong process. Finally, outside
    our schools we must cultivate communities where learning can happen.
    That's our strategy.
        People who want Washington to solve our educational problems are
    missing the point. We can lend appropriate help through such programs as
    Head Start. But what happens here in Washington won't matter half as
    much as what happens in each school, each local community, and yes, in
    each home. Still, the Federal Government will serve as a catalyst for
    change in several important ways.
        Working closely with the Governors, we will define new world-class
    standards for schools, teachers, and students in the five core subjects:
    math and science, English, history and geography. We will develop
    voluntary--let me repeat it--we will develop voluntary national tests
    for 4th, 8th, and 12th graders in the five core subjects. These American
    Achievement Tests will tell parents and educators, politicians, and
    employers just how well our schools are doing. I'm determined to have
    the first of these tests for fourth graders in place by the time that
    school starts in September of 1993. And for high school seniors, let's
    add another incentive--a distinction sure to attract attention of
    colleges and companies in every community across the country--a
    Presidential Citation to students who excel on the 12th-grade test.
        We can encourage educational excellence by encouraging parental
    choice. The concept of choice draws its fundamental strength from the
    principle at the very heart of the democratic idea. Every adult American
    has the right to vote, the right to decide where to work, where to live.
    It's time parents were free to choose the schools that their children
    attend. This approach will create the competitive climate that
    stimulates excellence in our private and parochial schools as well.
        But the centerpiece of our national education strategy is not a
    program, it's not a test. It's a new challenge: To reinvent American
    education--to design new American schools for the year 2000 and beyond.
    The idea is simple but powerful: Put America's special genius for
    invention to work for America's schools. I will challenge communities to
    become what we will call America 2000 communities. Governors will honor
    communities with this designation if the communities embrace the
    national education goals, create local strategies for reaching these
    goals, devise report cards for measuring progress, and agree to
    encourage and support one of the new generation of America's schools.
        We must also foster educational innovation. I'm delighted to
    announce today that America's business leaders, under the chairmanship
    of Paul O'Neill, will create the New American Schools Development
    Corporation, a private sector research and de-

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    velopment fund of at least $150 million to generate innovation in
    education.
        This fund offers an open-end challenge to the dreamers and the doers
    eager to reinvent, eager to reinvigorate our schools. With the results
    of this R&D in hand, I will urge Congress to provide $1 million in
    startup funds for each of the 535 New American Schools--at least one in
    every congressional district--and have them up and running by 1996.
        The New American Schools must be more than rooms full of children
    seated at computers. If we mean to prepare our children for life,
    classrooms also must cultivate values and good character--give real
    meaning to right and wrong.
        We ask only two things of these architects of our New American
    Schools: that their students meet the new national standards for the
    five core subjects, and that outside of the costs of the initial
    research and development, the schools operate on a budget comparable to
    conventional schools. The architects of the New American Schools should
    break the mold. Build for the next century. Reinvent--literally start
    from scratch and reinvent the American school. No question should be off
    limits, no answers automatically assumed. We're not after one single
    solution for every school. We're interested in finding every way to make
    schools better.
        There's a special place in inventing the New American School for the
    corporate community, for business and labor. And I invite you to work
    with us not simply to transform our schools but to transform every
    American adult into a student.
        Fortunately, we have a secret weapon in America's system of colleges
    and universities--the finest in the entire world. The corporate
    community can take the lead by creating a voluntary private system of
    world-class standards for the workplace. Employers should set up skill
    centers where workers can seek advice and learn new skills. But most
    importantly, every company and every labor union must bring the worker
    into the classroom and bring the classroom into the workplace.
        We'll encourage every Federal agency to do the same. And to prove no
    one's ever too old to learn, Lamar, with his indefatigable determination
    and leadership, has convinced me to become a student again myself.
    Starting next week, I'll begin studying. And I want to know how to
    operate a computer. [Laughter] Very candidly--I don't expect this new
    tutorial to teach me how to set the clock on the VCR or anything
    complicated. [Laughter] But I want to be computer literate, and I'm not.
    There's a lot of kids, thank God, that are. And I want to learn, and I
    will.
        The workplace isn't the only place we must improve opportunities for
    education. Across this nation, we must cultivate communities where
    children can learn--communities where the school is more than a refuge,
    more than a solitary island of calm amid chaos. Where the school is the
    living center of a community where people care--people care for each
    other and their futures--not just in the school but in the neighborhood,
    not just in the classroom but in the home.
        Our challenge amounts to nothing less than a revolution in American
    education--a battle for our future. And now, I ask all Americans to be
    Points of Light in the crusade that counts the most: the crusade to
    prepare our children and ourselves for the exciting future that looms
    ahead.
        What I've spoken about this afternoon are the broad strokes of this
    national education strategy: accountable schools for today, a new
    generation of schools for tomorrow, a nation of students committed to a
    lifetime of learning, and communities where all our children can learn.
        There are four people here today who symbolize each element of this
    strategy and point the way forward for our reforms. Esteban Pagan--
    Steve--an award-winning eighth-grade student in science and history at
    East Harlem Tech, a choice school. Steve? Right here, I think. Stand up,
    now.
        Mike Hopkins, lead teacher in the Saturn School in St. Paul,
    Minnesota, where teachers have already helped reinvent the American
    school. Mike, where are you? Right here, sir. Thank you.
        David Kelley, a high-tech troubleshooter at the Michelin Tire plant
    in Greenville, South Carolina. David has spent the equivalent of 1 full
    year of his 4 years at Michelin

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    back at his college expanding his skills. David? There he is.
        Finally, Michelle Moore, of Missouri, a single mother active in
    Missouri's Parents as Teachers program. She wants her year-old son,
    Alston, to arrive for his first day of school ready to learn. Michelle?
        So, to sum it up, for these four people and for all the others like
    them, the revolution in American education has already begun. Now I ask
    all Americans to be Points of Light in the crusade that counts the most:
    the crusade to prepare our children and ourselves for the exciting
    future that looms ahead. At any moment in every mind, the miracle of
    learning beckons us all. Between now and the year 2000, there is not one
    moment or one miracle to waste.
        Thank you all. Thank you for your interest, for your dedication. And
    may God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much.

                        Note: The President spoke at 2 p.m. in the East Room
                            at the White House. In his remarks, he referred
                            to Thomas S. Foley, Speaker of the House of
                            Representatives; Richard A. Gephardt, House
                            majority leader; Paul H. O'Neill, chairman and
                            chief executive officer of the Aluminum Co. of
                            America and Chairman of the President's
                            Education Policy Advisory Committee; and
                            Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander.