[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[March 31, 1994]
[Pages 564-567]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Signing the Goals 2000: Educate America Act in San Diego
March 31, 1994

    Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, ladies and 
gentlemen, and to the boys and girls here. Let me say first of all, I've 
got a lot of people I want to recognize, but first I think we ought to 
give the students a big hand for being so well-behaved and so

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quiet and so receptive. [Applause] I know that a lot of you may not 
understand everything that's being said here today, but it's all being 
said for your future, and the people who came here today came because 
they care about your future.
    I want to recognize, in addition to Congresswoman Lynn Schenk and 
Congressman Bob Filner who are here with me today--and I thank them for 
coming; they're up here. They voted for the bill. If they hadn't, it 
wouldn't have passed. I want to thank your Mayor, Susan Golding, for 
being here; your superintendent of schools, Dr. Bertha Pendleton; John 
de Beck, the president of the San Diego School Board; Mary Bergen, 
representing the California Federation of Teachers; Dr. Lois Tinson, 
representing the California Teachers Association; Ken Melley, the 
associate director of the National Education Association; Sandy 
McBrayer, who's the Teacher of the Year in California--I think you're 
here somewhere. Stand up. Give her a hand. [Applause] Bless you, ma'am.
    I also want you to know that there are a lot of people who are 
leaders in the business community all over America who work for this 
program, and some of them have come from a long way away. I saw two; I 
think three are here all the way from Atlanta. The president of Bell 
South, one of our country's biggest telephone companies, John Clendenin 
came. And I saw the chief executive officer of the Boeing Corporation, 
our Nation's biggest exporter, Mr. Frank Shrontz, is here. And I was 
told that Joe Gorman is here, the chairman of TRW, but I didn't see him 
back there.
    Anyway, all these people have come here because they care about you 
and your future. I want to especially thank my good friend Dick Riley, 
who just spoke, for the work he did on this legislation, and many of his 
staff members, but especially Mike Cohen, who worked on this whole issue 
with me as a Governor, with Secretary Riley, and Bill Galston in the 
White House. I want to thank the Governors and the State legislators who 
worked with us, as well as the fine Members of Congress of both parties. 
We have so much partisan wrangling in Congress, but this bill passed 
with over 300 votes in the House of Representatives, and only 120 voted 
no; 63 votes in the United States Senate, only 22 voting no.
    I want to say, too, that it is very appropriate for me to be here 
with all of you to sign this bill. The San Diego School District is well 
known for being on the leading edge of school reform and giving our 
children a better future. Your former superintendent, Tom Payzant, now 
serves as our Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary 
Education. Give him a hand there. [Applause] And I know Bertha Pendleton 
is continuing her outstanding work. I also want to say a special word of 
thanks to your principal, Dr. Jeannie Steeg.
    I have been told that your school is one of the very best schools in 
this whole school district and in this State. And I want to thank you 
for striving to achieve excellence in every area with a student body 
that is very diverse, racially and ethnically and economically. You look 
like America will look in the 21st century, and we have to win with you.
    I also want to thank you for what you put up on the basketball goal; 
that was very nice. [Laughter] And I'd like to thank the students here 
who are wearing their D.A.R.E. T-shirts, all of you. I love the D.A.R.E. 
program, and I'm glad you're active in it and support it.
    Let me tell you why this bill is important to the future of the 
young people here today and those like you all across America. You know 
you're growing up into a world that is increasingly smaller, where 
people are connected financially and by communications networks that 
were unheard of when I was your age. The average young person will 
change work seven or eight times in a lifetime. The only real ticket to 
these kids' future is good jobs that come from good skills, learning a 
lot in school, and being able to learn for a lifetime.
    What this Goals 2000 bill does, believe it or not, for the first 
time in the entire history of the United States of America, is to set 
world-class education standards for what every child in every American 
school should know in order to win when he or she becomes an adult. We 
have never done it before; we are going to do it now because of this 
bill.
    Why do we do that? Because we believe every child can and must learn 
at world-class standards of excellence. And those of us who are older 
believe we have a practical and a moral obligation to see that you have 
the chance to do it. This Goals 2000 legislation sets into law the 
national education goals that, as Secretary Riley said, I worked very 
hard to write back in 1989. It says that every student, every student, 
should enter school ready and able to learn. It says

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that 90 percent of our young people should graduate from high school on 
time, just the way our competitors do. It says that we must meet world-
class standards in reading and writing, math and science, history, 
geography, foreign language, civics and economics, and the arts. It says 
that we have to take care of our teachers better. We have to prepare 
them better, enable them to continue to learn. It says that in a world 
in which families are under increasing stress, we can't succeed in our 
schools unless parents are more involved, and we have to find ways to 
help them do it. It acknowledges that most of the problems in American 
education have been solved somewhere by somebody, and we need more 
research and innovation to make available the successes everywhere to 
people who don't have them yet. There is no reason in the world that if 
somebody is doing something in Alaska that works, people in San Diego 
shouldn't know about it and have access to it immediately. And finally, 
it says that our schools have to be safe and disciplined and free of 
drugs and crime, and we have to work to make them so.
    Besides these academic standards, this bill will set national skill 
standards to ensure that our workers are better trained for the high-
skill, high-wage jobs we want for America and better able to compete in 
the world.
    This bill provides funds--modest amounts this year, much more in the 
years to come--funds to make our schools safer and freer of crime and 
drugs, funds for those who need the most. It provides funds to support 
the innovations of local communities. I am proud of the fact that this 
bill contains not one single mandate or order to any State or any local 
school district. Instead, it sets standards. It says we know you want to 
meet them, and we are prepared to help you if you will be innovative and 
try some new things and make them work.
    I guess I've spent more time in schools than any person who was ever 
elected President--that makes it sound like I didn't pass from grade to 
grade--[laughter]--but what I mean by that is I've spent a lot of time 
visiting schools and listening to teachers and watching teaching take 
place. And I know that learning does not occur in Washington, DC, it 
does not occur in Sacramento, or even here at the local school board 
office. The magic of education occurs in the classroom, supported by 
whatever happens in the home. That's where it happens.
    So, in addition to providing funds to try to help make schools 
safer, this bill says we're going to try something new. We're going to 
have world-class standards implemented with grassroots reforms. We're 
going to give more waivers and cut the redtape to districts who want to 
try new and different and innovative things. We're going to support 
schools that let the teachers and the principals try things that 
innovate, that do things to involve parents, that are succeeding. We're 
going to encourage people to experiment with new and different things 
all across this country. People are trying things that work, that are 
different, that have never been tried before, different ways of managing 
schools, different people organizing schools in different ways.
    But we know in the end what has to happen is that the children have 
to learn. So we want world-class standards. We want a way of measuring 
whether the children learn them or not, and then we want to say to 
people all across the country, ``Here are the standards. Here's how 
we'll know whether you'll make it or not. Now, you figure out how to do 
it. Use your mind, use your energy, and we will support you. We'll try 
to make your schools safe havens if you will take the leadership to do 
it, and we'll try to encourage all your best ideas, all your energy.''
    This is a new and different approach for the National Government, 
but it's how learning really happens in the schools. You know it, and 
it's time now that your country recognizes it. This is a remarkable 
departure. First, there have never been any national standards. Second, 
there's never been any way to measure them. Third, there's never been 
any national skills standards for our workers. But fourth, we never 
thought we could do it with grassroots reforms. We're telling you we 
know you have the answers. You go find them, and we'll tell you how 
you're doing along the way, and we'll support you when you win for our 
children.
    Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is just the beginning of this 
process. It will only work if, year-in and year-out, the Congress 
continues to support the effort; only work if we continue to provide 
good preschool opportunities until every child is in a good Head Start 
program or another program like it. It will only work when we provide an 
opportunity for every child who doesn't go to college to get the kind of 
skills training they need. Every child who wants

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to go to college will never have to worry about how to pay for it again. 
And every adult will have the opportunity to get lifetime training. 
That's what we have to do.
    But this is the beginning; it is the foundation. And as the 
Secretary said, today we can say America is serious about education, 
America cares about the future of every child, and America will lead the 
world in the 21st century because we're going to make sure you will be 
there on the frontlines, living up to the fullest of your God-given 
capacities.
    Thank you all very much, and bless you all.
    Now, I'm going to sign this little bill here. And then when I sign 
the real little bill, I'm going to sign this copy of the big bill. And 
all of them are going to help me since it's really their bill and their 
ticket to the future, all the students who are up here.

Note: The President spoke at 10:05 a.m. at the Zamorano Fine Arts 
Academy. H.R. 1804, approved March 31, was assigned Public Law No. 103-
227.