[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[May 18, 1994]
[Pages 944-946]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Signing the Human Services Amendments of 1994
May 18, 1994

    Thank you so much. I think Dr. Johnson is a stronger statement for 
the merits of what has been done and what is about to be done than 
anything any of the rest of us can say. If every American child could 
grow up to be like him, we wouldn't even have more than half the 
conversations we have every day in this town. So I thank President 
Johnson and all those wise

[[Page 945]]

people, including the founders of Head Start who are here and the 
Members of Congress who were there then, for starting this program 29 
years ago. I thank the Members of Congress here today for working 
together across party lines, across philosophical lines, across racial 
lines, across district lines, from the city and from rural areas, to 
make this dream real in our time and to make the improvements and the 
changes in the Head Start program that we ought to make. I'm glad that 
Jeanne Kendall was here from Kentucky to make her profession about the 
Head Start program. And she brought one of her children, too, who's down 
there, a fine young man. Stand up. I want him to--[applause]--see, he's 
done quite well--to remind us that children everywhere need this 
program.
    Everybody knows that this is not just a national Federal program, 
not the kind of preconceived thing that people think when they think 
about the Federal Government, you know, ``I'm from the Federal 
Government, and I'm here to help you.'' [Laughter] This is not a program 
involving bureaucrats in Washington making decisions that individuals 
and families and teachers have to live by. This is a program that is 
built at the grassroots by families and teachers and communities.
    I've often said that governments can't raise children, that people 
have to do that. But parents need help in a lot of places in this 
country today, just like they did 29 years ago. As I traveled America in 
1992, I'd meet children in every corner of this country who would still 
be on the verge of showing up for school not knowing their colors, their 
shapes, their numbers, how to spell their names. And you ask, well, is 
that all that important? You bet it is.
    You heard the doctor talk about how he got his degree in biology. 
Maybe there is nothing new under the sun, but when the Scripture says 
that people perish without vision, I think there's something to that. 
And the flip side is plainly true: In order to visualize, to imagine the 
future, you have to have some structure in your head, some way of 
organizing all the things that are coming in. And there's no doubt in my 
mind that one of the reasons we have so much violence among our young 
people today is they have no way of organizing and processing and 
dealing with and turning outward a lot of the things that they are 
forced to confront day-in and day-out.
    Head Start helps these little children--can you believe--I mean, 
first of all, they're the second best advertisement. How can they sit 
here and listen to all these politicians and people talk--[laughter]--
and behave in this way? Look at them. I mean, it's been amazing. But it 
helps these children to know they're special and to begin to see the 
world in a wonderful but still organized way. And that is a very, very 
significant thing.
    I do want to say to the Advisory Committee on Head Start Quality and 
Expansion and to Secretary Shalala and to Secretary Riley and to all 
those who worked on this program, we all knew that there were some 
things we ought to do to help Head Start move into the 21st century. We 
knew we had to invest in reform and put quality first. We knew we needed 
performance standards because if we're going to spend the public's money 
to make the program work at the grassroots level, we want children to 
turn out like the man who introduced me.
    We knew we had to expand the program, that it was no longer 
justifiable with all the kids in trouble in this country and needing 
help, to do that. So Head Start will go from serving 621,000 children in 
1992 to about 840,000 in 1995. And we're struggling hard, Marian, with 
the budget--we met yesterday--[laughter]--so that we can keep expanding 
it beyond 1995. We're going to give local communities the option to meet 
the new needs of parents and children with full-day and full-year 
programs, which I think is very important.
    The bill contains new provisions to meet families' needs who have 
infants and toddlers from birth to age 3. And I'm especially pleased by 
the broad coalition in Congress and the executive branch and among 
concerned Americans all across the country that focused on this vital 
area. Just a few years ago, this would have been enormously 
controversial. You would have had all kinds of ideological arguments, 
unrelated to the reality of these children's lives. And because of the 
spirit of primarily the leaders of Congress who are here present and 
those who are not here who supported it and those of you who brought 
information to the table about the real lives of these children and 
their families, you made that happen. And that is a dramatic change.
    The third thing that this bill does is to act to keep the gains that 
Head Start makes going through the later years, because we learned,

[[Page 946]]

much to our sadness, that some children kept the gains all the way 
through their lives and others were lost because of intervening events. 
So we had to ask ourselves what could we do to make these gains keep 
going, to make sure that these children would take the richness and the 
vision and the hope and the self-esteem that they leave this program 
with and be able to hold it close and live by it and gain from it 
throughout their lives. So I think that that is a terribly important 
advance in this program that will help not only the children but their 
parents.
    Well, this is in some ways maybe the biggest part of the lifetime 
learning program we've been pushing, all of us, through the Congress 
with remarkable bipartisan support: the Goals 2000 program to establish 
national standards for our public schools and to erase the difference 
between academic learning and skill training; the school-to-work program 
to help those young people who don't go on to 4-year colleges but do 
need greater skills; now, the reemployment program that we're going to 
try to develop out of the unemployment system, recognizing that most 
people don't get their old jobs back. But today we begin where our 
parents always told us we ought to begin, at the beginning.
    And this is a wonderful day, I say again, a tribute to those whose 
vision made it possible 29 years ago, a tribute to those who have worked 
on these significant, dramatic improvements today, a tribute to the 
parents and the students who have proven by their statements today and 
the lives they have lived that together we really are one community and 
we can pull together and help each other in ways that make us all better 
people, better citizens, and later, better parents.
    Thank you all, and God bless you.
    Now, let me tell you what's going to happen. This is Brian Rivera; 
he's 5 years old. He's the best dressed man here. [Laughter] And I'm 
going to ask him to join me with the congressional leadership; we don't 
have room here for all the Members who are here. I would like for 
Senator Kennedy, Senator Kassebaum, Senator Mitchell, and Congressman 
Ford, Congressman Goodling to come up here and stand behind me. And as 
they come, I'd like for all the Members of Congress who are here to 
stand and be applauded by the rest of us, because without them this 
would not have happened. Please stand up. [Applause]

Note: The President spoke at 3:17 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Dr. Ansel Johnson, former Head 
Start student, and Jeanne Kendall, parent of a former Head Start 
student. S. 2000, approved May 18, was assigned Public Law No. 103-252.