    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [October 22, 1994]
    [Pages 1833-1834]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1833]]

    The President's Radio Address
    October 22, 1994

        Good morning. As the autumn leaves begin to reach the height of
    their color, students all across our country are hard at work preparing
    for math tests and spelling bees, history papers and midterm exams.
    Their knowledge and skills are being tested. Their report cards will be
    a measure of their success.
        Well, just like those students, America is also being tested. We're
    facing difficult questions about how we should guide our children in
    today's world and whether we'll prepare them for the challenges they'll
    meet. It's not an easy test, perhaps one of the most difficult we have
    ever undertaken. But the right answers are before us, and our children
    will be the measure of our success. We've found a number of right
    answers already. Our national report card shows some exciting progress.
        When I became President, I knew the only way we could continue to
    lead the world would be if we developed the learning capacities of as
    many of our citizens as possible. That's why the progress we've made on
    our lifelong learning agenda is so vital to the long-term strength of
    the United States.
        In all our education proposals, we've tried to make a fundamental
    change in the way the Federal Government helps students to meet their
    goals. Instead of prescribing detailed rules and regulations that
    schools have to follow, as the Federal Government has done in the past,
    we've tried to show that it's the responsibility of individual teachers
    and students and communities, with the help of our National Government,
    to work hard to make good lives for themselves.
        In everything from an expanded Head Start program to new youth
    apprenticeships for young people who don't go to college, we've worked
    to build on those principles. In our Goals 2000 law, which I signed last
    spring, we set tough world-class standards in the basic subjects for
    students and schools, but we made it clear that students and teachers at
    the school level have to decide how to meet those standards. We made it
    clear that we have to keep guns and drugs out of our schools, that we
    have to encourage our parents to stay involved with our children's
    education.
        Now this past week, I had the opportunity to sign into law the
    elementary and secondary education act. That bill says that while the
    National Government will set the standards and help to develop the
    measurements of whether schools are meeting them, it is fundamentally
    the responsibility of people at the grassroots to make sure those
    standards are met. We are encouraging what we know is the true magic of
    education, that which occurs between teacher and student, with the help
    of parents and principals and communities.
        This new law does another thing. It supports programs that teach our
    young people that character does count, that helps them to learn the
    difference between right and wrong, based on standards developed in our
    local communities.
        We also have to work to make sure more Americans have the higher
    education they need to compete and win in the global economy. One of the
    biggest obstacles has been soaring college costs and an inadequate
    national system of college loans. We've started two new programs to help
    fix those problems. Our national service program, AmeriCorps, is already
    giving 20,000 people the chance to serve their country and earn money
    for higher education. Within 3 years, 100,000 people will be
    participating in this domestic Peace Corps. To give you some idea of how
    many that is, the largest number of young people who ever participated
    in the Peace Corps in a single year was 16,000.
        Over and above the national service program, this week I announced
    that Americans will be able to open what we call individual education
    accounts. We already have individual retirement accounts that help
    people direct the growth of their own retirement benefits, and now all
    Americans will be able to have individual education accounts, so that
    they can pay back college loans over time in ways that meet their own
    needs and the requirements of their own working lives. This program will
    save the Government money, reduce defaults, lower fees for everyone.
    With these reforms, we're helping to make sure that America can embrace
    the challenges we face in the world economy as we look to the next
    century.

    [[Page 1834]]

        But you should know that there are those who would take us in a very
    different direction, back to the policies of the past which have failed.
    Our political opponents have signed what they call a contract that tells
    us what they would do if they control Congress. They'd give a $200
    billion tax cut to the wealthiest Americans. They would explode the
    deficit. That would mean cutting many of the education reforms we've
    worked so hard to pass, along with Medicare and other programs. Our
    opponents have even made a specific proposal to cut college aid for 3
    million American student borrowers each year to pay for their trillion
    dollar package of promises in tax cuts, defense spending increases,
    revitalization of Star Wars, and an allegation that they can balance the
    budget. Well, we tried that before, and it didn't work out very well.
        My contract with America is for our future and for the future of our
    children. I don't want us to go back. To guarantee that we keep moving
    forward, we have to be willing to meet the tests of our time, to keep
    doing everything we can for young Americans who are looking to us for
    help in meeting the world's demands. We can't give in to easy promises.
    We have to embrace the challenges of the future. And if we do, we'll be
    rewarded. The world places many demands on us, but I'm sure you believe,
    as I do, that that's a test we can pass with flying colors.
        Thanks for listening.

    Note: The address was recorded at 5:55 p.m. on October 21 in the
    Roosevelt Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on October
    22.