    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [October 7, 1994]
    [Page 1714]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1714]]

    Remarks at the Blue Ribbon Schools Ceremony
    October 7, 1994

        Thank you very much for that wonderful welcome, increasingly rare
    around here these days. I just wanted to hear the Vice President say
    those lines from ``A Man For All Seasons.'' [Laughter] They're
    wonderful, aren't they?
        Let me say, as you know, we're about to wind up this session of
    Congress today, tomorrow--sometime in our lifetime, it will end--and
    that's why I couldn't be here earlier today. But I did want to come by
    and say a heartfelt congratulations to all of you.
        The Vice President and the Secretary of Education have already
    talked about what we're trying to do here, but I would like to put in a
    couple of sentences what I think is very important. It's hardly ever
    discussed in the common discussion, at least, of what goes on in
    Washington. But we have been quietly, but effectively, trying to create
    a dramatic change in the relationship of the National Government to the
    schools of this country and to the teachers and to what is going on in
    education. It is a change rooted in the experiences that Secretary Riley
    and Deputy Secretary Kunin and I had as Governors and the hours and
    hours and hours that we all spent in public schools, listening to
    teachers, watching people work in the schools, listening to parents.
        We have made the Federal Government both more active in education
    and, yet, less meddlesome in trying to support what you are trying to
    do. We have tried to put the National Government on record in favor of
    globally competitive national standards of excellence in education but
    also in favor of getting out of the way and letting you achieve those
    standards of excellence in education. And this is a substantial
    departure. The elementary and secondary education act that just passed
    the Congress, overcoming the perennial filibuster problem, does just
    that. It provides targeted funding, more directed toward the areas of
    real need, but also provides for an enormous amount of flexibility for
    the schools so that every school can be a blue ribbon school. That, in
    the end, ought to be our objective in America.
        So we will keep trying to do our job here. It will make a real
    difference that no child should ever walk away from going to college
    because of the cost, because under this new student loan program, you
    can have lower interest rates and longer repayment terms, and it can be
    geared to your salary so that if you want to be a schoolteacher or a
    police officer, something where you're not going to be rich, you can
    still afford to pay back that student loan. That will make a difference.
    It will make a difference in hundreds of thousands of more kids in Head
    Start; that by 1996, every child in this country under the age of 2 will
    be immunized; that'll make it easier for the kindergarten and the first
    grade teachers to do their job. Those things will make a difference.
        But in the end, we know what will make the difference is you, the
    teachers, the parents, the principals, the people at the grassroots
    level. All the magic of education is still in the human interplay that
    is a long way from Washington, DC. So we'll keep trying to do our job,
    but a big part of our job is making sure that you have, to use the new
    Washington buzzword, the empowerment necessary to do your job. That is
    our commitment to you; we will keep it. And I am glad to see your
    smiling faces here today.
        Bless you all, and thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:15 p.m. on the South Lawn at the White
    House.