[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
[October 22, 1994]
[Pages 1834-1837]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to Students at Carlmont High School in Belmont, California
October 22, 1994

    It's nice to be back in California. It's nice to be here in Belmont. 
It's nice to be here at Carlmont High School. I'm honored to be the 
first President to come here. And it's only fair that I came here to see 
your principal, since he didn't get to come and see me. Now that should 
not be interpreted as a sign of dissatisfaction with the lady who got to 
be the principal of the year, but he would have made an awful good one. 
[Laughter] And he sounds to me like the principal of the year here.
    I want to say how very honored I am to be here with all of you. I 
thank Mayor Rianda for her welcome, Mayor Davids for what he said. I 
thank them for their leadership and their devotion to public service at 
the grassroots level, where so many of our problems and challenges have 
to be met. I thank Congressman Lantos and Congresswoman Eshoo for not 
only being my friends but for their extraordinary service in Washington. 
I can tell you that there is this popular feeling, I think, that nearly 
everybody who goes off to Washington has something bad happen to them 
and forgets about the folks back home; they do not. And they represent 
you well, and you should be very proud of them. I'm also very pleased to 
be joined today by your State treasurer, Kathleen Brown, and your State 
insurance commissioner, John Garamendi. Thank you, John. I'd like to 
introduce one other person, too, who is my partner in these education 
endeavors, a former colleague of mine and former Governor of Vermont and 
now the Deputy Secretary of Education, who's come all the way from 
Washington with me today, Governor Madeleine Kunin. Please make her feel 
welcome. [Applause] I want to say a little more about Senator Feinstein 
in a moment, in connection with this work, but I appreciate what she 
said today.
    But let me begin by saying that, as all of you know, I had the 
opportunity to spend a great deal of time in this magnificent State of 
yours a couple of years ago. And since I have been President, I think 
I've been back here a dozen times. I've worked on emergencies for 
California, like the earthquake and the fires. I've worked on trying to 
get the economy of this State going again, to sell computers overseas, 
to sell the farmers' rice to Japan for the first time, to start the 
shipbuilding industry in the southern part of the State, to help the 
defense conversion momentum really get going here so we could build a 
lot of jobs out of this defense downsizing and not just lose them. I've 
tried to do things that would help you deal with the

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crime and the immigration problems, real, concrete steps, not just talk 
about it. Ten thousand more police officers will come to California 
under the crime bill. We have doubled the number of immigration officers 
along the southern border of the State. We've begun to have a real 
impact in dealing with the problem of illegal immigration.
    But what I want to say to you is that over the long run, if we are 
going to have a bright future for the people of the United States, and 
if California is going to work--and it can work, you look around at the 
students here, look at all the different ways they found to say welcome 
to me up there--if this country is going to work, and this State is 
going to work, then schools like this school have to work all across 
America. We have to prove that there is strength, not weakness, in our 
diversity. We have to prove that all children can learn. And we have to 
prove that with all the changes that we're going through in America 
today, we can still give our kids an old-fashioned, safe upbringing and 
a good education, because that is the key to the future of the global 
economy.
    One of the least known stories, perhaps, of the recent concluded 
session of Congress is that it was the best session for education in at 
least three decades. [Applause] That's worth clapping for. I appreciate 
that. This Congress expanded the Head Start program, making more 
children eligible and making younger children eligible. This Congress 
passed the Goals 2000 bill, writing into national law our national 
education goals, world-class standards, and saying that we would help to 
develop means of measuring whether we're meeting those standards but 
emphasizing that education reform has to come from the grassroots, 
school by school.
    Just a couple of days ago I signed the elementary and secondary 
education act, which dramatically reduces the Federal regulations 
telling schools how to spend the money we give them to help kids who 
need extra help in school and encourages schools to do things that will 
actually prove that children can learn without regard to their racial or 
economic background. The bill also, as Senator Feinstein said, helps to 
support safe schools initiatives and promotes the concept of character 
education when basic civic values to be taught in the schools are 
developed at the community level.
    We also passed a bill for young people who don't go to college but 
do want to get good education, an apprenticeship bill to help every 
State in the country develop a system to guarantee that even those who 
don't go to college will have a chance to get some further education and 
training and get a good job with a prospect of a growing income.
    Finally, and perhaps most important, we dramatically reorganized the 
system by which the National Government makes college loans available, 
not only to low income but also to middle class young people.
    One of the things that's always bothered me in the last couple of 
years is seeing the cost of a college education go up faster than any 
other essential part of a family's budget, even more rapidly than health 
care costs. In my own State, I saw young people start college and then 
drop out because they either couldn't get loans or they were convinced 
they would never be able to repay them. Then I saw young people get out 
of college with big debts and take jobs that paid higher wages, not 
because they wanted them but because they were afraid they couldn't 
afford to do something they really wanted to do, like work with people 
in the community to help kids get a better start or be schoolteachers or 
police officers or do other things, because they were afraid they could 
never repay their college loan.
    Under this system, you won't have to worry about that anymore when 
you become of age and you get out of high school. You'll be able to 
choose to borrow money and pay it back over a longer period of time at a 
lower interest rate as a percentage of your income, so that if you 
choose to serve the public and you choose not to get rich, you at least 
won't be driven into the poor house by the cost of your college 
education.
    The last thing the Congress did was to pass a program that's already 
being felt here in California, the national service program, AmeriCorps, 
to give young people the chance to serve their communities and earn 
money for their college education. This year, 20,000 young Americans are 
doing it; year after next, 100,000 young Americans are doing it. If the 
Congress will continue to support it, I am convinced we can have as many 
as a half a million young Americans paying their way to college by 
solving the problems of this country one on one, person by person, at 
the grassroots level all across America. And I thank the Congress for 
that record of education reform.

[[Page 1836]]

    Now, having said that, let me come to the point. Education still 
does not occur in Washington. Education occurs school by school, class 
by class, student by student. The magic of education is in what happens 
between the teachers and the students, what the role of the principal 
is, whether the parents are supportive at home, what is going on inside 
the student. None of that can happen in an atmosphere of fear.
    We all know stories, horrible stories of children being shot or cut 
or terrorized. When I was in California last year, I did a town meeting 
and a young man from northern California told me that he and his brother 
changed schools because they thought the school they were in was so 
dangerous. And then when they lined up to register in the new school 
they thought was safer, somebody just came in the school door and shot 
his brother, standing right there in line to register. He just happened 
to be in the wrong place.
    You would not believe the letters I get from children of all ages 
begging me to do something about the violence that terrorizes their 
lives. You may have seen me read a letter that I got from a young man 
from New Orleans, when the crime bill was being debated, who said, ``I 
know you can do something about crime, and I am frightened.'' That young 
man was shot a couple of weeks after he wrote a letter to me.
    I got a letter after the crime bill was signed from the son of a 
friend of mine in my administration who said, ``I have a nice family. We 
have a high income. We live in a good neighborhood. I go to a good 
school. My friends and I are still scared every time I go downtown to 
the movies. I feel better now that the crime bill has been signed.''
    We cannot operate in a country where children are afraid and cannot 
feel, much less think. You cannot learn in that kind of atmosphere. That 
is why, as the principal said, we're trying to be tough and firm and 
strong in some of these critical areas. That's why we had to pass the 
Brady bill. That's why we had to pass the crime bill. That's why we 
adopted Senator Feinstein's amendment to ban assault weapons on the 
streets of our cities. And that's why we come here today to sign this 
executive order. I know here in this high school you already have a zero 
tolerance policy for guns, and I applaud you for it. I applaud your 
principal, and I applaud the students who support it. Now students all 
over the country, their parents, their teachers, their principals will 
be required to meet the challenge that you have met, to follow your 
example. Students have to take the lead to take responsibility for this. 
We can do better, and we must.
    ``Zero tolerance'' is a commonsense policy. Why does anybody need to 
have a gun in school? That's why this order directs the Secretary of 
Education to withhold funding the States that don't comply with the law. 
Young people simply should not have to live in fear of young criminals 
who carry guns to school.
    And again I will say, just like the assault weapons, this bill is in 
the Federal law because Senator Feinstein sponsored it and demanded it. 
And we got it thanks to her efforts and those of Senator Dorgan, and I 
thank them both.
    As I sign this order, just before I do, I want you to think about 
it, all of you students here. What are you going to do? What are you 
personally going to do about what's going on? That's really what counts. 
We can have this rule, and fewer people will bring guns to schools. We 
also need fewer guns on our streets. One of the things in the crime bill 
is the banning of juvenile possession of handguns unless the juvenile is 
under the supervision of an adult. We are doing all we can to pass laws. 
But in the end your future will be decided by what is inside you, what 
you decide to do.
    I think all Americans have been very moved--I know I certainly 
have--by the sight of the Haitian people getting their freedom back and 
President Aristide going back, to bring democracy back to Haiti. You 
know, one of his biggest challenges after all the violence that those 
people have suffered is to make sure that his own supporters now do not 
resort to violence to retaliate. Why is violence going up so much among 
young people in our country? Violence begets violence, begets violence, 
begets violence. It has to end somewhere.
    And if you watched President Aristide back in Haiti, perhaps the 
most gripping thing was when he stood there--having had many of his 
friends killed, having had children that he tried to help terrorized--
standing there saying to the masses of his people, ``No to violence, no 
to retribution, yes to peace, yes to reconciliation.'' And if they are 
saying that inside their heart, that will do more than any law.
    So I say to you, as your principal said, we've done some tough 
things to try to give you a bright future. And we're not ashamed of 
them;

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we're proud of them. If we can think of other things to do, we will do 
them as well. But in the end, what you say inside is even more 
important. You must say no to guns, no to gangs, no to drugs; yes to 
education, yes to hope, yes to your own future.
    The 21st century can be the best time this country and this State 
ever knew because of all of you, because of our diversity, because in a 
global society we will be the great global nation, because everybody can 
be an American. You don't have to be of a certain race or ethnic 
background or religious conviction. You just have to come here and share 
our land and share our values and make the most of your own life. That 
is what you have to do.
    But in the end, you will have to do it. So I say to you, I'm proud 
to sign this order to give you the chance to say yes to your future. And 
I hope and pray you will do it.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 12:11 p.m. In his remarks, he referred to 
Carlmont High School principal Michael Johnson, Mayor Pam Rianda of 
Belmont, CA, and Mayor Tom Davids of San Carlos, CA. The memorandum on 
implementation of safe schools legislation was released by the Office of 
the Press Secretary on October 25.