    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [April 8, 1995]
    [Pages 504-508]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the National Education Association School Safety Summit in
    Los Angeles, California
    April 8, 1995

        Thank you. Thank you for your welcome. Thank you for your work.
    Thank you for that very moving film. Thank you, Keith Geiger, for your
    introduction and for your outstanding leadership of this organization.
    You know, Keith Geiger is quite a gardener, and it's quite a beautiful
    day. It shows you how devoted he is that he's even inside, much less
    giving a speech. [Laughter] Thank you, Dick Riley, for such a wonderful
    job as Secretary of Education and for those fine remarks. Senator Carol
    Moseley-Braun, I'm delighted to see you. We're a little out of place
    here today. It's actually a pretty good time to be in Washington, DC.
    The cherry blossoms are out, and so is Congress. It's a pretty good time
    to be there. [Laughter] I know there are a lot of Los Angeles county
    supervisors and city council members here today, and I see your
    distinguished police chief--I know there are other--and I thank you for
    being here, sir.
        I also know that this is not just a gathering of teachers. There are
    a lot of school support folks here and parents and police officers and
    concerned citizens about a subject that I care a great deal about, as
    you could see from the film that was put together by the NEA.
        Shortly before the New Hampshire primary in 1992, I was walking in a
    hotel one night in New York, and some of you may remember, since you
    helped me, that I was not doing very well then, and my political
    obituary was being written over and over again. [Laughter] ``Will he
    fall into single digits in New Hampshire, or will he hang on at 11
    percent?'' And I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. And we were having
    this big fundraiser in New York, and for all I knew, there wouldn't be
    three people there. And they took me in the back way, you know, and I
    walked through the kitchen, totally preoccupied with my own problems.

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        And all of a sudden this gentleman who was working in the hotel came
    up to me and said, ``Governor, my boy, who is 10, he studies politics in
    the school, and he says I should vote for you. So,'' he says, ``I'm
    going to vote for you. But'' he said, ``I want you to do something for
    me.'' I said, ``What is it?'' He said, ``I want you to make my boy
    free.'' I said, ``Well, what do you mean?'' He said, ``Well, I came here
    from another country, and we were very poor there, but at least we were
    free.'' He said, ``Now we live in a place where we have a park across
    the street, but my boy can't go to the park unless I go with him to
    protect him. We have a neighborhood school that's just down the street,
    but my boy can't go to school unless I walk with him. If my boy is not
    safe, he is not free. So, if I vote for you as he asks, will you make my
    boy free?''
        And the first thing I felt, frankly, was shame that I was
    preoccupied with my own problems. And the second thing I thought was,
    you know, how can we have learning in this country until our children
    are free?
        Now we're having this huge debate in Washington about what the role
    of Government ought to be. Yesterday at the American Newspaper Editors
    Association in Dallas, I had a chance to say where I stood on the issues
    remaining both in the Republican contract and in the New Covenant that I
    ran on in 1992.
        We know that we have a lot of economic challenges, that we have to
    grow the middle class and shrink the under class and make America a good
    place for a new generation of entrepreneurs. We know that the Government
    is not well-organized for the information age and it needs to be less
    bureaucratic and more flexible.
        But we also know, I take it, that there are two great obligations
    that we must, we must pursue as a people, and they are related and they
    come together here. The first is that we have to enhance the security of
    our people, not only beyond our borders but here at home as well. And
    the second is that we have to empower them all through education to
    succeed in a world where education, more than ever before, is the key,
    not only to whether a society succeeds but whether individuals can live
    up to their own dreams.
        Today you are coming to talk about both things. You can't succeed in
    school if you're not secure when you're there, and we can't expect our
    schools to be safe unless we do more to make our communities safe and
    our homes safe. So you are dealing with two of the great questions of
    this time. I applaud you for doing it. This is a very impressive
    program, and I wish you well.
        Last year I fought hard to pass that crime bill because it was
    comprehensive, because it did have tougher punishment and more prisons,
    but it also put another 100,000 police on our street in community
    settings so we could lower crime and make people safer, because it had
    provisions for making our schools safer, because it had a domestic
    violence component for violence against women and children.
        And the Secretary and I fought very hard for the safe and drug-free
    schools act which would provide funds to over 90 percent in our school
    districts to help to keep the schools safe, whether it would be in the
    form of security officers or security equipment or other things designed
    to make our schools safer and more free of drugs.
        As we debate all these issues, it's important not to forget that the
    first mission of Government is to keep its citizens safe within rules of
    law, and our second mission is to meet the challenges of the time. The
    challenges of this time are the challenges of education. And we cannot
    do one without the other.
        One of the most disturbing things in America today is the fact that
    there's so much social tension growing directly out of the fact that
    most wages for most middle class people have been stagnant for more than
    10 years. More than half the American people today are working a longer
    workweek for the same or lower wages they were making 15 years ago. When
    you think about every political issue that's being faced in this country
    that is divisive, if you just imagine that fact, it explains a lot. It
    explains a lot about the anxiety, the resentment, the frustrations that
    people have in this country.
        But whatever the debates are, we have to say, let's don't do stupid
    things. Let's invest more time, effort, resources, organization, and
    passion into making our people safer and educating our people better.
        I want to cut spending. Senator Carol Moseley-Braun could tell you
    the story. We just had--I was just with Senator Boxer up at the
    California Democratic Convention, and she was talking about this. We had
    a big debate about how we could lower the spending in this year's budget
    more, in the so-called rescission bill, to

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    pay for the California earthquake costs and some other expenses we had
    and reduce the deficit a little more. And we got this bill originally
    from the House that was going to cut all kinds of education funding and
    cut funding for safe and drug-free schools, at a time when drug use is
    going back up among young people who have forgotten that is not only
    illegal, it is dangerous and stupid, and violence is a real problem.
        So we worked and worked and worked. When the bill got over to the
    Senate, the Senate Republicans put some money back in, and then we
    insisted, if you're one of the Democrats, to let it come to a vote
    they'd have to put some more money--put the money back. So the money got
    put back.
        But my point is that in Washington, where we're so far away from
    these problems--you heard--I can't remember whether it was Keith or
    whoever said it out here, that a lot of people who might pontificate
    about schools never have been in a classroom. Well, I have been. I dare
    say I've probably spent more hours in more classrooms in more States
    than any person who ever had the privilege of holding this office. And
    it is so easy to see where people in Washington--they get on a tear--
    that judgment goes out the window.
        The Republicans used to attack the Democrats because they said they
    never met a program they didn't like. They were great at starting
    programs, but they couldn't stop them. Their solution to everything was
    to spend more money on it. Well, now the rage is, we never met a program
    we did like, and their solution to everything is spend less money on it.
    What we need is judgment. What we need is judgment. We need to reduce
    the deficit, but we need to invest more in education and we need to
    invest more in security because those two things together will determine
    our future.
        I think you had somebody from the Centers of Disease Control in
    Atlanta earlier today. They are releasing today their preliminary report
    on school-related violent deaths. They have identified 105 violent
    school-related deaths in just the last 2 years. And they've shown that
    violence threatens schools and communities of all shapes and sizes. We
    know there are common elements to violent deaths among young people. The
    victim and the assailant usually know each other, they are usually the
    same race, and they're usually male. The incident starts as an argument,
    and there's usually a firearm involved.
        Schoolyard fights have been around as long as schoolyards. But it
    used to be, when I got in them at least, that when kids got in fights,
    they fought with their fists and adults broke them up.
        Today, there are guns on the playground, guns in the classroom, guns
    on the bus. And as was pointed out in the film, 7 times more often,
    there are knives there. So as a result, serious injury and death and
    terror are far more likely to occur.
        You know, the thing about being young is you think you're going to
    live forever. Whatever is inside you working around is rushing at high
    tide, and the future is what happens 5 minutes from now. That's why our
    job is to calm people down and make them think about what happens 5
    years and 10 years and 15 years from now. And we all have a fair chance
    to do it, unless they can do unlimited damage in the 5 seconds between
    when they start and when somebody else can get there. With a knife or a
    gun you can do unlimited damage.
        I'll never forget when I was running for President, I gave a speech
    in New York City at a school. And I was talking about Martin Luther
    King, and everybody seemed so moved. And 2 weeks later, a kid got killed
    right in the same place I was standing.
        I met a young man in northern California who had changed schools
    because his school was so violent, with his brother. And they were
    standing in line to register for class in the other school, and his
    brother got shot, this time by a stranger, just some nut walked in and
    got in a fight. His brother happened to be standing in the way.
        The CDC found that in 1990, one in 24 students carried a gun to
    school in the 30 days before their study. In 1991, one in 18 carried a
    gun. Last week, the CDC reported that in 1993, one in 12 students
    carried a gun. That's more people than are packing a gun on the street.
    That's a higher percentage.
        This is a national crisis. It requires a national response. It
    requires all kinds of people to be involved. Guns have no place in our
    schools and have no place in the hands of our children. If we don't stop
    this, we can't make the schools safe. We've always had bipartisan
    support for zero tolerance of guns in our schools. We ought to keep it
    that way. In 1990, a Democratic Congress passed a law creating gun-free
    zones around our schools, and President Bush signed

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    it. At this moment, my administration is supporting that law all the way
    to the Supreme Court.
        The crime bill we passed last year makes it a Federal crime for a
    young person to carry a handgun except when supervised by an adult. Last
    fall, we passed a law requiring States to adopt a simple but powerful
    rule: If somebody brings a gun to school, they'll be expelled for a
    year, no excuses. Senator Feinstein sponsored that law. Zero tolerance
    works. In 1993 in San Diego, the first year of the policy, the number of
    guns in schools was cut in half. This school year, authorities have
    found only five guns in the entire school system. It works.
        That's why I directed Secretary Riley to enforce one rule for the
    whole country. If a State doesn't comply with zero tolerance, it won't
    get certain important Federal educational funds, period. I have been
    very strong in giving more flexibility to schools, more flexibility to
    school districts, more flexibility to States, and more flexibility to
    State governments in a whole wide range of areas. I've given 25 States
    permission to pursue welfare reform, 7 States permission to pursue big
    health care reform. And the education legislation we adopted last year,
    while enshrining then national education goals, gave local schools more
    flexibility in deciding how to educate their children than ever before.
    But this problem deserves and, indeed, requires a national response.
    Zero tolerance: There is no other rational option.
        I also want to say something on behalf of the principals and the
    teachers who are here and even their security forces and their metal
    detectors. This is not just a school problem, this is a social problem.
    That's why we have to support the efforts of our police chiefs, our
    sheriffs, and our others to adopt policies that will lower the crime
    rate throughout our communities and throughout our country. That's why
    it is important to support the work that was done in the crime bill last
    year. That's why it's important to support the work of people struggling
    to reduce domestic violence throughout our country. The schools will
    have violence and weapons and trouble as long as our society has them.
        We can do better in the schools. To be sure, we can do better. But
    we have to recognize it will never be a problem that is gone until we do
    better beyond the schoolhouse door. Parents have to teach their children
    right from wrong. Parents have to get involved, and community leaders
    have to get involved. We cannot expect the schools to do it all.
        In the end, this country has got to get mobilized around this issue.
    I just studied about a year ago--I sat down one day and really looked at
    the differences between the 1980 and the 1990 census. And if you can
    bear to look at all of those numbers, you can see a lot about what's
    going on in your country. It is perfectly clear that the middle class in
    America is splitting apart. And that is what is giving rise to all of
    these social tensions.
        From the year I was born until 1978 or so, we all rose together; in
    all income groups we rose together. We just about doubled our income, no
    matter whether we were in the top 20 percent, the bottom 20 percent, or
    someplace in between, except the bottom 20 percent increased almost time
    and a half what they had been earlier. So we were going up and going
    together.
        Then, in 1978 or thereabouts, an amazing thing started to happen.
    Income stagnation among a lot of working people meant that for the first
    time since the end of the Second World War, the middle class started to
    split apart, so that this idea of the American dream began to be
    thwarted in family after family after family after family. Don't kid
    yourselves, that's really behind all this tension on affirmative action.
    That's really behind a lot of this tension and anxiety on immigration.
    It's behind a lot of this. There are too many families out here headed
    by people who think they have done everything they're supposed to do,
    who are living on the same or lower wages with a high level of job
    insecurity who don't believe they can do right by their children. Now,
    that's what's going on.
        But the fault line dividing the middle class in the global economy
    is education. It's education. The only way we can offer hope to people
    of a successful life in the face of all these changes, the only way we
    can tell people you can seize all these wonderful things about the
    global economy is if we can educate everybody. And the only way we can
    do that is if we can make our schools safe and give childhood back to
    our children.
        If there ever was an example of what I have been trying to preach
    for 3 or 4 years now, that we need a New Covenant among our people of
    opportunity and responsibility, this is it. Education is an opportunity.
    Lawfulness is a responsibility. And you cannot have one without

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    the other. I will do everything I can to support you. I ask that you do
    only this, whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or an independent,
    ask our Congress to work with me to find ways to cut this deficit
    without undermining our investment in either education or security. We
    must go forward together.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:24 p.m. at the Century Plaza Hotel and
    Towers.