    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [April 28, 1995]
    [Pages 607-610]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Presenting the Teacher of the Year Award
    April 28, 1995

        Thank you very much, Secretary Riley, Governor Knowles, to our
    distinguished Teacher of the Year. We're fortunate to be joined here by
    many friends of education. I cannot mention them all, but I would like
    to mention a few: First, my longtime friend Gordon Ambach, the

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    executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers;
    Scholastic, Inc., CEO and president Dick Robinson and senior vice
    president Ernie Fleishman; president of the AFT Al Shanker; and I know
    that Keith Geiger, the president of the NEA, was on his way here--I
    don't know if he's here yet; Assistant Secretary of Education Tom
    Payzant, I'd like to thank him for his work and for coming here from a
    school district to make sure we keep grounded in the real world. I want
    to say a special word of welcome to all these fine teachers here who
    represent, along with our Teacher of the Year, 46 of the total honorees
    throughout the United States. We're very, very glad to have all them
    here, and I think we should give them a hand this morning and a welcome.
    [Applause]
        Before I make my remarks about the Teacher of the Year and the
    importance of education today, I want to say one word about our ongoing
    efforts to protect the American people from ever again having to endure
    what the American people have endured in Oklahoma City.
        Sunday I announced the first in a series of new steps to combat
    terrorism in America, whatever its source. Wednesday I invited
    Republican and Democratic leaders from the Congress to the White House
    to do more. I announced at that time I would send to Congress new
    legislation designed to crack down on terrorism. These new measures will
    give law enforcement expanded investigative powers, increased
    enforcement capacities, and tougher penalties to use against those who
    commit terrorist acts.
        I'm encouraged so far by the response from Members of Congress in
    both parties. And I say again, Congress must move quickly to pass this
    legislation. The American people want us to stop terrorism. They want us
    to put away anyone involved in it. We must not allow politics to drag us
    into endless quibbling over an important national item. We must not
    delay the work we have to do to keep the American people safe and to try
    to prevent further acts of this kind. We must allow the American people
    to get on with their lives, and all of that is caught up in this
    measure. I have put tough legislation on the table. It reassures the
    American people that we are doing all we can to protect them and, most
    importantly, their children. We must not dawdle or delay. Congress must
    act and act promptly.
        All Americans have responded with great spirit to this awful
    tragedy. Law enforcement has been swift and sure. The rescue efforts
    have been truly heroic and not without their own sacrifices. Communities
    have come together as we reach out to support the people who have
    endured so much. Now, working together, we are going to do more.
        The thing that I notice most, perhaps, about the Oklahoma City
    tragedy was how moved all Americans were by the plight of innocent
    children. It is hard to think of anything good coming out of something
    so horrible. But if anything, I think the American people have
    reaffirmed our commitment to putting the interests of our children and
    their future first in our lives.
        In the brief time since he took office, the Governor of Alaska, Tony
    Knowles, who is sitting here behind me, has already worked to do that in
    Alaska. Alaska, as you know, is vast and faces unique problems and
    challenges. Those challenges are being met through satellite technology
    the Healthy Start program which ensures that children start school well-
    nourished and ready to learn. That is a sort of commitment that all of
    us now must take into our lives, into our States, into our schools, into
    our communities.
        I ran for President to make sure that the American dream would be
    available to all of our children well into the next century. I wanted to
    make sure that we could deal with the challenges of today and tomorrow
    presented by the global economy, presented by the revolutions in
    technology in ways that gave everybody a chance to live up to the
    fullest of his or her God-given capacities. We know that more than
    anything else today, that requires a good education.
        We know that the technological revolution and the global economy,
    with all of its pressures, have begun in every wealthy nation to put
    unbelievable strains on the social contract, to split apart the middle
    class. That is happening more in the United States than any other
    country, and the fault line is education. If you look at what is
    happening to adults, working people and their families, in their
    workplaces all across this country, those who are well-educated are
    doing very well in this global economy, and those who lack an education
    are having a very difficult time.
        We owe it to the children of this country to make sure that every
    one of them has the best possible education. And in doing that, we

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    are being a little bit selfish because this country itself will not be
    strong into the next century unless we dramatically improve the reach
    and depth of our common efforts to educate all of our people.

        As I have said many times in many places, we face two great deficits
    in this country, a budget deficit that is the product of too many years
    of taking the easy way out and an education deficit that is the product
    of too many years of ignoring the obvious. We have worked hard to try to
    address both over the last 2 years, reducing our deficit by $600 billion
    over a 5-year period and increasing our commitment to education.

        We must do more on both, but we dare not sacrifice one at the
    expense of the other. The answer to the budget deficit is not to reverse
    the gains we have made by expanding Head Start, by expanding
    opportunities for young people who don't go to college to move from
    school to work with good jobs and good futures, by expanding our
    commitment to childhood nutrition and the health of our children, by
    expanding our efforts to give people the chance to go to college through
    more affordable college loans and the AmeriCorps national service
    program. We cannot cure one deficit at the expense of the other.

        And indeed, in some areas we should plainly be doing more. The Goals
    2000 legislation for the first time set America on a course of national
    excellence in education, while giving teachers like the ones we
    celebrate here today more opportunities working with their principals to
    have flexibility from cumbersome Federal rules and regulations to do
    what they know best in educating their children. We should be putting
    more money into our schools with less rules and regulations, but higher
    standards, higher expectations, and honest measurement of educational
    progress.

        We should be doing more of what we've been doing in the last 2
    years, not less. And we can do it and bring the deficit down. We must
    attack both deficits at once and not sacrifice education on the altar of
    deficit reduction.

        We must also realize that the work of America is a work that is not
    done by government alone or even primarily by government. As I used to
    say over and over again when I was a Governor and much closer to the
    schools of our country, nothing we do in government will matter at all
    unless there are people like the teachers who are being honored here
    today. What we do in Washington only empowers people to do better by our
    children in every school in the country. What happens in the home and
    what happens in the school and how they relate to and reinforce one
    another will have the deciding influence on the quality of education in
    the United States and the future of this country as we move into this
    new and exciting age.

        Many of you remember Jesse Stuart, who taught in a one-room
    schoolhouse in the rural South and wrote a wonderful book called ``The
    Thread That Runs So True,'' in which he said, ``A teacher lives on and
    on through his students. Good teaching is forever, and the teacher is
    immortal.'' Well, just like Jesse Stuart, the 1995 National Teacher of
    the Year has taught in a one-room schoolhouse, but hers is in rural
    Alaska, where it's a little colder in the wintertime.

        Elaine Griffin's work at the Kodiak Island schools of Akhioc and
    Chiniak over the past 20 years has significantly expanded the
    educational, social, and cultural environments for the students in her
    K-through-12 classroom. With her husband, Ned, she brings in members of
    the community to share their talents with the students. And as the
    students learn about their own history, they are also being taught to
    understand distant lands. Many of the students have participated in
    foreign exchange programs. And I must say that Elaine and Ned have
    created their own cultural exchange with their three remarkable
    children, whom I just had the privilege of meeting in the Oval Office,
    whom I know that she will introduce in a moment.

        College attendance has increased significantly among their students.
    In Akhioc, a remote village where teen pregnancy, alcoholism and suicide
    were common, Elaine expanded the K-through-8 program so that it included
    high school. Today, 90 percent of the children in that remote village
    graduate from high school. And America is better for it.

        Elaine, it is my pleasure to present the 1995 Apple Award honoring
    you as the National Teacher of the Year and to thank you on behalf of
    all the American people for your dedication to your students and to the
    best in this country. You are truly a model for all the teachers of this
    country but for all the citizens as well.

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        Congratulations, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:05 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White
    House.