[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.