    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [April 23, 1996]
    [Pages 619-621]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 619]]

    Remarks at the National Teacher of the Year Award Ceremony
    April 23, 1996

        The President. Thank you very much. Thank you, Secretary Riley. To
    all of our Teachers of the Year and their friends and family members; to
    Senator Wellstone, Senator Grams, Congressman Minge; and to the
    educators and their supporters who are here, let me say that this is a
    day I look forward to every year. And every year God has blessed us with
    good weather in the Rose Garden, and that ought to tell you something
    about where teachers will stand in the ultimate measure of things.
    [Laughter]
        As I think you know, I have been away now for some days on a trip
    which literally took me around the world, from Korea to Japan to Russia.
    And before I make the remarks I'd like to make in honor of our Teacher
    of the Year and her counterparts here, I think it's important to comment
    on a couple of events that are unfolding now here in Washington.
        Let me begin with a compliment to the Congress for working in a
    bipartisan way for the American people. Last week Congress passed strong
    legislation to crack down on terrorism which I expect to sign right here
    tomorrow. I thank them for that. I also am pleased that Congress is
    moving forward on the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill which would improve access
    to health care for 43 million Americans and, if an amendment adopted by
    the United States Senate is carried through, would include mental health
    coverage for American families who need that.
        I'm also pleased to report that we're continuing to make significant
    progress on bipartisan agreement for the remaining spending bills this
    year. There is, of course, more to do. I am very hopeful that Congress
    will now, as a result of movements in the House and comments in the
    Senate by Republican Members, go ahead and raise the minimum wage for
    working people. No one can raise a family on $4.25 an hour, and if we're
    going to have family values coming out of Washington, we ought to start
    by valuing families that are working hard, trying to stay off welfare,
    and doing their best to raise their kids. We ought to do it with no
    gimmicks, a bill that I can sign into law.
        And finally, let me say that I hope that Congress can now bring this
    bipartisan momentum to bear on the challenge of finally passing a 7-year
    balanced budget plan. Last year and early this year, we had over 50
    hours of negotiation between the congressional leaders, the Vice
    President, and me. We made real progress toward agreeing on a balanced
    budget. Our plans have in common more than enough savings to balance the
    budget, provide tax relief to working families, and reflect our values
    by protecting the fundamental structures of Medicare and Medicaid and
    our commitments to education and a clean environment.
        Last week, the Congressional Budget Office certified that the budget
    plan I presented to Congress would balance the budget in 7 years. This
    is the first time in 17 years that the Congressional Budget Office has
    determined that a President's proposed budget is balanced. Moreover, the
    CBO has issued new and now more optimistic budget projections which will
    make the task of agreeing on a balanced budget significantly easier for
    both sides.
        It's been over 3 months now since the negotiations over how to
    balance the budget were suspended. I think we all understood there were
    intervening events that required this work to be suspended. But the time
    for waiting is now over. Now is the moment to finish the job and work
    toward a balanced budget.
        We should resume negotiations over how best to do this in 7 years.
    My door is open, and it's time to get the job done. We should begin
    again to seriously talk about this budget process. We should include
    congressional leaders, obviously the leadership, but also a broad enough
    range of representatives from both parties and both Houses who represent
    a broad diversity of views so that we can actually agree on something
    that can pass. We should put together a mainstream coalition to get the
    job done.
        Now if we do that, that will help all the educators. Why? Because if
    we have a balanced budget amendment, interest rates will come down,
    investments will go up, the economy will be stronger, and people will
    pay more funds in local school taxes so that they can support your
    educational institutions.
        We can make this a season of bipartisan achievement. We're off to a
    good start. There

    [[Page 620]]

    will be time enough for us to honestly debate our disagreements in the
    fall. We don't need a yearlong campaign. Most countries just have
    campaigns of 5 or 6 or 7 weeks. In the coming weeks, we should take the
    time to sit down and work together on an area where we are very, very
    close to real agreement. If we stop fighting about yesterday and balance
    the budget, we can face the challenges and have the debates of tomorrow.
        Let me say, too, that this is really about laying a foundation for
    the future, the same kind of work that you do. There is nothing more
    important than building the right kind of future for America, whether it
    is in balancing the budget or teaching our children. This fact was
    brought home to me again very forcefully in my recent visits to Korea
    and Japan and Russia. At each stop, I had discussions with leaders of
    those countries which focused on a fairly simple but very big question:
    How can we all work together to preserve world peace, to enhance human
    freedom and define ways to enable all of our people to seize the
    opportunities of this new information technology-driven age?
        The dimensions of economic change we are now experiencing, because
    of these sweeping changes and because of the end of the cold war and the
    growth of a global market, are the most profound changes affecting our
    economy and, therefore, how our people work and live that this country
    has experienced in 100 years, since people moved fundamentally from the
    farm to the factory.
        And I might say that Bill Gates, the American computer wizard, gave
    a speech not very long ago that I had the privilege to hear, and he
    wrote in his book ``The Road From Here'' that the changes we are now
    experiencing in communication are the most profound the world has
    experienced in 500 years since Gutenberg printed the first Bible in
    Europe with a printing press.
        We have to build a bridge to the 21st century that all Americans who
    are willing to work for it have a chance to cross. Education is the way
    we do it, the way we can give every child a future, to live the American
    dream, to make the most of his or her own life, to build solid families
    and strong communities and a strong America. If our children succeed,
    America will do very well indeed.
        So we have to renew our schools and throw open the doors of college
    to all who want to go who are qualified for it. That's why, even as we
    cut the deficit in half in 4 years, we have maintained our commitment to
    invest in education, all the way from Head Start through the Goals 2000
    program that Secretary Riley mentioned, through access to college. But
    we also have to acknowledge that the demands of the 21st century require
    an honest assessment of what is right and wrong with our educational
    system, what money will fix, and what cannot be fixed by money alone.
        The education agenda Secretary Riley and I are pursuing is
    consistent with what parents and States have called for, tougher
    standards and accountability and higher expectations and greater
    opportunities. I believe that in a fundamental way, education is a
    matter of high expectations, high standards, good teachers, concerned
    parents, and a supportive community.
        High technology will play a bigger and bigger role, and that's why
    the Vice President and I are trying to make sure that every school and
    every library in this country, every classroom and every library in the
    country, from the smallest rural school to the largest urban one, all of
    them are connected to the information superhighway by the year 2000.
        But we all know that we have to have those other things: the good
    teachers, the concerned parents, the high expectations, the high
    standards. We know that these things will make a difference. At last
    month's National Governors' Association education summit, I challenged
    the States and the Governors there to create a system that rewards and
    inspires and demands higher standards for teachers, removing barriers
    that attract the most talented people, rewarding teachers who meet these
    high standards, making it easier to remove people who should leave the
    classroom.
        But in the end, we know that what we have to do, all the rest of us
    who give these speeches, is to support the good teachers. The magic that
    occurs between the teacher and the student is still the ultimate--the
    ultimate key to successful education. It is partly a science but largely
    an art. It is sometimes a mystery and always a wonder.
        All of us who ever amounted to anything like to tell people that we
    were born in a log cabin we built ourselves. We'd like for everybody to
    believe we were self-made. But the truth is, I don't believe there's a
    single person in America who is really successful today, at least there

    [[Page 621]]

    aren't many, who can't point to at least one and sometimes a lot more
    teachers that had a profound impact on his or her life. I know that is
    certainly true of me. I carried on a correspondence with my sixth-grade
    teacher until the day she died at the age of 90; she wrote me a week
    before she died. I have kept up with many of my teachers from elementary
    and high school and college all my life, because I know that I wouldn't
    be here if it weren't for them.
        And I'm so glad that our Teacher of the Year not only brought her
    own fine children who are a pretty good monument to her teaching--Sarah
    and Christie and Mark--but also five of her students, because they
    really represent the ultimate success of all of your endeavors.
        I want to thank, again, Mary Beth Blegen and all of you for devoting
    your lives to teaching. Mary Beth has taught humanities, history,
    writing, and English for more than 30 years at Minnesota's Worthington
    High School. When she was first hired, it was a violation of the child
    labor laws.
        Mary Beth Blegen. Right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Oh, you are
    such a good man.
        The President. She has seen many of the changes that all of us have
    witnessed in America. Worthington has evolved from a mostly white and
    rural middle class community into one that is more economically and
    ethnically diverse. It is a community that has seen a shift in jobs from
    primarily agricultural jobs to factory jobs and other supporting jobs.
        Her greatest achievement has been her ability to help her students
    understand the complex relationships that exist in our changing world.
    And I might say that that may be the toughest thing we all have to do.
    We have to figure out how to meet the challenges tomorrow while
    preserving our basic values. We have to understand that for every
    complicated problem there is normally a simple, appealing answer that is
    wrong. That does not mean that our values can't be simple,
    straightforward, and unbending, but it does mean we have to understand
    these kind of complex relationships that she has done such a marvelous
    job of explaining to her students.
        She is the embodiment of the all-American teacher, a hard-working,
    dedicated, caring person, always working to do better. Her approach to
    teaching, they tell me, is just as fresh and enthusiastic today as it
    was 30 years ago. I think anyone who can do that and avoid burnout and,
    instead, keep burning on deserves an award for that, if nothing else.
    And she's done it while raising these three fine children of her own,
    one of whom has followed in her footsteps as a teacher.
        Mary Beth likes to say, good teaching changes lives. She has changed
    countless lives in 30 years of teaching, and I am proud that she is here
    as a symbol of all the good that America's teachers do every day all
    across America.

    [At this point, Ms. Blegen, National Teacher of the Year, made brief
    remarks.]

        The President. Thank you very much. We're adjourned.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:45 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White
    House.