[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
[February 24, 1996]
[Pages 327-331]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the Community in Long Beach
February 24, 1996

    Thank you very much. Thank you, Melissa Machit. Didn't she do a good 
job? Give her another hand. [Applause] Mayor O'Neill; Superintendent 
Cohn; Chief Ellis; our host, the principal, Alexis Ruiz-Alessi, the 
principal of Jackie Robinson Academy, where we are now; to the president 
of the board of education, Bobbie Smith; to the JROTC groups from Wilson 
and Poly, thank you very much for being here. And to the Poly High 
School band, thank you very much for playing so well.
    Just before I came out here I had a little roundtable discussion 
about the school uniform policy with Melissa and another fine student 
named Maurice Troutman and a number of--I thought he was going to run 
for office someday; he's already seeded the crowd--[laughter]--and a 
number of teachers and parents and the chief and your board president. I 
would like for all the people who were in our little roundtable to stand 
and be recognized; they did such a good job of educating me about what 
was done. Thank you very much. [Applause]
    I'm glad to be back in Long Beach. It seems like only yesterday when 
I was here last. [Laughter] I do have my pin on today; it's sort of my 
uniform. And I'm honored to be here. I came here today to applaud and 
support the efforts of this remarkable community.
    Yesterday the mayor and community leaders briefed me on the 
remarkable plan that this community has to revive itself and deal with 
the impact of the defense downsizing of the last several years. Today 
I'm here to support what over the long run may have an even more 
profound impact on the future of this commu-


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nity and our country, this remarkable progress you have shown in your 
schools as a result of the school uniform policy, making them safer, 
more disciplined and orderly, freeing teachers to focus on teaching and 
students to focus on their job of learning. You are returning their 
schools to their original purpose and proving that public institutions 
can excel when they have high standards, high expectations for all 
children, and a high purpose with a strategy at the grassroots level 
supported by everybody in the community for carrying it out.
    I have to tell you on a very personal note, as I told the panel, 
this has made my life at home even a little more difficult because for 
10 years--10 years--several times a year, before Long Beach finally took 
this groundbreaking step, the only person who ever talked to me about 
school uniforms was the First Lady. And six or seven times a year we'd 
go to Chelsea's school and we'd go to this or that event at school, or 
we'd visit other public schools, and she'd come home and say, ``You 
know, if we had a uniform policy, it would make things better in these 
schools.'' I heard it over and over and over again. And thanks to you, I 
have to listen to ``I told you so.'' [Laughter] Being able to endure ``I 
told you so'' is one of the essential requirements of a successful 
marriage--[laughter]--and I must say I can't think of a time when I have 
enjoyed hearing it more. I applaud all of you.
    I want to take a few moments today to talk about how what you have 
done here fits into the larger pattern of what I hope is going on in 
America and what I am trying to do and what we are trying to do to help 
you to spread this message throughout the United States.
    When I became President I was convinced that our country had to go 
into the next century making significant changes if we wanted to ensure 
that the American dream was available to everyone willing to work for 
it, without regard to their race or income or background, if we wanted 
to bring the American people together instead of seeing them continue to 
drift apart, and if we wanted to see our country remain the leading 
force in the world for peace and freedom and prosperity. We have worked 
very hard over the last 3 years on all those three objectives, and we 
see that while progress has been made which is very substantial, serious 
challenges remain, challenges that can only be met if we do a better job 
of working together. If you were to ask me what the single most 
significant lesson I have learned as your President in the last 3 years 
is, I would without hesitation answer, it is that when Americans work 
together we never lose, and when we are divided we defeat ourselves.
    Today California newspapers reported 285,000 new jobs in this State 
in 1995 alone. We are moving this economy; almost 8 million new jobs, a 
15-year high in homeownership, 3 years of record highs in new businesses 
formed. Businesses owned by women alone in the last 3 years have created 
more new jobs than the Fortune 500 have laid off. The combined rates of 
unemployment, inflation, and home mortgage interest rates are the lowest 
they've been in 27 years. We are moving forward.
    But we know--we know--that a lot of Americans have not participated 
in this economic recovery. They haven't gotten a raise, or they live in 
the inner city or isolated rural areas where there aren't any new jobs, 
or they work for one of these big companies where sometimes when they're 
my age and ready to send their own children to college, they've been 
downsized. So we have more challenges to meet until we can say to every 
American, ``You're going to live in a more rapidly changing economy, but 
you will still be all right if you're willing to work for it.''
    If you look at our most fundamental institutions, many of the social 
problems we've had, the objective indicators clearly point out the fact 
that on balance our schools are doing a better job. You should know that 
the welfare rolls are down in this country, the poverty rolls are down 
in this country. Every State in the country has reported a decline in 
violent crime. This is all encouraging. That's the good news.
    Everybody knows this country is still too violent. It's still too 
dangerous for children. There are still too many problems out there. 
There are still too many people trapped in a culture of dependence when 
they ought to be out working and being successful in supporting their 
families and contributing to their communities and country. So we have a 
lot to do.
    Now, a lot of the things we have to do involve modernizing our 
systems. For example, we have reduced the size of your National 
Government. We have gotten rid of thousands of pages of regulation. 
We've made it far less bureaucratic. It's the smallest Government you've 
had in 30 years. But you don't want it to be weak; it's

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still strong enough to be there when you need it if there is an 
earthquake or a fire or a flood. It's still strong enough to be there to 
help companies change when they have to go from defense to civilian 
construction. And these are the kinds of things that we need to focus 
on. I want to give you a Government that is less bureaucratic and 
smaller but still able to help every person, every family, every 
neighborhood, every community make the most of their own lives.
    And so all the institutions have to change; we have to modernize. In 
just a couple of weeks the Vice President and I will be out here to 
celebrate NetDay in California, the biggest next step in our campaign to 
make sure that by the year 2000 every single classroom and every single 
library in this country will be hooked up to the Internet. Twenty 
percent of California's schools will be hooked up this year.
    But it's not all modern. Some of what we have to do is to get back 
to basic values and basic institutions. I see at least two Members of 
the Congress out here, Congressman Horn and Congressman Martinez; there 
may be others here. We know that there are things in Washington we 
cannot do that you have to do. We have to find ways to reassert the 
vitality of the basic institutions of this country, of the family, of 
the schools, of the neighborhood and the community.
    In the schools, I have always had a very simple formula. I believe I 
have spent more time in classrooms, more time listening to teachers and 
parents and students than any person who had the privilege to hold this 
office. And I believe that all children can learn. I think that we have 
to have high expectations. I believe in high national standards. I 
believe in high technology, nationally spread. But I believe in 
grassroots reform, giving kids a good head start, giving every person 
access to college, and giving adults a lifetime chance to always, always 
get education when they need it for economic reasons. But let's not kid 
ourselves. None of this is going to work unless our schools work and 
unless our children feel safe and secure, unless the environments of 
education are disciplined and drug-free.
    We saw the tragic consequences of the time in which we live again 
just a few days ago with the terrible, painful, agonizing, senseless 
shooting of that fifth-grade teacher in front of his students in Los 
Angeles. We are praying--I'm sure all of you will pray along with our 
family--that Alfredo Perez will pull through and that his wife, who is 
also a schoolteacher, will have the courage, the bravery to carry on and 
that those students in that school who underwent that horrible 
experience will somehow find the courage to believe in their adults who 
are responsible for their lives, so that they can go and grow and learn 
again.
    We know that most of our schools are safe, but we know that our 
country is not as safe as it ought to be. We know that every parent who 
walks a child to the bus stop and waves goodbye in the morning should 
never worry whether the child will come home safely. Every parent has a 
right to expect that their children will be safe in school. Every parent 
has a right to believe that the children are spending their time 
learning and teachers are able to spend the day teaching.
    When we identify national problems that have to be solved by local 
communities using basic values, what I believe we should do at the 
national level is to help to define what we ought to do and let you 
decide how to do it. That's what we're here to celebrate today. We've 
tried to help promote school safety with the Gun-Free Schools Act. We 
are educating our children through you, with the funds we provide, about 
the dangers of drugs with the help of the safe and drug-free schools 
act. We are tackling student drug use through our random drug testing 
programs that we have advocated for local school districts. We are 
getting tough on criminals when they are seriously violent by permitting 
the prosecution of hardened young criminals as adults. We are promoting 
greater parental involvement through our family partnership for learning 
at the Department of Education. We are supporting you and teaching our 
children the values of hard work, discipline, mutual respect through the 
introduction of character education programs all across America, again, 
at the initiative of local school districts, not from Washington. But 
when you want to do it, we're there for you, and we think you should do 
it.
    And we have worked very hard in this country, where so many people 
come from such diverse backgrounds and so many different faiths which 
they want to express in different ways, to say that the first 
amendment's freedom of religion is the freedom from oppression, but it 
doesn't make schools religion-free zones. There is a way people can 
pursue their values and

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their faith consistent with the first amendment. We have tried to do all 
these things.
    But I have to say, in the end it matters whether all of you are 
working together and whether your counterparts in every school district 
in America are working together. That's why I took some pains in the 
State of the Union Address to urge that other school districts in our 
Nation consider following the example of Long Beach on school uniforms.
    One of the great hazards of our culture, with all of its wonderful 
opportunities, is that we can sometimes, as a friend of mine used to 
say, without meaning to, teach our children to minor in the majors and 
major in the minors. It's important to be able to make a good living, 
and it's important to be able to buy things that you'd like to have, but 
that's not the most important thing in life. And it's tragic when young 
people without a balanced upbringing, without grounded values, without a 
secure education wind up believing that it's all right to kill somebody 
for a pair of sneakers or jewelry or a designer jacket.
    In Detroit, a 15-year-old boy was shot recently for his $86 
basketball shoes. In Fort Lauderdale, a 15-year-old student was robbed 
of his jewelry. Just this past December, near where I live now, in Oxon 
Hill, Maryland, a 17-year-old honor student was killed at a bus stop, 
just standing there, caught in the crossfire during the robbery of 
another student's designer jacket.
    As parents, every one of us has been wrenched by these stories. We 
cannot stand idly by while our children are having their childhoods 
robbed from them and from us by people who place more value on the 
material things than even human life, not to mention human learning.
    The Long Beach Unified School District and the parents here have not 
stood idly by. I want to again say, the entire United States of America 
is in your debt because you took the first step to show that elementary 
and middle school students could wear uniforms to class, reduce 
violence, reduce truancy, reduce disorder, and increase learning, and as 
was said more ably than me by my remarkable introducer, give a sense of 
unity and purpose and teamwork to the students and the schools that are 
in this school district. We are all in your debt in the United States.
    After the first year of this program, fights between students and 
other students who bring guns to school were cut in half. Overall crime 
in the schools was cut by more than a third in one year. In addition to 
safety, learning improved; schoolwork became more important for students 
than showing off what they were wearing or resenting what someone else 
was wearing. And maybe most important of all over the long run, I think 
these uniforms do not stamp out individuality among our young people. 
Instead, they slowly teach our young people one of life's most important 
lessons, that what really counts is what you are and what you can become 
on the inside, not what you are wearing on the outside. And at least on 
that score, I think you can make a serious argument that this school 
uniform benefits the children of affluent families as much as it 
benefits the children of poor families, because that is a lesson all our 
children need to learn.
    But in the end, we should remember it should be safety first. I was 
so moved in this panel listening to Melissa talk about unity and then 
listening to young Maurice say, ``I can walk down the street now and 
because I have my uniform on, those gangs know that I'm not a problem. 
I'm just a student. I don't have to look over my shoulder all the 
time.'' It is wrong for a young person to look over his or her shoulder 
walking down the street of the United States of America. That is wrong. 
And you have helped to stop it.
    And let me say finally about you, you did it, reflecting the lesson 
I said that was the most important I have learned. You did this 
together. This was not imposed on you. The parents decided to do it, 
working with the teachers, working with the school board, working with 
the police department, working with others. You worked this out 
together.
    And I've learned about the differences from school to school. I've 
learned about the differences in permissible uniforms. I've learned all 
about this. It has really pleased me to understand just how much of a 
grassroots endeavor this is. And that also is important.
    I do want to say, though, that in all the years that I have spent in 
public schools, the thing that has frustrated me most is that nearly 
every problem in America has been solved by somebody somewhere in some 
school. But ideas don't travel very well. The most heartening thing to 
me, although I know it's been a headache for your superintendent, is 
that you've been deluged

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with phone calls. That's good. That means people say, ``I'm not too 
proud to learn from them.''
    You know, the Founding Fathers of this country set up State 
governments as the laboratories of democracy with the express intent 
that they would not be too proud to learn from one another. When I was a 
Governor, whenever we were the first State to do something, I was always 
proud of that. But I used to tell our people, I'm even more proud when 
we're the second State to do something because that meant that we 
weren't too arrogant, hard-headed, and deaf to learn from what somebody 
else was doing right.
    So we want to support what you have done here. And so we have taken 
on the job of finding out what works and how. And I want you to know 
that just before I came here today, I signed a directive instructing the 
Secretary of Education to distribute this new Manual on School Uniforms 
to every one of the Nation's 16,000 school districts so they will know 
how to do what you did. The Department of Education worked with the 
Department of Justice and the Attorney General to develop this. It's a 
roadmap for the establishment of a policy for school uniforms for 
schools that want to use the tool. It provides a central source of 
information about successful programs, yours and those that have 
followed, that are making a difference all across America.
    Let me be clear, this is not a National Government mandate. This is 
not Washington telling any school or school district what to do. The 
decision about whether to adopt a uniform policy as a tool in an overall 
program to promote safety and improve learning is a local decision to be 
made entirely by parents, teachers, and local school officials. But at 
least now nobody will say, ``We didn't know about this. We couldn't 
imagine how to do it, and we're not sure it will work.'' If they read 
this, they will know it will work and they'll know about it and they'll 
understand how to do it.
    In the meanwhile, let me leave you with these two thoughts: Please 
don't grow weary in pursuing this goal. We can never rest until violence 
against our children is the exception, not the rule; until we are 
horrified--until we are genuinely surprised when we hear about something 
bad happening to a child. We can never rest until we have more of our 
children wearing the colors of school uniforms than the colors of gangs. 
We cannot rest until that is true.
    And please, each and every one of you in your own way, be willing to 
reach out to your friends and neighbors and anyone with whom you come in 
contact across this great State and across our beloved country, to tell 
people the story of how this works. People are desperately looking for 
ways to restore integrity and meaning and purpose and direction and 
success to our schools all across America. You have shown that it can be 
done. Share your knowledge; share your passion; share your conviction. 
And remember what I said. Whenever we are defeated, we defeat ourselves. 
If we are divided, we can't win. But when we're together, America never 
loses.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:03 a.m. in the courtyard at Jackie 
Robinson Academy. In his remarks, he referred to Melissa Machit, Charles 
Evans Hughes Middle School student; Carl Cohn, Long Beach School 
District superintendent; Mayor Beverly O'Neill of Long Beach; and Bob 
Ellis, Long Beach police chief.