[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
[June 10, 1997]
[Pages 714-717]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on National Education Standards
June 10, 1997

    Thank you very much. Let me say, first of all, I'm glad to be here 
with Pat Forgione, the Commissioner for the National Center for 
Educational Statistics. I thank him for the fine work that he has done. 
I thank the educators who are here, Linda Vieth, Lourdes Monegudo, and 
Sharon Simpson. I thank Secretary Riley for his excellent work. And I 
want to thank all of those out in the audience who have done so much to 
make this day come to pass, those who were introduced, the leaders of 
the NEA and the AFT and the other education groups who are here. All of 
you, thank you very much for being here.

[[Page 715]]

    Today is a good day for American education. Today we announce the 
new results from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study 
for fourth graders, showing that America's fourth graders are performing 
above the national average in math and science. In fact, in science they 
are doing very well, indeed. According to this report, just issued 
today, our fourth graders rank second in the world in the Third 
International Math and Science Tests, just behind Korea. We are making 
great strides. We've built a solid foundation in our national effort to 
establish standards of excellence in education.
    In 1989 and 1990, when I was a Governor, I worked with the other 
Governors and the White House and the Department of Education to 
establish national education goals. I remember the night we spent 
staying up all night at the University of Virginia, asking ourselves 
whether we should have a goal in math and science and, if so, what 
should it be. You remember, don't you? You were there. We were up all 
night long, and people said to me, ``There's no way in the world we can 
have a goal that we should be first in the world of math and science 
because we have a more diverse population, we have more poor children, 
we don't have uniformity of ''--so I remember looking at the person who 
made the argument--it was a perfectly sane and rational argument--I 
said, ``Well, what do you want me to say, we're going to be third in the 
world in math and science? That's our goal? We'll be fourth? We'll be 
eighth?'' So we decided we would embrace the goal that we would be 
first.
    These fourth grade examinations proved that if our educators, our 
parents, our schools, the rest of us in a supporting role, if we all do 
the right thing, that our children can achieve if we give them the 
chance to do it and if we have high expectations for them. So again, I 
want to say, I thank the educators who are here. And I think that if you 
look at where we were--just in 1991, there was a test similar to the 
TIMSS test in which our fourth graders were below average in math, above 
average in science, but nowhere near where they are today. So this shows 
you what can happen in a few short years if people are working together 
for the right things for our children and the future of this country.
    So I just want to say again to all those who were serving with me, 
the Republicans and Democrats alike who were Governors back then, I 
still think we did the right thing, and now we have to do what it takes 
to make sure we meet the goal. We have to have the conviction that every 
child in America can learn. And we have to know that this report proves 
that we don't have to settle for second class expectations or second 
class goals.
    Now, we also have to remember that we've got a long way to go. Last 
November, when Secretary Riley and Commissioner Forgione released the 
first results from the eighth grade test, we found that we were above 
the international average in science but still below the international 
average in mathematics. That is why I have asked us to begin not just 
participating in the TIMSS test with a few thousand of our students but 
to voluntarily embrace national standards beginning with reading and 
mathematics and begin with examinations that would embrace every child 
in America with fourth grade reading and eighth grade math by 1999.
    Since I issued that call, six States--education leaders or 
Governors--in Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, California, West 
Virginia, and Massachusetts, along with the Department of Defense 
schools, have adopted this plan of embracing national standards and 
agreeing to participate in the testing program. I'm pleased to announce 
today that the State of Kentucky is joining the national standards 
movement, becoming the sixth State to agree to participate in the 
examinations. And I want to especially thank Governor Paul Patton, who 
has been a national leader in education, for joining in this endeavor.
    The results today give us a roadmap to higher performance. In no 
other country in the world did performance in math drop from above 
average in fourth grade to below average in eighth grade. That didn't 
happen anywhere else, which means that we are doing a very good job in 
the early grades but we've got a lot more work to do in the later ones. 
We know parents have to remain involved in their children's education as 
they move through schools, not withdraw when their children reach 
adolescence. We know our curriculum will have to be more focused and 
more demanding. We know we'll have to hold all of our students to higher 
standards as they grow older and measure the schools and the students 
against the standards.
    As the school year comes to a close, I want to thank the many 
thousands of parents and

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teachers, principals who have done the hard work necessary to achieve 
these positive results. They have told us over and over and over again 
that if we can redouble our efforts, especially now in middle school and 
high schools, we can meet our goals of national excellence. Bipartisan 
progress on education shows what we can accomplish here in Washington, 
too, when we reach across party lines, to balance the budget but to 
invest more in the education of our young people as well as our adults 
who need more access to education.
    So let me just say, before I go on to make one or two more points, 
there are a lot of people who never believed the United States children 
would score in the top two in the world on any of these international 
tests. And now they know that they were wrong and they underestimated 
our children, underestimated our teachers, underestimated our schools, 
underestimated our parents. But let's not kid ourselves. We are still 
nowhere near where we need to be in these other areas, and all this 
fourth grade test does is to show us that we can be the best in the 
world if we simply believe it and then organize ourselves to achieve it.
    This ought to be a clear challenge to every single State that has 
not yet come forward to agree to participate in the national standards 
movement and the test in 1999 that they ought to do it. We don't have to 
hide anymore. We don't have to be afraid of the results anymore. We're 
not trying to punish anybody. We're trying to lift the children of this 
country up, and the TIMSS test proves that they will lift themselves up 
if we who are adults and in charge of their future do what we ought to 
do to give them a chance to do it. And I hope all of you will take that 
message out across the country now.
    Let me finally say that whether we in the National Government 
continue to do our part for education depends upon our good faith in 
implementing the budget agreement that overwhelming majorities of both 
parties have voted for and, specifically, what we do with the tax 
portion of the agreement, which overwhelming majorities agree would be 
used to help working families to pay for education, to buy and sell a 
home, to raise their children. That is fair to all Americans.
    Yesterday the Republican majority on the House Ways and Means 
Committee released their plan to fill in the details of the tax cut 
agreed to by the Congress and by me. I have reviewed this plan, and I 
believe that in its present form, it does not meet the tests that I 
would hold myself to: one, being faithful to the budget agreement; 
second, having a tax cut that will grow the economy; third, having a tax 
cut that is fair to middle class families; and fourth, having a tax cut 
that genuinely helps to increase the quality and volume of education in 
America today for people of all ages. I do not believe it meets those 
tests for the following reasons.
    Number one, it falls $13 billion short in the amount of higher 
education tax cuts specifically agreed to in the balanced budget 
agreement. We agreed to roughly $35 billion. You might say that $34 
billion is roughly $35 billion, but $22 billion is not--not even roughly 
$35 billion--[laughter]--and if that were a question in the fourth grade 
TIMSS test, I'm quite sure what the answer would be. [Laughter]
    Second, it shortchanges those in the work force who want to gain new 
skills and those who want to go on to community colleges. Those who go 
to less expensive schools, like community colleges, would have the HOPE 
scholarship I proposed, specifically agreed to in the budget agreement, 
cut in half by the House plan.
    Third, the plan falls short for working families in other ways. I 
favor a $500-per-child tax credit. We have people favoring the $500-per-
child tax credit all the way from the most liberal coalitions in the 
Democratic caucus to the Christian Coalition. But I want to make it even 
more fair. I think it ought to be refundable, so it's fair to working 
parents with lower incomes. Instead, the Republican plan would deny the 
full child tax credit to millions of the hardest pressed working 
families simply because it is not refundable. And they would deduct the 
availability of the child's tax credit from the earned-income tax credit 
that lower income working families already earn.
    Moreover, and unbelievably to me, they would reduce tax benefits to 
working families where both the father and the mother are working and 
paying for child care and getting some credit for that. They want to 
deduct the child tax credit from the credit people already get to pay 
for child care, apparently designed to make it more difficult for people 
who are parents to work outside the home. I think most working families 
will tell you, it's hard enough

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already; what we'd like is a little help raising our children. I do not 
believe we should discriminate against parents who are working and 
raising their children in the availability of the children's tax credit.
    In short, the tax plan cuts in half the tax cuts for those who go to 
community college. It shortchanges 6 million families who are already in 
the work force and having to pay for their child care. That does not 
meet the standards of fairness to families and promotion of education, 
nor do I believe it is consistent with the budget agreement. So I hope 
that the House Democrats and Republicans and the Senate Democrats and 
Republicans will work with us to meet those tests.
    Finally, let me just say one other thing. The people of the Dakotas 
and Minnesota earned the great compassion and concern of all Americans 
because of what they went through this year. We've worked hard to help 
them stave off the worst, to get their communities back together, to 
rebuild. It has been 80 days since I forwarded to Congress my request 
for disaster relief to allow the process of recovery to begin. Instead 
of giving me a disaster relief bill, the congressional majority insisted 
on weighing it down with a political wish list. In the name of the 
people who have had to face the floods, in the name of the families who 
suffered and need their help now, I ask the majority to put aside the 
political games, to set aside the political wish list--we can negotiate 
on all this later--and instead just send me a straightforward disaster 
relief bill. Again, I believe if this were a question on an elementary 
school exam, 90 percent of the fourth graders in America would say, do 
the right thing, and have your political arguments later.
    So as we celebrate today, let's do the right thing and resolve that 
we're not going to stop until we get those TIMSS tests and we're first 
in the world at the 4th grade level, at the 8th grade level, at the 12th 
grade level. Our fourth graders have proved that we can do it. We dare 
not let them and the other children of this country down.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11:24 a.m. in the Rose Garden at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Paul E. Patton of Kentucky.