[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
[June 25, 1997]
[Pages 814-816]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Excerpt of Remarks During the Family Re-Union VI Conference in 
Nashville, Tennessee
June 25, 1997

    The President. Thank you. Before we begin, let me just say briefly, 
of all the good ideas that Al and Tipper have ever had, this might be 
one of the two or three best. This is an amazing thing. It's something a 
President always hates to admit, but this is something I had absolutely 
nothing to do with. [Laughter] This predates our partnership even. But 
the fact that they recognized that the welfare and strength of the 
American family, upon which the whole future of the country depends, is 
directly affected by all these big issues we often talk about--the 
workplace issues, the education issues, the cultural issues--and 
determined to bring it down to family levels, and now this for the sixth 
time, I think is an astonishing and, as far as I know, unique 
contribution to America's public life.
    And so I just want to say to you, Mr. Vice President, and to Tipper 
and to everybody who has worked so hard on all these conferences, you've 
done a great thing for our country, and I'm always glad to be here. I 
look forward to this every year, and I'm just grateful. And of course, 
because this day is about parents and education, I'm especially excited 
about it.

[At this point, the discussion began.]

    The President. Unlike the rest of you, I knew what we were about to 
hear--[laughter]--because Hillary went and visited the school and she 
came back sort of floating. When you were talking about trying to cover 
that third ``b'', I couldn't help but think that's a perfect project for 
the Vice President's reinventing Government endeavor. [Laughter]
    I don't think I can add any more to what she said, but I would like 
to fill in a blank that maybe needs to be filled in for some of you. 
When Susan was talking, I asked her if her superintendent supported what 
she was doing, and she said yes. It's just not true everywhere that the 
school district supports such things or that sometimes the districts are 
so big they're just so overwhelmed they can't even imagine how to 
achieve such things.
    And that is the purpose of the charter school movement that the Vice 
President, Secretary Riley, and I have worked so hard to support. It 
basically says you can create your own school within the public school 
system. And we have charter schools that are created in many different 
ways. Sometimes you just take over an existing building, and the 
teachers run it; sometimes a group of teachers and parents run it. But 
the point is, you're free to get out from under all those rules and 
regulations you think you have to cover yourself against.
    And no one could have imagined a public school, for example, not 
only doing the things that were just described but actually buying out 
crack houses across the street or, if the parents are really poor and 
they want to be better role models for their kids and support them 
better, creating, in effect, microenterprises. And Los Angeles now has a 
$400 million bank that the Federal Government funded to try to help make 
loans to people who couldn't get loans any other way, and we'll probably 
be able to help to finance some of those folks.
    But this is just an example of what can be done if educators and 
parents work together to try to create their own future in circumstances 
people say are hopeless. People are never in hopeless circumstances 
unless they have no power to do anything about it. All this charter 
school movement did was to give people like this remarkable woman the 
power to change their own lives.
    So I think it's a very important component of it, and in our budget, 
which is part of this balanced budget amendment, we have enough funds to 
increase by tenfold the number of charter schools over the next 5 years. 
And I hope

[[Page 815]]

that they'll increase by a hundredfold just by local initiatives now, as 
these stories get out. And then of course, the real answer is for more 
people to be in a situation Susan is in, where the central 
administration just lets them do it in the first place.
    Thank you. Both of you were great.

[The discussion continued.]

    The President. I'm glad you took the Governor to see ``Cinderella.'' 
[Laughter] I hope you got him home before midnight. [Laughter] Don 
Sundquist will write me about this before the week is out; I know it. 
[Laughter]
    Let me ask you something. You've already done something that I think 
is very important, but I would like to just reemphasize it because it 
underlies not only what you said but, in a different way, the 
presentations of everyone who has spoken before you.
    There is, I think, among some policymakers and--I know we've got Mr. 
Purcell here who might want to talk about this in a minute--and among 
the general public sometimes, like when a school bond issue is being 
voted on or something, we have an increasing divergence between the 
people who have money and the people who have children in the schools--
or property owners. There is, I think, this underlying assumption that 
these kids that are in very difficult circumstances have parents that, 
(a) can't do better than they're doing and (b) don't want to. And both 
those things are just false.
    But they are in different circumstances than parents used to be, and 
they're going to school with different kinds of people. I just think 
that's worth hitting home, that you and your excuse-free center--I take 
it once you established your excuse-free center, you got plenty of folks 
that want to access it. And that is something--that's a message I would 
like to go out across America today. It is not true that just because 
somebody is poor or a first-generation immigrant or has been through 
some rough times in their lives, has made a mistake or two, that they do 
not want to do a good job, number one. And it is not true that they 
cannot be trained to do a good job, number two. And that's the message 
of your work, and I think we've got to get that out.

[The discussion continued.]

    The President. Just one other point I want to make here because I 
think it's underlying what she's said--very important. There is a common 
assumption among people who are afraid of high standards that if you 
raise the standards, the most vulnerable children will fail more and 
drop out more. What she has demonstrated is that exactly the reverse is 
the case: If you raise the standards and you do it in the right way and 
you give everybody a chance to succeed, they will be more likely to 
stay, not more likely to quit. And I really appreciate that.

[The discussion continued.]

    The President. First of all, John, thank you for establishing that 
fund. I'm going to be out of work in a couple years; I might apply 
myself. [Laughter]
    I would like to emphasize one thing about this electronic dashboard. 
Now, you all haven't seen it yet, so I don't want to talk too much about 
it. But I want to emphasize--the fact that you're setting it up means 
that you believe, like all folks on this side of the stage, that all 
parents should be able to have access to technology and be taught to use 
it so they can be in communication with their children's teachers and 
principals. And I think that's a very important thing because a lot of 
school districts, in part, haven't done this because they think, ``Well, 
maybe my parents don't speak English very well; how can they learn to 
use a computer?'' And I think that's looking at it backwards.
    So I'd like for you to just emphasize that you do not think this is 
just something that middle and upper middle class school districts have 
to use.

[The discussion continued.]

    The President. I'd just like to, first of all, thank you and thank 
the other education reformers in Minnesota for pointing the way on the 
college credit initiative, which did lead to a huge increase in advanced 
placement, which is now being mirrored all across the country, and on 
public school choice and on the charter schools. And I think we were--
when I was Governor of my home State, I think we were the second State 
to adopt a statewide school choice law. And my daughter actually took 
advantage of it when she was in elementary and junior high school, to 
the great benefit of our family and our life.
    And I just want to emphasize that giving parents all these choices 
and all this power--the

[[Page 816]]

important thing, almost none of them will choose to go outside their 
neighborhood or assigned district, but knowing that they have the 
ability to do it changes the attitude of everybody in all the districts 
and lifts the standards everywhere. That's the key thing here.
    And the charter schools, as a practical matter--we have 500 now. We 
had 300 when I proposed our legislation with Secretary Riley to fund 
3,000 more over the next few years. What we really are trying to do is 
to create a critical mass which will turn every school into a school 
like the first two we heard about today--first three we heard about. 
That's what we're trying to do. And eventually we'll hit that critical 
mass, wherever it is, and when we do, it will be just sort of volcanic 
positive change in American education. And a lot of it will have started 
in the State of Minnesota. I'm grateful to you.

[The discussion continued.]

    The President. Let me say just very briefly about Secretary Riley, 
first of all, as you can hear him talk, he's from South Carolina. And 
the Vice President and I like him because he makes us sound as if we do 
not have an accent when we speak. [Laughter]
    Bill Purcell said, ``Sometimes Government should lead the way; 
sometimes Government should get out of the way.'' I agree with both 
those. Sometimes Government should support the way, and I believe that 
Dick Riley has been the best Secretary of Education our country ever had 
because he's been able to do all three things--all three things.
    To go back to what Yvonne said at the beginning, there is no telling 
how many rules and regulations that Secretary Riley has gotten rid of to 
give the decisionmaking power back to local school districts and, to 
some extent, to States and ultimately to local schools. And we feel very 
strongly we should be doing that even as we give more support for these 
reform needs. And he has really done a wonderful job, and I'm very 
grateful to him.

Note: The President spoke at approximately 11:25 a.m. in Langford 
Auditorium at Vanderbilt University during Family Re-Union VI: Family 
and Learning. In his remarks, he referred to Susan Gingrich-Cameron, 
principal, Carson Lane Academy, Murfreesboro, TN; Gov. Don Sundquist of 
Tennessee; Bill Purcell, director, Child and Family Policy Center, 
Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies; John Doerr, partner, 
Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers, Menlo Park, CA; and Yvonne Chan, 
principal, Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, San Fernando, CA.