    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [November 13, 1997]
    [Pages 1553-1555]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1553]]

    Remarks on Signing the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services,
    and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1998
    November 13, 1997

        You may have to consider a move from math to public service.
    [Laughter]
        Well, thank you, Philip and Tina Israel. Thank you, Kikuyu Shaw. Mr.
    Vice President, Secretary Riley, Secretary Herman, Deputy Secretary
    Thurm, all the Members of Congress who are here, and Mrs. Udall, thank
    you for coming.
        Ladies and gentlemen, before I make my remarks about this
    legislation that we have all worked on, I'd like to say a few words
    about yesterday's United Nations Security Council resolution on Iraq.
        Plainly, it sent the right message: Comply now with the U.N.
    resolutions and let the UNSCOM inspection team go back to work. Iraq's
    announcement this morning to expel the Americans from the inspection
    team is clearly unacceptable and a challenge to the international
    community.
        Let me remind you all again--I will say this every time I discuss
    this issue--these inspectors, in the last 6 years, have uncovered more
    weapons of mass destruction potential and destroyed it than was
    destroyed in the entire Gulf war. It is important to the safety of the
    world that they continue their work. I intend to pursue this matter in a
    very determined way.
        I think it's fair to say that this is one of those days in public
    service that these Members of Congress in both parties work for and live
    for and put up with a lot of the hassles of public life for. We have
    been on a journey for the last 5 years to a new century that is now just
    around the corner, driven by a vision to provide opportunity to
    everybody who is responsible enough to work for it, to continue to lead
    the world for peace and freedom and prosperity, and to bring our people
    together, across all the lines that divide us, into one America. And
    we're clearly making progress. Our economy is the strongest in a
    generation; crime, welfare, and unemployment are falling.
        I think all of us believe that the best way to sustain and build on
    that progress is to make sure that all of our people have a world-class
    education. In my State of the Union Address, I challenged our people to
    join me in a nonpartisan effort to make sure that every 8-year-old can
    read, every 12-year-old can log on to the Internet, every 18-year-old
    can go on to college, every adult can continue to learn for a lifetime.
    For the very first time, I feel that we are determined to finish that
    part of our journey.
        Congress and the United States of America have answered the call.
    When I sign this bill into law, I will have the privilege of signing
    into the record books what is plainly the best year for American
    education in more than a generation.
        First, we are taking historic steps to make sure that every child in
    America can meet the high national standards of academic achievement
    that the Israels spoke about so that every children can master the
    basics. This bill represents a genuine breakthrough in what is now quite
    a long effort by many people to achieve national academic standards in
    the United States. For the first time, we will have workable and
    generally agreed-upon standards in math and reading. And for the very
    first time, Congress has voted to support the development of voluntary
    national tests to measure performance in fourth grade reading and eighth
    grade math. The tests will be created by an independent, bipartisan
    organization and will be piloted in schools next October.
        The importance of this cannot be overstated. Our children rise with
    the expectations we set for them. We know that every child can meet high
    standards if we set them and measure our progress against them. I want
    to especially thank Senator Bingaman and Representative Miller and
    everyone else who worked on this particular part of the legislation.
        This legislation also takes concrete steps to help our children meet
    the standards and, indeed, to achieve all our national education goals.
    It will help every 8-year-old in America read on his or her own by
    funding the America Reads challenge and expanding national service so
    that our AmeriCorps members can recruit trained literacy tutors for our
    schools. Already, over 800 colleges and universities and numerous other
    organizations are providing tens of thousands of volunteer tutors that
    are going into our schools

    [[Page 1554]]

    every week to help make sure our children can read. We can give our
    children the extra attention and practice they need so that we can
    assure that they'll be able to read independently by the end of the
    third grade if we continue to pursue this.
        Second, the bill takes significant steps to ensure that every 12-
    year-old can log on to the Internet. I must say, I had ambivalent
    feelings when I realized that Mr. Israel was logging on to the Internet
    and reading what was on the website about the exam. Some day somebody
    may figure out how to find the actual exam on the website. [Laughter]
    But I was glad to know you were. This measure nearly doubles--nearly
    doubles--our national investment in education technology. It puts us
    well on the way to connecting every classroom and library to the
    information superhighway by the year 2000, something the Vice President
    has made a particular commitment to.
        And I want to emphasize something else, because I met with a group
    of young people yesterday in their twenties who were hammering me on
    this. They said, ``What difference will it make if you connect every
    classroom in the country to the information superhighway if the teachers
    aren't trained to use the technology, and the kids know more than they
    do?'' So I want to emphasize that a big part of this legislation
    provides investments to make sure that our teachers have the training
    they need to maximize the use of this new technology.
        Third, the bill, along with the college tuition tax credits I signed
    into law this summer and the improvements in the college loan program we
    have been implementing since 1993, will make it possible for every 18-
    year-old who's willing to work for it to go on to college. And it gives
    us the chance to make the 13th and 14th years of education as universal
    as a high school diploma is today. This measure includes the largest
    increase in Pell grant scholarships in two decades, raising the maximum
    grant, and serving an additional 220,000 students.
        I might add that the Congress--and I thank the members of this
    committee who are here--has added in the last two budgets another
    300,000 work-study positions as well.
        The bill also promotes innovation and expands public school choice,
    helping parents, teachers, and community leaders to open some 500 new
    charter schools and clearing the way for 3,000 such schools by early in
    the next century. It recognizes that learning begins in the earliest
    years of life and significantly expands investment in Head Start. It
    challenges teachers to reach higher standards along with students and
    honors those who do by helping 100,000 more teachers seek certification
    for the National Board of Teacher Standards as master teachers.
        Let me emphasize the significance of the 100,000 figure. The year
    before last, there were only 500 teachers in the entire country who had
    been certified as master teachers. Because of the unique training and
    performance required to gain this certification, it is our firm belief--
    and I know Secretary Riley believes this--if we can get one master
    teacher certified in every school building in America, it will change
    the entire culture of teaching across the country and elevate the
    quality of education dramatically. So this is very important.
        The bill brings more to our efforts to build the discipline and
    order and safety and positive activity into the lives of our children,
    with $40 million to help schools stay open late, on the weekends, and in
    the summer, to help keep young people off the streets and out of
    trouble, along with job training for out-of-school youth. Now, let me
    emphasize the importance of this. Most juvenile crime is committed
    between the hours of 3 in the afternoon and 7 at night. While the crime
    rate has dropped in America dramatically, it's only in the last 2 years
    that it's begun to level off among young people.
        But we ought to look at this in a positive way. This is an
    opportunity to take kids who otherwise don't have the institutional
    support they need, who are capable of getting a good education and being
    good, productive citizens, and giving them the institutional framework
    within which to do that. It also helps a lot of them whose parents have
    to work until later in the evening and cannot be at home.
        So it may sound like a little money, but a little money given to a
    school on a tight budget for this purpose can make all the difference in
    the world in the lives of a lot of our young people. So I'm very pleased
    by that. And again, I want to thank all the Members who are here for
    what they have done.
        I hope now we will use this momentum in education to take some new
    steps, to pass finally a ``GI bill'' for America's workers that would
    enable us to give a certificate to any American who needs it to take to
    the nearest educational institution to learn new skills to reenter the

    [[Page 1555]]

    workplace, and to meet the quiet crisis of crumbling and crowded school
    buildings across America. We have more children in our schools than at
    any time in our history, with serious overcrowding problems and serious
    building deterioration problems, which I believe we should help to
    address.
        Let me say, finally, that this bill continues our efforts to
    strengthen families on many other fronts. It expands educational
    opportunity for recent immigrants, children with disabilities, children
    growing up in our poorest neighborhoods. It significantly increases
    funding for biomedical research, from cancer to Parkinson's disease--and
    we're particularly glad to have Mrs. Udall with us today--to the
    astonishing human genome project. And I would like to thank Congressman
    Porter and Congressman Obey and Congressman Spratt for the work that
    they have done on this particular thing. And I would like to especially
    thank Congressman Upton for the work that he's done on the Parkinson's
    issue. This is a remarkable, remarkable bill with an astonishing
    bipartisan commitment to keep our country on the front ranks of medical
    research.
        Finally, it will help to make new, very powerful AIDS therapies more
    available to needy patients. Along with the FDA reform legislation this
    Congress has passed that we will be signing in the next several days,
    moving promising medical therapies to market more quickly in a more
    efficient way and then making them more available to the people that
    need them can change the lives and improve the quality as well as the
    length of lives for many, many tens of thousands of our fellow
    Americans.
        And believe it or not, with all these issues on the education
    checklist and all the things I just mentioned in health care, these are
    just some of the important provisions in this bill that honor our duty
    to prepare our people for the future. As much as any bill I have signed,
    as much as any bill the Congress has passed in recent years, this bill
    genuinely does fulfill our strategy of opportunity for all,
    responsibility from all, a community of all Americans. I am very proud
    to sign it into law.
        And again, let me thank every single person in this room who had
    anything to do with its enactment, but especially, let me thank the
    Members of Congress who are here for working together in good spirit and
    honest and principled compromise to hammer out this truly remarkable
    bill.
        Thank you very much.
        Now I'd like to ask the Members of Congress and the people from the
    executive departments and our speakers to join me up here while we sign
    the legislation.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:29 a.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to fifth grade student Philip Israel,
    who introduced the President, and his mother, Tina; Kikuyu Shaw, a
    junior at Howard University; and Norma Udall, wife of former
    Representative Morris K. Udall. H.R. 2264, approved November 13, was
    assigned Public Law No. 105-78.