[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
[September 8, 1997]
[Pages 1133-1135]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 1133]]


Remarks at Four Seasons Elementary School in Gambrills, Maryland
September 8, 1997

    The President. Thank you very much. Jonathan, this is an important, 
good book for me to be reading. I've been reading a biography--right 
now, this morning, I was reading before I came to work--of President 
Grant, who was the commanding general of the Union forces in the Civil 
War. And I haven't gotten to the part about the Monitor and the 
Merrimack yet, so I thank you. So I can read this as long as I have it 
back by the 27th, huh? [Laughter]
    Secretary Riley, Principal Leone, Governor Glendening and Lieutenant 
Governor Townsend, Senator Sarbanes. I'd like to say a special word of 
appreciation to my good friend Congressman Steny Hoyer; I know I'm in 
his district. And his late wife was a committed teacher of young 
children, and he wanted me to come here to his congressional district to 
make this announcement. And looking at you, I'm certainly glad I did. 
And I thank you for making me feel so welcome.
    Secretary Riley asked how many people had read one book. I want to 
start by congratulating the star readers who are sharing the stage with 
me today. It is true that I have been an avid reader of books since I 
was your age, and it is also true what Secretary Riley said, that if you 
work hard and learn a lot, you have a good chance to live out your 
dreams, and you might grow up to be President. Once I was just sitting 
in an elementary school not very different from this, just like you.
    I'm glad to be here today, especially because this is International 
Literacy Day, a day when people all over the world say we ought to be 
committed to making sure everyone can read. And one of the most 
important things we are doing, which your principal mentioned, is to 
support a program called America Reads. We're trying to get up to one 
million people all around the country to help parents and teachers make 
sure every single third grader in America can read independently by the 
end of that third grade. And I think that's a very good thing to do. 
It's obvious that all of you are doing that now.
    Secretary Riley asked how many of you have read one book--anybody 
read five books, at least, this summer? Anybody read at least 10 books 
this summer? How about 15--any 15 books? How about 20? [Laughter] How 
about 25? Don't feel bad, I haven't read 25 books, either. [Laughter] 
You're out past me. How about anybody read more than 30 books this 
summer? Wow! Anybody read more than 40 books this summer? [Laughter] 
Anybody read 50 books this summer? Now, that's amazing. [Laughter] You 
need to tell me how you manage your time. I'd like to have some help on 
that. That's great. Well, give yourselves a hand--let's give everybody a 
hand for their reading. That's great. [Applause]
    I came here today to talk about the importance of reading and 
learning, not only for you but for all the children in our country. How 
many of you know how to at least do a little work with a computer? Now, 
if I asked that in the White House, there wouldn't be that many hands go 
up. [Laughter] And you know that you're living in a time when the 
computer can do more and more and more things, right? And you probably 
know that someday before long, we probably will see telephones, 
televisions, and computers all combined into one thing. And you'll 
probably be able to carry it from room to room and hang it on the wall 
and get on the computer and talk to people all across the world, do 
research in libraries all across the world.
    And this big explosion in what computers can do is changing the way 
people work and live and learn. And a lot of you will be doing jobs that 
are different from the jobs your parents are doing. A lot of you will 
wind up doing jobs that nobody has even thought up yet. They don't even 
exist yet. But what that means is, is that those of us who are your 
parents--and your grandparents' generation--we have a big obligation to 
make sure every single one of you can read well and can learn and can 
keep on learning for a lifetime because of the exciting world you're 
going to be living in.
    If you have a good education, and especially if you can read, young 
people your age will be able to do more different things that they're 
interested in doing than any group of people who have ever lived in the 
history of human

[[Page 1134]]

beings on the Earth. It will be a very exciting time.
    You might be interested to know that this year there are more than 
52 million young Americans in school--more than 52 million--the largest 
number of children ever in school in the history of America. And it's 
very important that we do what we can to help them.
    Now, what that means for all of us who are in the Federal 
Government, like Secretary Riley and me and Senator Sarbanes and 
Congressman Hoyer, or people at the State level, Governor Glendening, 
the Lieutenant Governor, the other State officials who are here, or your 
local superintendents--that all means different things. Sometimes it 
means just giving the schools more money. For example, we have doubled 
the funding to try to provide the opportunity for every school in 
America to hook up every classroom in America to the Internet by the 
year 2000. I understand that you're all going to be hooked up, all your 
classrooms, by the end of this year, and that's very good. But we want 
every single student in America to be in a classroom connected to the 
Internet by the year 2000.
    We also have to do more than just spend more money. The other thing 
we're trying to do is to make sure that all of our children are learning 
more, starting with reading. I told you a minute ago that we have this 
America Reads program where we're giving young people, for example, who 
get scholarship money or work-study money in college--we're asking them 
to come out and work with people your age and read books with them and 
make sure everybody can learn to read.
    And you probably know that we have more and more American students 
now who come from other countries, who are immigrants, or whose parents 
came from other countries. Right across the Potomac River in Virginia, 
from Washington, DC, there's a school district that has children from 
over 100 different racial and ethnic groups. They speak a lot of 
different languages. Many of them weren't taught to speak English. But 
they all must learn to read, and read well, and that's a huge challenge 
for our country.
    Earlier this year, I told the Congress and the American people that 
if we didn't do anything else, we ought to make sure that no child got 
out of elementary school without strong reading skills and that all of 
our children acquired strong mathematics skills, because those are the 
foundations on which all other learning occurs. And to me, that means 
that we have to have national standards for reading, and we ought to 
measure those standards.
    I want to--in 1999, I want to make sure we give a reading test to 
every fourth grader in America so we'll know if the children need help 
measuring up to national standards; we'll know if a class needs help; 
we'll know if a school needs help. Because you know as well as I do that 
I couldn't go to every grade school in America and ask how many read a 
book this summer and have everybody raise their hand. I couldn't go to 
every grade school in America and ask how many have read 5 books and 
have almost everybody raise their hand, and how many people have read 10 
books and have a great majority of the children raise their hands. I 
couldn't do that.
    But every child in America--every single child in America--needs to 
be able to read well and needs to be able to read independently by at 
least the end of the third grade, so that all this other learning can 
occur. That's what this whole national standards debate is about. We 
want everyone--students, teachers, principals, schools, school boards--
to be held accountable and also to get the help and support they need if 
young people need more help in learning to read.
    In Maryland here, where clear academic standards have been 
established and tests have been established to measure achievements, 
Four Seasons Elementary has posted impressive gains in reading scores. 
Just last week, Secretary Riley went to Philadelphia, where achievements 
have risen among all students at all grade levels because they set high 
standards and then they all were willing, all the students, to take a 
test to see whether they had met the standards. It wasn't a test to 
scare people. It was a test to help people to find out what they knew 
and whether they needed to learn more.
    This should be something that has nothing to do with party politics. 
I think every American, Republicans, Democrats, independents, should 
favor high standards. I think people from all backgrounds should want 
all of our children to learn at a high level. And believe it or not, 
even though there are a lot of good things going on in America, and even 
though English and reading is the same in Maryland as it is in Montana, 
and mathematics is the same in California as it is in Maine, there is 
still no national

[[Page 1135]]

standard to say whether every child has learned to read well enough. So 
that's what we're trying to do.
    We are trying to establish a fourth-grade standard of reading and an 
eighth-grade standard of math by 1999 that will tell us all whether our 
children are learning what they need to know and, most important, will 
give you the assurance you need that your future is going to be bright 
if you work hard and learn what you need to know.
    I want to thank Governor Glendening. He was the first Governor in 
the country to support the movement toward national education standards. 
And I thank Maryland's commissioner of education and all the others who 
have supported this effort here in Maryland.
    I also want to say this--I said this before--there are a lot of 
children in America whose parents weren't born here, a lot of children 
in America who themselves weren't born here, but there is no child in 
America who can't meet these standards. I believe all children can 
learn, don't you? Don't you believe all your classmates can learn?
    Students. Yes!
    The President. Don't you believe, if you get the help you need and 
if you work at it, you can learn what you need to know to make a success 
of your life?
    Students. Yes!
    The President. And don't you think you have a right to get the kind 
of education that will let you go as far as your dreams want?
    Students. Yes!
    The President. I do, too. And that's what this is about.
    So I want to make sure all of our children are treated fairly. I 
want to make sure that all of them have the tools they need to achieve 
what they need to achieve. But I have found what I see here: When you 
expect high achievement from students, they always give it to you. And 
when you have low expectations of people, that's a mistake.
    So I believe in you, and I believe in your future. These tests that 
we propose to give are voluntary. No school or school district will be 
forced to use them if they don't want to. But they will give us a sense 
of a national level of achievement in reading for fourth graders, in 
math for eighth graders. They'll be developed by an independent, 
bipartisan board. There's no politics in this, only our children.
    But let me say this in closing: I'm not afraid of what America's 
children can do. I believe in what America's children can do. I'm not 
disturbed by the fact that we're becoming a more diverse country. I'm 
excited by it. After all, we're going to be living in a global society 
where we'll be tied to other nations by economic and cultural ties. And 
the fact that America is a great democracy that has people from 
everyplace else living here, as citizens, making their own way, is a 
good thing.
    I imagine this student body here looks a little different than it 
would have if we'd had this picture taken 10 years ago. That's a good 
thing. We should be happy about our differences. But no matter how 
different we are, we all need to be able to read; we all need to be able 
to do math; we all need to be able to learn together. I am determined to 
see that you have a good future. But you have to do your part, which is 
to learn. And the only way you can do that is if your parents and the 
educators say, ``Here is the standard. Here's what you should be 
learning.''
    I believe in your future. I have high expectations for you, and I 
see today that you believe in your future. Do you believe all children 
can learn to read?
    Students. Yes!
    The President. Do you think that all children should be expected to 
learn to read well?
    Students. Yes!
    The President. Would you like us to find out, so that if somebody is 
not reading well, we can teach them to read well?
    Students. Yes!
    The President. It would be unfair to leave somebody behind, wouldn't 
it?
    Students. Yes!
    The President. That's what I think, too. You keep reading, and we'll 
keep working.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:20 a.m. in the media center. In his 
remarks, he referred to Jonathan Knobel, fifth-grade student who 
introduced the President, and Lorna Leone, principal, Four Seasons 
Elementary School; Gov. Parris N. Glendening and Lt. Gov. Kathleen 
Kennedy Townsend of Maryland; and Nancy S. Grasmick, Maryland State 
superintendent of schools.