[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
[November 1, 1997]
[Pages 1473-1475]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks During the Education Session of the Democratic National 
Committee's Autumn Retreat on Amelia Island, Florida
November 1, 1997

[The discussion is joined in progress.]

    The President. I'll try to get through this. I think I'll get better 
as we go along. We'll see.
    First of all, I believe that the condition of our children will 
continue to be one of the major issues for the country for the next 10 
to 20 years. And I think we have to admit that with all our economic 
success, with the fact that we've got 3 million fewer people on welfare 
and crime is down and the schools are getting better, there are still a 
lot of kids in this country who don't have the childhood they need and 
that we need for them to have. And I'd just like to make a few comments 
on the issues that all of you have raised.
    First, I think almost every family, even families in comfortable 
incomes, feel the tension of their job in the workplace and their job at 
home. Americans, we know, in general, are working longer than they were 
20 years ago. There are more hours spent at work today by the average 
American family at all income levels than 20 years ago. And I think that 
means that things like child care and family leave are much more 
important.
    Now, if I might just make a comment, the family leave law has 
probably touched more people in a profoundly personal way than just 
about anything else we've done. People still come up to me on the street 
all over the country and talk about it. And I believe we should go 
beyond it. I think we ought to expand the law to require that people 
should be able to get a little time off to go to regular parent 
conferences with the teachers at school and regular medical 
appointments.
    And I believe we ought to have more flextime options for people in 
the workplace, so that if they build up overtime--a lot of people are 
required to work overtime; others wish to work overtime--I personally 
believe that if the employee makes that choice, then he or she should be 
able to take the overtime in cash or in time with their families. So I 
don't think--when we talk about all these other things we need, I don't 
think we should get away from first base.
    The other thing I think Valerie said, there's very little the 
Federal Government can do about this except in some of our specific 
programs like Early Head Start. But there are some States that have 
social service and public outreach programs that do a very good job in 
visiting families before babies are born and trying to help young 
people, especially without much background, get the basics of parenting 
down. Now, we take that for granted, but it's a big mistake. An enormous 
amount of good can be done in that.
    And I guess Ellen's probably already talked, but you know, when we 
had this conference on early childhood and the brain, I read a lot of 
the scientific data, and one research project I reviewed said that a 
child in a supportive family in a child care environment would get 
700,000 positive contacts in the first 4 years of life. A child in an 
environment that might be loving but ignorant, just not knowing what to 
do, where the child was left in front of the television a lot, might get 
as few as 150,000 positive contacts in life. It's not rocket science to 
figure out what the difference in impact is.
    So, beyond the work and family issue, if I could talk just a moment 
about child care, the United States basically doesn't have the national 
systems in many areas that other countries take for granted but 
especially in health and in child care. Businesses can do more. We are 
now reviewing whether we should change the tax laws to try to accelerate 
the activity of larger businesses and make it more possible for small 
businesses to contribute in some way to their employees' child care. We 
also need to raise the standards. That entails costs. We have to meet 
them either directly or indirectly, helping people to do that.

[[Page 1474]]

    And we are going to try to do more to train child care workers and 
to contribute to that because it is phenomenally important what is done 
with all those hours those babies have, starting at very early ages, 
like Richie said, in the child care centers.
    Then there is a second issue we haven't talked about much, although 
Diana alluded to it when she mentioned the lady who had been on welfare 
with an 8-year-old child, and that is the need of children for 
supervision after they start school when their parents are working after 
school hours. And we're working very hard and have put some funds into 
and proposed more to help schools design programs to stay open to give 
kids things to do in the after-school hours. I think that's terribly 
important.
    I think what we're trying to do in education--I still think we've 
got a lot of work to do there. We're working very hard--I had a long 
talk with Governor Chiles yesterday to make sure that the money we have 
for children's health will be used to add 5 million children to the 
rolls of the health insured.
    Then the last big issue I think is very important is how do you 
connect children to the larger society. And safety is important. Having 
positive role models and specific help is important. That's why this 
mentoring issue is so terribly important. It's one of the goals that was 
set at the Presidents' Summit of Service in Philadelphia. The most 
important mentoring now being done--new mentoring project in America is 
America Reads. We have 800 colleges signed up, tens of thousands of 
college students working today with young children, helping them to 
read, also serving as role models. And there are countless other 
organizations. The church that Hillary and I attend in Washington has 45 
America Reads volunteers. We're going to try to mobilize a million 
people to make sure that all our 8-year-olds have reading confidence by 
the end of the third grade--huge issue. I think children should be given 
a chance to serve, themselves, when they reach an appropriate age.
    And finally, I think it's very important that we broaden our focus 
of education. Children need to understand the relationship of the social 
environment to the natural environment. They're natural 
environmentalists anyway. But we need to build a mindset among our kids 
that they can grow the economy and have a stable family life, they can 
grow the economy and preserve their environment, and that we are living 
in a period where we've got all these conflicts that we have to resolve 
as a society if we want to have people living a good life in the 21st 
century.
    And finally, I think it's very important that children from earliest 
childhood, through the use of the Internet or whatever else is 
available, gain a greater understanding of the relationship of the 
United States to the rest of the world.
    I must say that when my voice is working, sometimes I get credit for 
being a reasonably effective communicator. But I have completely 
failed--according to every public opinion survey, I have completely 
failed to convince a substantial majority of American people of the 
importance of trade to our economic development and the importance--
although specifically they understand it, but as a general principle--
and the importance of our involvement in the rest of the world to our 
own success here at home, whether it's in peacemaking efforts or 
contributing to the United Nations or participating in other 
international efforts.
    So these are some of my thoughts: First start with work and family, 
with child care and family supports; then look at education, health 
care; then look at how the children relate to the larger society and how 
children from difficult circumstances can have a safe environment with a 
mentor, with positive experiences, learning about how we can build a 
seamless life between the social environment, the natural environment, 
and the larger world. That's the way I look at this. And I think if we 
keep our focus on children, number one, we'll be doing the right thing, 
and second, I think the American people will like the Democratic Party, 
because we'll be doing the right thing.
    Thank you.

[At this point, the discussion continued.]

    The President. Before I go, I just want to talk about the standards 
issue. You should all understand, the good news is schools are getting 
better. They're getting better. The troubling news is they are not 
getting better uniformly, and the United States is the only major 
country that has no national academic standard--not Federal Government 
standard, not federally enforced but just a national measurement--so 
that every parent, every teacher, every school can know how kids are 
doing.

[[Page 1475]]

    The more diverse we get within our country and the more we compete 
with people around the world, the more we need some common standard. And 
that's the biggest fight we've got going in Washington right now in 
terms of what will really affect our children's future.
    So I hope you'll all talk about this. Governor Romer is not only in 
better voice, he knows more about it than I do. But we've been fighting 
for this for 10 years, and it's crazy that we haven't done it. So I hope 
we can rally our party behind it.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 10:52 a.m. in Salon Two at the Ritz-Carlton 
Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Valerie Rogers, wife of Annapolis, 
MD, energy executive Wayne Rogers; Ellen Galinsky, president and 
cofounder, Families and Work Institute; Richie Garcia, teacher, Music 
Institute of Hollywood; Diana Lawrence, wife of Cincinnati, OH, attorney 
Richard Lawrence; Gov. Lawton Chiles of Florida; and Gov. Roy Romer of 
Colorado.