    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [February 23, 1998]
    [Pages 266-268]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 266]]

    Remarks at the National Governors' Association Meeting
    February 23, 1998

        Good morning. Governor Voinovich,
    Governor Carper, Mr. Scheppach, and to the members of the administration that are
    here and all the Governors, let me welcome you back to the White House.
    Before I begin, let me say what I know is on all of our minds: Our
    thoughts and prayers are with the people in central Florida where
    tornadoes have now killed 28 people. Governor Chiles is going to visit with our FEMA Director, James Lee
    Witt, the area today, and they will have our
    concerns with them.
        I'd also like to say I'm sorry we're starting a little late, but
    I've been working on the situation in Iraq. The Vice President and I met with National Security Adviser
    Berger this morning. Last night, just
    before our dinner, I spoke with the Secretary-General, Kofi
    Annan, and I have called Prime Minister
    Blair this morning; we had a long talk about the
    situation. I still have to talk to President Yeltsin and President Chirac, and I
    may have to leave the meeting and then come back. But that's all I have
    to say now, but I'm sorry we're starting a little late.
        I'd like to confine my opening remarks--and I'll try to truncate
    them since we're starting late--to education. For 20 years now,
    Governors have been in the forefront of education reform in the United
    States. In the late seventies, I was working with Governor Riley and now-Senator Bob Graham
    and Governor Hunt and others in the South
    who were trying to raise the standard of living in the Southern States
    to the national average, in part through an improvement in education.
        In '83, when President Reagan was here, Secretary Bell issued the ``Nation at Risk'' report. In '89, we had the
    education summit--some of you were there then--which produced the
    national education goals. In '93, we passed Goals 2000 here and the
    school-to-work program--I might say both of which have been implemented
    without a single new Federal regulation, something I'm very proud of.
        Last year, in my State of the Union, I outlined a 10-point program
    in education and asked that we leave politics at the schoolhouse door.
    And most of that program has now been implemented. I won't go over all
    of it, but I would just mention three or four issues that I think are
    important because they relate to many concerns that the Governors have.
        First of all, with the increases in Pell grants and 300,000 more
    work-study positions, with the education IRA's finally giving interest
    deductions for payments on college loans, the direct loan program, the
    HOPE scholarship--named after Governor Miller's
    program in Georgia--and the lifetime learning tax credit, which also
    applies to the 2d, the 3d, and 4th years of college and graduate school,
    I think we can finally say for the first time in the history of the
    country, we've opened the doors of college to all Americans. And that's
    an astonishing achievement for America. And I'm very proud of that.
    Secondly, we are well on our way to hooking up all the classrooms and
    libraries in the country to the Internet by the year 2000. And many of
    you have been very active in that. Thirdly--I'll say a little more about
    this in a minute--the national standards movement is alive and well.
    Fourth, we had the America Reads program, which has several thousand
    college students in all your States going into elementary school
    classrooms to teach kids to read. And finally, we funded a huge
    expansion in the master teacher program, which Governor Hunt has been so active in, and which I think is
    critically important to the future of education. If we can get a master
    teacher, a certified master teacher in every school building in America,
    it will change the culture and content and results of American
    education.
        Now, in '98, in the State of the Union Address, I asked the American
    people to focus on the fact that we could be happy that we'd opened the
    doors of college to everybody, because everyone accepts the fact that we
    have the best system of higher education in the world; everyone accepts
    that. No one believes America has the best system of elementary and
    secondary education in the world. And it seems incongruous. We know that
    we can have, and I think that should be our goal.
        So with a view towards standards, accountability, and expectations
    all being lifted, our budget in this year makes the largest commitment
    to K through 12 education in the history

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    of the country, focused largely on reducing class size in the early
    grades to an average of 18--there are still a lot of classes with 30
    kids or more in them--therefore, to do that, achieving--helping the
    States and helping local school districts to hire 100,000 teachers, and
    helping to build or remodel 5,000 schools.
        It focuses on more emphasis on teachers, money for teacher training,
    and more money to develop a master teacher program. It focuses on
    standards and the continuation of the voluntary national test
    development for eighth grade math and fourth grade reading.
        I know that later today--and all of you may or may not know this--
    but I know later today Secretary Riley is
    going to appoint Governor Engler to the NAGB,
    the independent board that is supposed to develop a test and that
    guarantees that the States' concerns will be taken into account. I thank
    Governor Engler for his willingness to serve. I think it is important
    that we say, whether we use national tests that are somehow evaluated by
    a national standard or State tests that are evaluated by a national
    standard, that we do believe that learning the basics is the same in
    every State in America, and we want to raise the standards in every
    State in America. I think that is terribly important and I think we can
    do it. And I thank you, Governor, for your
    willingness to serve.
        One other thing I'd like to say about standards. There's an
    interesting effort underway in America in many States, and in some
    cities like Chicago, to find a way to end the practice of social
    promotion in a way that lifts children up instead of putting them down.
    In Chicago, they have mandatory summer school, for example, for children
    that don't perform at grade level. And it's, among other things, led to
    a dramatic drop in juvenile crime in the summer in Chicago, that more
    and more people are involved in constructive activities.
        Before the next school year starts, Secretary Riley will issue guidelines on how schools can end social
    promotion and boost their efforts to ensure that more students learn
    what they need to learn the first time around, and then to help those
    who don't with extra tutoring and summer school.
        I also will send to Congress this year legislation to expand the Ed-
    Flex program. That's the program that frees the States from Federal
    regulations so long as they set high academic standards, waive their own
    regulations for local schools, and hold schools accountable for results.
    There are, I think, a dozen of you now who are part of the Ed-Flex
    program. The legislation that I will send would make every State in the
    country eligible to be a part of it, which would dramatically reduce the
    regulatory burden of the Federal Government on the States in the area of
    education.
        One last thing I'd like to mention; as all of you know, we have been
    involved now for about 8 months in a national conversation on race. This
    race initiative, I think, has produced a number of results both in terms
    of specific programs and in terms of elevating the dialog in the country
    about how we can deal with our increasing diversity as one America in
    the 21st century. I'm delighted that this initiative is also working
    with the YWCA and with Governors to convene statewide days of dialog on
    race on April 30th. And I want to thank the YWCA--the CEO, Dr. Prema
    Mathai-Davis, is here today with us this
    morning--for helping us to launch these dialogs.
        Several of the Governors have already agreed to participate in this,
    and I hope all the Governors will support the days of dialog. Judith
    Winston, who is the Executive Director of
    my initiative on race, is also here today and will be happy to talk with
    you or your representatives more about this effort.
        Now, there are a lot of other issues that I know that you want to
    talk about, but I'll just end where I tried to begin. I think if we get
    education right, the rest of this will all resolve itself. As I look at
    where we are with the unemployment rate in the country, with the growth
    rate, and I ask myself how can we continue to grow, how we can lower the
    unemployment rate, how can we do it without inflation, the only answer,
    it seems to me, is to provide higher skill levels to the people in the
    places that have not yet fully participated in the good times America is
    enjoying.
        I think it is a democratic obligation on us--small ``d''--to make
    our democracy work, and I think it is an economic imperative. So I hope
    that we can focus on that, but I'm more than eager to talk about
    whatever else you'd like to discuss.
        Governor.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:04 a.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. George V. Voinovich of Ohio,

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    chairman, Gov. Tom Carper of Delaware, vice chairman, and Raymond C.
    Scheppach, executive director, National Governors' Association; Gov.
    Lawton Chiles of Florida; United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan;
    Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom; President Boris Yeltsin
    of Russia; President Jacques Chirac of France; Gov. James B. Hunt, Jr.,
    of North Carolina; former President Ronald Reagan; former Secretary of
    Education Terrel H. Bell; Gov. Zell Miller of Georgia; and Gov. John
    Engler of Michigan. The President also referred to the National
    Assessment Governing Board (NAGB); the Education Flexibility (Ed-Flex)
    Partnership Demonstration Program; and the Young Women's Christian
    Association (YWCA).