    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [May 4, 2000]
    [Pages 828-831]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the City Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota
    May 4, 2000

        Thank you very much. Well, after Tom and
    Milo talked, I don't know that I need to say
    much of anything. I thank you for what you said and for the example you
    have set. And I want to say a little more about Milo and this school in
    a moment. I'd like to thank my friend Bruce Vento for not only doing a superb job in representing the people
    of his community and, indeed, the people of Minnesota in the United
    States House of Representatives but also being a wonderful friend and
    adviser to me these last 7 years and a few months. You should be very
    proud of Bruce Vento. He's a very, very good man. Thank you.
        When Lieutenant Governor Schunk told me that
    she was going to visit every school district in Minnesota, I was wishing
    I were the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota. That sounds like a good job
    to me. I thank you. And Mr. Mayor, thank you
    for being here today. It's good to see you again, and it's good to be
    back in your community.
        There are a number of other people I would like to acknowledge, and
    doubtless I will miss some, but I'd like to thank Education Commissioner
    Jax for being here, and Superintendent
    Harvey, Majority Leader of the Senate Roger
    Moe. The mayor of Minneapolis I think is here,
    Sharon Sayles Belton; former Attorney
    General Skip Humphrey. I'd like
    to thank State Senator Ember Reichgott Junge, a longtime friend of mine, and former State
    Representative Becky Kelso, who were the
    original cosponsors of the charter school legislation; the Charter
    Friends National Network director, Jon Schroeder, who drafted the original Federal charter law, which we
    adopted; the Center for School Change director, Joe Nathan, a longtime personal friend of mine with whom I worked for
    many years.
        And I'd like to acknowledge some people who came on this tour with
    me, some of whom who have been very active in the charter school
    movement for a long time: the president of the Progressive Policy
    Institute in Washington, Will Marshall; the
    president of the New Schools Venture Fund, Kim Smith; the policy director of the National Urban League, Bill
    Spriggs; and a longtime friend and city
    council member from New York City, Guillermo Linares. And they're over here to my right. They've come a
    long way to be with you, to see this first charter school in the United
    States. So I hope you'll make them--[applause].
        When I was listening to Milo Cutter and Tom
    Gonzalez talk first about this school, how it
    got started, what its mission is, and then hearing Tom talk about his
    life and how his then-girlfriend and present wife got him into this

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    school, it reminded me of all the struggles that I have seen the charter
    school movement go through throughout the United States and reaffirmed
    my conviction that every effort has been worth it.
        There are a lot of people here in this room who have devoted a lot
    of their lives to trying to help young people in trouble. I was
    delighted to hear Milo mention Hazel O'Leary's
    support for this school. She was my first Energy Secretary. And I want
    to thank, in particular, one person who's made an extraordinary
    commitment to helping young people lead the lives of their dreams and
    avoid the lives of their nightmares, my good friend Supreme Court
    Justice Alan Page, who's out here. Thank you,
    Alan, for everything you have done.
        The idea behind charter schools is that not all kids are the same--
    they have different needs; they have different environments--but there
    is a certain common level of education that all kids need, no matter how
    different they are, and that it would be a good thing to allow schools
    to be developed which had a clear mission, which could reach out to kids
    who wanted to be a part of that mission, who could achieve educational
    excellence for children who otherwise might be left behind or, to use
    Tom's phrase, might fall through the cracks.
        It is true that when I ran for President in 1992, Minnesota had the
    only public charter school in the country, this one. And so when I went
    around the country talking about charter schools, most people thought I
    had landed from another planet, because most people hadn't been here.
    Most people still haven't been here to this school. But I knew it was an
    idea that had enormous promise. And some of the people involved in this
    enterprise had been working with me for years on educational matters
    when I was the Governor of Arkansas.
        I also knew that if Minnesota was doing it, there was a pretty good
    chance it was a good idea, since the State already had some of the best
    performing schools in the United States. And I think the State and this
    community deserve a lot of credit for the general direction of education
    reform and rising test scores. Minnesota really is about to become Lake
    Wobegon, where all the children are above average. [Laughter] And that's
    good for you. Good for you.
        I'm here today because I want all of America to know about you, and
    through you, to understand what might be done in other communities with
    the charter school movement, to give all of our children the education
    they need and the education our country needs for them to have in a 21st
    century information economy.
        This is a good time for us to be doing this. Our economy is in the
    best shape it's ever been. We have been working for 20 years on school
    reform; no one can claim anymore they don't know what works. We now have
    enough evidence that the charter school movement works if it's done
    right, as it has been done here. And we have the largest and most
    diverse student body in our history, which means there are more
    different kinds of people that may learn in different ways and have
    different personal needs, but they all need--I will say again--a certain
    high level of educational attainment.
        The strategy that clearly works is accountability for high
    standards, with a lot of personal attention and clear support for the
    education mission of every school. We've tried to support that now for 7
    years. The Vice President and I have supported everything from
    increasing Head Start to smaller classes in the early grades, to funds
    to help all of our States and school districts set high standards and
    systems for implementing accountability for those standards, to opening
    up the doors of college to more Americans.
        Here in St. Paul, our movement to put 100,000 teachers on the
    streets--in our schools, I mean--has led, I think, to 23 more teachers
    being hired. And here in this city the average class size in the early
    grades is 18. If that were true in every place in America, the children
    would be learning, and all of our third graders would be able to read.
    More of them would stay in school; fewer of them would drop out; more of
    them would do well. So I want to congratulate you on making good use of
    that, as well.
        We've also tried to make sure all of our schools were wired to the
    Internet. We're going to do a little work on the Internet later this
    morning. When the Vice President and I started and we got the so-called
    E-rate passed in Congress, which allows lower income schools to get
    subsidies to be wired and to use the Internet, to access it, there were
    only 16 percent of the schools and 3 percent of the classrooms
    connected. Today, 95 percent of the schools and

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    almost 75 percent of the classrooms are connected. And I think by the
    end of this year, certainly some time next year, we will have every
    classroom in America, certainly every school, connected, except those
    that are literally too old and decrepit to be wired. And unfortunately,
    there are some, and I've been out on another crusade to try to build new
    school facilities and have the Federal Government help in that regard,
    too.
        But we've come a long way. And yet, we know that there are still
    schools which aren't performing as they should. Even though test scores
    are up, even though college-going is up, we know that there are schools
    which aren't performing. And I wanted to come here today because of what
    you've done, because you've proved that charter schools were a good
    idea.
        As I said, when I started running for President, there was a grand
    total of one charter school--you. You were it. Now there are over 1,700
    in America. And we have invested almost half a billion dollars since
    1994 to help communities start charter schools. That's why there are
    over 1,700, and I'm proud of that.
        And this is actually National Charter School Week, which is nice for
    me to be here by accident in this week. And I can say that--you know, my
    goal was to at least fund 3,000 or more by the time I left office. And I
    believe we are going to meet that goal, and one of the reasons is that
    you have set such a good example.
        Now, what I want to talk about today is how the charter schools work
    a little--I want to say a little about that. And then I want to answer--
    if you'll forgive me for doing it, since you don't have this problem--I
    want to answer some of the critics of the charter school movements who
    say that not all the schools have worked.
        Schools like City Academy, as I said, have the flexibility to reach
    out to students who may have had trouble in ordinary school experiences.
    At the same time, very often we see charter schools provide an even
    greater atmosphere of competition that induces kids to work harder and
    harder to learn. Studies show that charter schools are at least as
    racially and economically diverse as the public schools, generally. And
    here in Minnesota, they're more diverse than average schools.
        Surveys show the vast majority of parents with children in our 1,700
    charter schools think their children are doing better academically in
    those schools than they were in their previous schools. There are long
    waiting lists to get in most charter schools all across the United
    States.
        Now, does that mean every charter school is a stunning success? No.
    But I don't think that anyone can cite any endeavor of life where
    everybody is doing a great job. The idea behind the charter schools was
    never that they would all be perfect, but that because they were unlike
    traditional schools--they had to be created with a charter and a mission
    that had to be fulfilled--if they were not successful in that mission,
    they could be shut down or changed or the children could go somewhere
    else, and so that they would be under a lot more--pressure may be the
    wrong word, but the environment would be very different--that if they
    didn't work, the kids wouldn't be stuck there forever, that there would
    always be other options, and that they themselves could be dramatically
    transformed.
        Now, the one problem we have had is that not every State has had the
    right kind of accountability for the charter schools. Some States have
    laws that are so loose that no matter whether the charter schools are
    doing their jobs or not, they just get to stay open, and they become
    like another bureaucracy. Unfortunately, I think even worse, some States
    have laws that are so restrictive it's almost impossible to open a
    charter school in the first place.
        So the second point I want to make to the people, especially to the
    press folks that are traveling with us who have to report this to the
    country, is that not only has this first charter school in America, City
    Academy, done great, but Minnesota's law is right. You basically have
    struck the right balance. You have encouraged the growth of charter
    schools, but you do hold charter schools responsible for results. That's
    what every State in the country ought to do.
        And I think, indeed, we should build the level of accountability you
    find here in the charter school system into all the schools in our
    system. That's what I'm trying to get Congress to do. Bruce and I have been working for a couple of years on an
    educational accountability act, which basically would invest more money
    in what we know works and stop investing money in what we know doesn't
    work--the kind of direction taken not only by the charter schools but by
    this State in terms of standards, accountability, not having social
    promotion but not

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    blaming kids for the failure of the system, permitting after-school,
    summer school programs, and real support for people like you.
        Unfortunately, this week the Congress is--the majority is trying to
    pass legislation that neither puts more money or more accountability
    into the system. But I'm still hopeful that we'll be able to pass a good
    bill that really works before we go home.
        Let me finally say that there are some people who criticize charter
    schools by saying that even though they are public schools, they amount
    to draining money away from other public schools. That's just not true.
    You would be in school somewhere. And if you were, whether your school
    was doing an effective job or not, the tax money would be going there.
    The charter school movement, if it works, can help to save public
    education in this country by proving that excellence can be provided to
    all children from all backgrounds, no matter what experiences they bring
    to the school in the first place. That's what this whole thing is about.
        My goal is to get more money and more people involved in the charter
    schools movement, to break down the walls of resistance among all the
    educators to it, and to get community people all over the country more
    aware of it. Today we are going to release about $137 million in grants
    to support new and existing charter schools in 31 States, the District
    of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. I am going to ask the Secretary of
    Education today to develop guidelines for
    employers and faith-based groups so that they will know how they can be
    actively involved in supporting the charter school movement.
        While charter schools have to be nonsectarian, there is a role, a
    positive role, that faith-based groups can play. And employers, we find
    around America, increasingly are willing to provide space and other
    resources to help charter schools get started. In nearby Rockford,
    Minnesota, for instance, there is the Skills for Tomorrow School,
    sponsored jointly by the Teamsters Union and the Business Partnership.
    Union, corporate, and small business leaders have helped to develop the
    school. They also provide students with internships and take part in
    judging whether they have met their academic graduation requirements to
    ensure that they have the skills they need to succeed. I think the
    guidelines I'm calling for today will get more businesses and more
    faith-based groups involved in the charter school movement.
        We have learned now for 7 years that charter schools will work if
    you have investment and accountability, and if you make them less
    bureaucratic and more mission oriented. I'm very proud of the fact that
    in our administration the Secretary of Education has reduced the regulatory burden on local schools and
    States in administering Federal aid by about two-thirds, while we have
    doubled the investment in education for our schools.
        And I'm very proud of the fact that long ago, even though I wasn't
    given the privilege of coming to this school, I heard about
    Milo; I heard about the City Academy; I heard
    about the charter schools movement. I talked to Joe Nathan; I talked to Ember about
    it, and a number of other people. And I ran for President in 1992
    pledging that if the people voted for me, we would have more of these
    schools. And over 1,700 schools later, thanks to your example, my
    commitment, I think, has been fulfilled and American education has been
    advanced. I only hope that my presence here today will help to get us to
    3,000 and will help to get us to the point in America where every school
    operates like a charter school.
        Thank you very much.

     Note:  The President spoke at 9:45 a.m. in the gymnasium. In his
    remarks, he referred to Tomas Gonzalez, 1994 graduate, who introduced
    the President, and Milo Cutter, founder and director, City Academy; Lt.
    Gov. Mae Schunk of Minnesota; Mayor Norm Coleman of St. Paul; Christine
    Jax, commissioner, Minnesota Department of Children, Families &
    Learning; Patricia Harvey, superintendent, St. Paul School District No.
    625; Minnesota Senate Minority Leader Roger D. Moe; former Minnesota
    Attorney General Hubert (Skip) Humphrey III; and Minnesota Supreme Court
    Justice Alan Page. The National Charter Schools Week proclamation of
    April 28 is listed in Appendix D at the end of this volume.