    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [May 11, 2000]
    [Pages 901-904]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Award Ceremony for the National Teacher of the Year
    May 11, 2000

        The President.  Thank you very much. Thank you, ladies and
    gentlemen. Let me begin by welcoming you to the Rose Garden and saying,
    I'm grateful that it's not too hot and it's not too cold. Sounds like
    one of those books we used to read when I was 6 years old--it's just
    right. [Laughter] Actually, we got rained out here yesterday at an
    event. And we had two events earlier today, and it was quite warm. So
    this is--you're here at just the right time.
        I'd also like to thank the representatives of the Marine Band who
    played for us today. This is their third event today, and they've done a
    great job. Thank you very much.
        I want to thank Secretary Riley, my
    friend and coworker for better education for well over 20 years now.
    Even my adversaries will concede that he is the finest Secretary of
    Education this country has ever had, and I am very grateful to him.
        I welcome the other representatives of the Department of Education
    and the executive director of the Council of Chief State Schools, Gordon
    Ambach; Scholastic, Inc., senior vice
    president Ernie Fleishman and all those
    from Scholastic who are here. And I want to recognize the president of
    the National Education Association, Bob Chase, who has done a wonderful job representing all the teachers
    of our country here in Washington, including those in the AFT. And I
    think they would say the same thing. And we thank you for all the fights
    that you've waged for us, and with your friends in the AFT, and people
    who love education everywhere. We've had a good 7 years here, thanks in
    no small measure to you, sir. And we thank you very much.
        We have here 54 or 55 State Teachers of the Year, 36 former National
    Teachers of the Year, and our present honoree, Marilyn Whirry of California. And I want to say a little more about
    her in a moment.
        President Truman presented the first of these awards here at the
    White House almost half a century ago. And every year since, Presidents
    or members of their family have personally handed out this award to
    recognize not only the awardee and the awardees but, indeed, all of our
    teachers. On that very first occasion, President Truman said, ``Next to
    one's mother, a teacher has the greatest influence on what kind of a
    citizen a child grows up to be.''

    [[Page 902]]

        Every day, 5 days a week, 9 months a year, teachers have the future
    of America in their hands. They teach our children to read, to write, to
    calculate, to sing, to paint, to play, to listen, to question, to work
    with others, and to think for themselves. They excite our children's
    imagination, lift their aspirations, open their hearts, strengthen their
    values.
        I imagine every one of us can recall the names and faces of teachers
    who influenced us profoundly--indeed, so profoundly that without them we
    wouldn't be sitting here or standing in the Rose Garden today. We tend
    to remember the teachers most who challenged us the most; the ones who
    held us to high standards and convinced us we could achieve; teachers
    who praised us when they knew we were doing our very best; and who
    motivated us, sometimes gently and sometimes not so gently, to do even
    better; teachers who watched with delight the amazement on our faces
    when we produced work we never imagined we were capable of.
        For 35 years now, Dr. Marilyn Whirry has
    been that kind of teacher, instilling in her students a love of
    literature. Seniors at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach,
    California, vie for spots in her advanced placement English class. Even
    freshmen and sophomores hope some day to join what are called the
    ``Whirryites,'' in book-lined Room 19, to discuss Shakespeare and Camus,
    Toni Morrison and Dostoyevsky.
        Her teaching style, I understand, is like
    a softer, more nurturing version of Professor Kingsfield's in ``The
    Paper Chase.'' She paces the room posing questions to each student,
    responding to each answer with still more questions, digging deeper and
    deeper into the toughest texts until their meanings are revealed. She
    believes there are no obstacles to learning that cannot be overcome
    through effort and high standards. And she lives by that belief.
        A few years ago, she underwent treatment
    for cancer, yet almost never missed a day of work. She not only beat the
    cancer but that year every one of her students passed the AP tests.
    She's traveled America giving workshops to educators on teaching
    standards-based reading and writing.
        For the last 7 years, she's been
    Secretary Riley's appointee to the National
    Assessment Governing Board. I think I should point out that she was
    first appointed to NAGB by the previous administration, so admiration
    for her is bipartisan. [Laughter]
        The role of teachers has never been more important to our society
    and our future than it is today--in a global economy that rewards what
    we know and what we can learn more than ever, with the largest and most
    diverse student population in our history, and with 2 million teachers
    set to retire in the next decade, and already a crying need to lower
    class sizes and modernize facilities.
        Clearly, recruiting and retaining more and better teachers is one of
    the greatest challenges we face as a nation. And we see unusual efforts
    now being adopted all across the country. In the State of Mississippi,
    they just voted to raise teachers' salaries $10,000. In California, they
    give big bonuses to people who come into teaching. And you'll see more
    and more of this as we recognize not only the imperative of having good
    teachers but also just the sheer challenge of replacing the retiring
    teachers as the corps of students continues to grow.
        One of the things we have to do to meet that challenge is to do more
    to honor and respect our best teachers, like our honoree. Everyone who becomes a teacher recognizes on the
    front end that this is not the surest path to wealth. People who do it,
    in the end, do it and stay at it because they love it, because they find
    fulfillment in giving, in the spark of learning they see in children's
    eyes.
        The least the rest of us can do is to pay them adequately, train
    them well, give them the facilities and support they need and the
    respect that they deserve. And that last intangible element was
    conclusion number one of the Survey of America's Top Teachers, released
    just this week by Scholastic, Inc., and the Council of Chief State
    School Officers. The survey also concluded if we want to recruit more
    and better teachers and hang on to those we have, we must pay them more.
        More and more gifted young people start out teaching, but they don't
    stay as long as they used to, and that's a big challenge. Thanks to the
    longest running expansion in American history, most States have
    substantial budget surpluses now. They have to decide how best to use
    them. States, like the Nation, this year must decide what to do with
    this magic moment of prosperity in improving social conditions. If I
    were a Governor and I had a surplus, I'd give

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    my teachers the pay they deserved, and I hope more and more States will
    do that.
        We also know that the National Government has a role to play. I have
    proposed a billion-dollar effort to help recruit, train, and support
    teachers, to invest more in teachers even as we demand more of them. I'm
    disappointed yesterday that Congress set in motion a budget that, I
    believe strongly, invests too little in our schools and expects and
    demands too little from them, a plan that ignores some of our schools'
    most pressing needs, from more well-trained teachers to more modern
    classrooms. We can and must do better, and we will.
        Last week I took a school reform tour through four States. It was an
    amazing experience for me. I went to western Kentucky, and I went to
    Minnesota. I went to Iowa. I went to Ohio. I could have gone to
    anyplace, I suppose, and found much the same thing. But it was so moving
    for me to have a chance to demonstrate to the country, through the good
    offices of our friends in the media, that all children can learn and our
    schools are doing better. Test scores are up; many of our lowest
    performing schools are turning around.
        Every teacher here today and every teacher across the country ought
    to be proud of the progress that is being made. You have proved that all
    students can learn. Now our task is to ensure that all students do
    learn, that they all receive the world-class education they need, they
    deserve, and the rest of us desperately need for them to have. If we
    continue to build on our progress, I have no doubt that we can fulfill
    that promise.
        Let me just say one other thing about this that's not in the text,
    but one of the things that troubled me greatly when I became President
    in January of 1993 is that even a lot of people who voted for me because
    they believed in what I was saying, didn't really believe we could turn
    the country around. They didn't really believe we would ever get rid of
    the deficit. They didn't really believe we would ever reduce the welfare
    rolls. They didn't really believe that we could make crime come down
    every year. And even though every single citizen knew some teacher that
    they just adored, they didn't really believe that on a sweeping national
    basis, we could improve the performance of our students. And now that we
    know, that imposes a special responsibility on us.
        When I leave office, we're going to have paid off $355 billion of
    the Nation's debt. We know we can get the country out of debt and still
    keep investing in education. We've got the crime rate coming down 8
    years in a row; the welfare rolls are half what they were. But a lot of
    people still don't know that the schools, against increasing challenges,
    are doing better and better. And I'll just give you one example.

        I was in Kentucky, in Owensboro, a little town in western Kentucky,
    in a school that was one of the 170 schools in 1996 identified as a low-
    performing school. Within 2 years, 91 percent of the schools were off
    the list. As of last year, in 4 years, in a school with two-thirds of
    the kids eligible for free or reduced lunches, the number of children
    reading at or above grade level had gone from 12 to 57 percent; doing
    math at or above grade level had gone from 5 to 70 percent; doing
    science at or above grade level had gone from zero to 64 percent. The
    school ranked 18th in the State in overall performance, with two-thirds
    of the kids eligible for free or reduced lunch. And in Kentucky, 10 of
    the 20 best performing grade schools have over half the kids eligible
    for free or reduced lunch. Race, income, and region are not destiny,
    thanks to teachers and schools. And we need to get that out there.

        And that's what you represent to me. You are the living embodiment
    that you get more from giving than taking in life. And I can't think of
    anybody who's given more. My only regret today is that I have never been
    in one of Marilyn Whirry's classes.
    [Laughter] So maybe we'll get the next best thing as I bring her up here
    and present her her award.

        Ladies and gentlemen, the Teacher of the Year.

     [At this point, the President presented the award to Ms.
    Whirry, who then made brief remarks and gave
    the President a crystal apple.]

        The President.  Thank you. Well, thank you. I have all kinds of
    questions I wanted to ask you, about Dostoyevsky and Camus and--
    [laughter]

        Ms. Whirry.  Okay.

        The President.  ----the last novel he wrote that's just been
    published. What did Toni Morrison mean when
    she said I was America's first black President? [Laughter] I thought it
    was a great compliment.

    [[Page 904]]

        Let me tell you, I generally believe Presidents should not receive
    awards because the job is award enough. But I love this. And every day I
    have left here, this award will be on my desk in the Oval Office, and I
    hope you get to see it on television.

        Thank you. Bless you all. Thank you.

     Note:  The President spoke at 5:28 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White
    House.