[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[May 4, 2000]
[Pages 834-840]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Webside Chat With Tracy Smith of Channel One in
St. Paul
May 4, 2000
Ms. Smith. So now we're going to go live, to the live webcast. So
everyone out there watching us on your computer, thank you so much for
joining us. Welcome to everybody. Thank you, City Academy. And thank
you, Mr. President.
The President. Thank you, Tracy. Are we ready to start?
Ms. Smith. We are ready to start.
The President. Well, let me begin by thanking Channel One and the
Channel One schools and all those who are taking part in this
Presidential Webside Chat.
This has a rich history, really. Fifty years ago and more, President
Roosevelt used the radio to bring democracy into the homes of the
American people, with his Fireside Chats. Thirty years later, President
Kennedy regularly used televised press conferences to do the same thing.
And I think it's quite appropriate to use this newest medium of
communication to answer more questions from more students. And I think
we ought to get right to it.
All of you know that I'm speaking to you from the City Academy in
St. Paul, Minnesota. It was the Nation's first charter school. I believe
in these schools, and I've tried to promote them and want to do more,
and that's why I'm here.
The most important thing that we can do today is to reach out and
answer questions from the students of America, so let's begin. How do
you want to do it, Tracy?
Education and Technology
Ms. Smith. Well, our first question is actually from Amy, who is
from City Academy--we do have it in the computer here; it's question
number zero--which is: What more can education do to improve people's
lives and move them out of poverty?
The President. Well, I think the obvious answer is just to look at
the difference in the job prospects and the income prospects of people
who have education and people who don't. Education in this economy,
where we have the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years--if you have
enough education, you have almost a 100 percent guarantee that you'll
have a good job and you can move out of poverty.
But it is, by and large, necessary to do more than graduate from
high school. Most people, to have good job prospects, need at least 2
years of college. And I have worked very hard in the last 7 years to
open the doors of college to everyone. We've increased the Pell grants.
We've made student loans less expensive. And we have given a tax credit
worth $1,500 a year to virtually all Americans for the first 2 years of
college. So the most important thing for you to know is, you'll get out
of poverty if you have an education, but you need more than high school.
Ms. Smith. All right, great. A tech question, of course, since
we're talking to a bunch of techies out there. This is question number
200: Mr. President, my math teacher uses technology
[[Page 835]]
to teach us every day. Do you think this is an important part of
learning?
The President. Yes. I don't think it's a substitute for knowing the
basics, but it facilitates learning.
And one of the things that we know now--and I bet a lot of you here
at City Academy have learned this--one of the things we know now is that
people learn in different ways. And sometimes, like in grade school,
some kids will be identified wrongly as being slow learners or maybe not
very smart when in fact they learn in different ways. We know that some
kids learn by repetition, doing basic math on a computer, better. Some
kids learn by listening better. Some learn by reading better. So I think
that's important.
But the main thing that technology is going to do for education is
something entirely different. Look at this. We've already got over 2,000
questions; we're talking to people all over the country here. Because of
technology, we can bring what's in any textbook, anyplace in the world,
not only to a place like the City Academy in St. Paul; we can bring it
to poor villages in Africa, in Latin America, in east Asia. Technology
can enable us to bring all the knowledge stored anywhere to anybody who
lives anywhere, if they have the computer--the poorest people in the
world. And so it is going to be, I think, the most important fact about
education for the next 20 or 30 years.
Ms. Smith. I guess the followup question to that is question number
721: Mr. President, how can the Federal Government help provide enough
money to have enough computers in school for everyone to be able to have
access to a good computer?
The President. Well, let me tell you what we have done. In 1996 we
passed something in Congress called the Telecommunications Act. And Vice
President Gore led our fight to require in
that law something called the E-rate, the education rate, to guarantee
that all schools and libraries could afford to log on to the Internet.
It's worth over $2 billion a year in subsidies to schools. That's why 95
percent of our schools are hooked up now to the Internet, connected to
the Internet, because they can afford it.
I have also worked very hard to try to get the Government to give
all the computers we could to schools and to go out and work with the
private sector to get more computers in the schools. Frankly, the big
issue now is making sure that the teachers are well-trained to maximize
the potential of the computers and the educational software. You know,
most teachers will tell you that in every school, there are always a few
kids that know more about all this than the teachers do. So what we've
had to do is to go back and re-emphasize training the teachers.
And let me just say one other thing. I believe that the next big
move will be to try to make personal computers in the home available to
more and more people who can't afford them now, lower income people.
When Tom was up here talking earlier, he
said he was born in Mexico. I went to a school district in New Jersey
where most of the kids are first-generation immigrants. And the school
district, with Bell Atlantic, put computers in the homes of more and
more of the parents so they could talk to the principals and the
teachers during the day. And it had a dramatic impact on the learning of
the kids and on reducing the dropout rate. And the kids, of course,
could then use the computers at home as well.
So I think that's the next big frontier. Can we make the use of the
computer as universal as the use of the telephone is today? I wish I
were going to be around, but I think that's a big frontier the next
President should try to cross.
School Violence
Ms. Smith. This is question number 2,173. We are getting a lot of
questions today. This is from Lawrence, from Fayetteville, Arkansas.
The President. I've been to this school. This is the town that
Hillary and I were married in. I lived there when I went home to
Arkansas and taught in the university.
Ms. Smith. All right. He's in the seventh grade, and he wants to
know what you plan to do about making students feel safer in today's
classrooms.
The President. Well, first of all, I think the only way to make you
feel safer is to try to make sure you are safer. But you should know
that, in spite of these horrible examples of school violence we've
seen--we just celebrated the anniversary of Columbine; we had the
terrible incident in Arkansas and Mississippi, Oregon, lots of other
places--that, overall, school violence has gone down. And I think the
main thing you have to do is to keep guns and weapons out of schools, to
try to keep people off
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the school grounds that don't belong there, and to have a zero-tolerance
policy for guns in the schools and for violence.
Then I think it's also important to have positive ways of dealing
with conflict. I think there need to be peer mediation groups in
schools. I think students need to have access to counselors and, if they
need it, to mental health services. I think that we have to teach young
people that there are nonviolent ways that they can resolve their
legitimate conflicts, and there are nonviolent ways they have to get
their own anger and frustration out.
So I think there's partly a law enforcement strategy to keep guns
and knives and other weapons out of the hands of kids at school, to keep
people off the school grounds who shouldn't be here. And then I think
there has to be a positive human development effort to get people to
adopt nonviolent strategies for dealing with their anger, their hurt,
and their conflicts.
Education Infrastructure
Ms. Smith. Let's do 201. This is from Elena--I hope I'm saying that
right: President Clinton, do you think that the physical condition of a
school building has an effect on learning in the classroom?
The President. Yes, I do. If it's bad enough--in two or three ways.
First of all, I think if a school is in terrible physical condition,
when children go through a school every day, if the roof is leaking and
the windows are broken and it's stiflingly hot--I mean, young people are
not stupid; they're smart. They say, ``Okay, all these politicians and
teachers say we're the most important people in the world. If we're the
most important people in the world and education is the most important
thing in the world, why are they letting me go to school in this wreck
of a building where I'm miserable?'' That's the first thing.
The second problem is, it's actually harder to teach in difficult
physical facilities. I was at a school, actually a very beautiful
school, yesterday in Davenport, Iowa. It's 93 years old. And there are
rooms in that building where there were no electrical outlets in the
walls, and there are all kinds of problems there. It's a magnificent
building. They shouldn't tear it down, but they need to modernize it.
And so I do, I think it makes a big difference. That's why for over
2 years now I've been trying to get Congress to adopt a plan to let the
Federal Government help build 6,000 new schools and help repair 5,000
more every year for the next 5 years, because it's a terrible problem.
The average school building in Philadelphia is 56 years old--65 years
old; in New Orleans, over 60 years old. In New York, there are school
buildings that are heated still by coal-fired furnaces.
And also, there are all these overcrowded schools. I went to a
little grade school in Florida with 12 housetrailers out behind it to
house the kids--12, not one or two. So yes, I think it makes a big
difference.
School Uniforms
Ms. Smith. Let's go to--here's one I know you have an opinion
about--2,987. This is Brandon: What do you think about school uniforms?
The President. I support them in the early grades. I think--and
I'll tell you why. I have been a big supporter of school uniforms--well,
I support them for high schools, too, if people want them. But let me
just say, we have a lot of evidence that particularly in elementary and
junior high schools, school uniforms perform two very valuable
functions: They promote discipline, and they promote learning. Why?
Because in the early years, school uniforms remove the economic
distinctions between kids.
I went to a junior high school out in California, in the third-
biggest school district in California, where they have a school uniform
policy. And I had an inner-city young boy talking and a young girl who
was probably upper middle class. And both of them loved the uniform
policy because they said it removed the distinctions between kids, and
it removed the pressure to try to show where you were in some economic
or social hierarchy by what you were wearing.
But I also can tell you, there is lots and lots of evidence that it
reduces conflict and violence and promotes an atmosphere of discipline
among younger people. So I think--you know, I really think that having
that policy is good. I've seen it all over America. I've done everything
I could to promote it. I've been ridiculed and attacked and made fun of
for promoting it, but I believe in them. I think they do good. I do.
Ms. Smith. We've done lots of stories on that. I don't think every
kid in America agrees with you, but----
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The President. I know they don't. [Laughter] You ought to see my
mail about it. [Laughter]
Community Service
Ms. Smith. Question number 296. This is from Melinda, from Dublin
High School. We don't have where Dublin is.
The President. Ohio, I think, isn't it?
Ms. Smith. Is it Ohio?
The President. I think so.
Ms. Smith. Do you believe that students should be required to do
community service as a part of their core curriculum?
The President. Yes. That's the short answer. I do. Maryland is the
only State now that requires community service as a requirement. To get
a high school diploma in Maryland, at some point you have to do some
community service.
You know, I've been a big supporter of community service. I founded
the AmeriCorps program, and now 150,000 young people have served their
communities and earned some money to go to college through various
AmeriCorps projects. We started a program called America Reads. There
are now people from 1,000 different colleges going into the grade
schools of America, helping make sure all of our third graders can
read--and a lot of retired groups, too.
I believe community service is one of the most important things that
happens in America to bind us together across the lines that divide us.
And in 1987, 13 years ago, I was on a commission on middle schools which
recommended that community service be made a part of the curriculum. So
I've been a believer of this for a long time.
I would leave it to the schools or the school districts to decide
what the young people should do. But I think it does us all good to get
out and deal with people who are drastically different from ourselves
and who--no matter how bad we think our lives are, there is always
somebody with a bigger problem and a bigger need and a bigger challenge.
And I just think it's good for people to serve other people in the
community. So I would make it a part of the curriculum. I would.
Assistance for Higher Education
Ms. Smith. Okay, this is 3,348, from Mission Junior High, in Texas:
What is being done to ensure that economically disadvantaged students
are provided the opportunities for higher education?
The President. Good question. Let me give you all the answers. This
has been a big priority of mine. Here's what we've done. Since I've been
President, we have increased the number and the amount of the Pell
grants, which is the scholarship the Federal Government gives to the
poorest students. We have also changed the student loan program, so that
it's now cheaper to take out a loan if you get one of the so-called
direct loans, issued directly from the Federal Government. The interest
rate is lower. And then when you get out of school, if you take a job
that has a modest salary, you can limit your repayments to a certain
percentage of your income. It's saved, in 5 years, $8 billion in student
loan costs for America's students.
We've raised the number of work-study positions from 700,000 to a
million. And we passed the HOPE scholarship. That's the biggest deal.
It's a $1,500 tax credit for the first 2 years of college, and then also
for the junior and senior year and for graduate schools you get a tax
break. And I'm now trying to get Congress to adopt a law which allows
people to deduct up to $10,000 in college tuition from any tax burdens
they have. So I think that will help.
If that passes, I think we can honestly say that income is not a
barrier to going to college. Between the scholarships, the loans, the
work-study programs, and the HOPE scholarship tax credit, which 5
million families have already used, that's why college-going--67 percent
of the high school graduates in America are now going on to college. And
I want to get it up as close to 100 as we can get it. So if you have any
other ideas in Mission, Texas, let me know. But we've done a lot on
this, and I think it's very important.
Incentives for Teachers
Ms. Smith. Question 4,641, this is Mike from Buffalo: What do you
think the Federal Government can do to attract quality teachers to
inner-city public schools?
The President. Well, we've got a little program we started a couple
of years ago--this is a really good question--based on the old health
service corps idea where we would pay off people's loans to medical
schools if they'd go practice medicine in isolated rural areas or inner
city areas. So we have a small program now to say
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to young people, ``If you'll go back and teach in an inner-city school
where there is a teacher shortage, we'll pay off your college loans.''
And I think that will help. I would like to see that program
dramatically expanded.
I think the other thing is, though, we're going to have to pay these
young people more if we want them to do that. In the next few years we
could have a real problem with teacher shortage, because we've got the
largest student body in American history. You finally--all of you are
bigger than the baby boom generation I was a part of, for the last 2
years. We have about 2 million teachers slated to retire over the coming
5 to 8 years. And we have a greater need for teachers than ever before
because our student bodies are more diverse, in terms of language and
background and culture.
So I think the States and the Federal Government are going to have
to look at this. I'm trying to put 100,000 more teachers out there now
in the early grades. I know the Vice President has said that he believes
we ought to have--the Federal Government should help the States and
school districts hire 600,000 more over the next 4 years after that. But
this is going to be a big issue.
My own view is, the best way to get young people to go into the
inner cities, though, is to defray the cost of their own education--say,
``If you teach for 2, 3, 4 years, you get this much knocked off''--
because I have found that there is a great desire, again, for community
service. And there is a lot of interest in doing this if we can make it
reasonably attractive.
Home Schooling
Ms. Smith. Question 2,627, this is Brenna, from Lamar: President
Clinton, what are your views on parents home schooling their children?
The President. I believe two or three things about home schooling.
I've had a lot of experience with this, because I was a Governor at a
time when this was being debated around America.
I think that States should explicitly acknowledge the option of home
schooling, because it's going to be done anyway. It is done in every
State in the country. And therefore, the best thing to do is to get the
home schoolers organized, if they're not organized in your State, deal
with them in a respectful way, and say, ``Look, there is a good way to
do this and a not so good way to do this, but if you're going to do
this, your children have to prove that they're learning on a regular
basis. And if they don't prove that they're learning, then they have to
go into a school, either into a parochial or a private school or a
public school. But if you're going to home school your kids, the
children have to learn. That's the public interest there.''
And that's what we did in Arkansas. The Home School Association
strongly supported it, accountability for what their children were
learning. There will always be, in any given State, a certain percentage
of people, normally a small percentage, for reasons of personal values
or educational philosophy, will want to do that. And most of the time
they're very dedicated parents, deeply committed to what they're doing.
And I can tell you this: It's going to happen regardless, so it's better
to have laws which have standards on it.
From my personal point of view, I never--it wasn't an option in our
family, but if it had been I wouldn't have done it, because I wanted my
daughter to go to school where she would be exposed to all different
kinds of people and see how the larger society worked and be a part of
it. But I think that we should explicitly make that option available; we
should respect the people who choose it; but we ought to say, ``If you
do it, your children have to demonstrate that they know what they're
supposed to know when they're supposed to know it.''
Ms. Smith. Just an update, we've received more than 10,000
questions so far. Pretty good.
The President. I need to give shorter answers. [Laughter]
Goals of Education
Ms. Smith. Question 4,154, this is Howard from Providence: Do you
consider the goal of public education to be to make someone ready for
employment, practical, or to make someone a well-rounded, enlightened
individual?
The President. Both. That is, I think--when I say ready for
employment, if you're talking about getting through high school, I've
already said I don't think that will make most people ready for
employment.
We live in a world in which what you know is important, but what
you're capable of learning is even more important, because the stock of
knowledge is doubling once every 5 years, more or less. So I think that
being able to be a useful member of society is important. But I also
think being able to be a good citizen and having a
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liberal arts background is important. So I think we should pursue both.
I've never thought of education as purely a utilitarian thing, just
something that is a meal ticket. It also makes life more interesting.
All these young people here--you know, if you develop the ability to
read and to think and to feel comfortable with ideas and emotions and
concepts, it makes life more interesting. It makes your own life more
fulfilling. So I think education should both prepare you for the world
of work and help you live a more fulfilling life and be a better
citizen.
Standards Testing
Ms. Smith. Okay, this is question 5,492. This is Eliza from New
York: How can the testing system be changed so that teachers are not
pressured to the point that they are cheating for the kids? Don't you
see it as a flaw in the system more than in the teachers? I guess
they're talking about high-stakes standards testing.
The President. Yes, well, here's the problem. First of all, I think
that it is almost unavoidable, if you believe, as I do, that there has
to be some measure at some point along the way in school of whether
young people have actually learned what their diplomas say they have
learned. And what I think is important--the way--I can tell you how it
can be changed so that the teachers aren't pressured to cheat: You can
have one or more second chances.
Ms. Smith. So if you failed the test----
The President. Yes, yes. Let me give you an example. In Chicago,
for example, which most people believed a few years ago had the most
troubled big-city school system in the country, they adopted a no-
social-promotion strategy. And if you didn't pass the exams and make
appropriate grades, you couldn't go on. But they gave 100 percent of the
people a chance to go to summer school and do well. As a result of that,
today, the Chicago summer school is--listen to this--it's the sixth-
largest school district in America, just the kids going to summer
school. But as a result of that, there aren't very many people who are
held back, and that dramatically reduces the tension to cheat.
I think an even better system is to make sure that all the kids who
are having trouble, and particularly all the schools that are low
performing, have really rich and substantive after-school programs,
weekend programs, as well as summer school programs, so that the tests
measure whether the children are learning.
Look, we know nearly--literally right at 100 percent of the people
can learn what they need to know to go from grade to grade. You know,
this whole business that all children can learn is not just a slogan. So
I think it's very important not to blame the children when the system
fails them.
So the answer is, to reduce the tension to cheat, is to have a lot
of second chances but to make sure that when a young person is told,
``You get to go on because you learned something,'' that the stuff has
really been learned.
Education Then and Now
Ms. Smith. We want to squeeze in just one more question, question
249, from Leah in Cybervillage: Mr. President, how would you compare
your education in grade school to public education today?
The President. Well, I think first of all, in many ways, it's
better today, although one of the things I will say is I was very
blessed; I had great teachers. I had--my sixth grade teachers, Kathleen
Scher, was typical of the teachers of the early--the first 50, 60 years
in this country. She was a lady who--she never married; she lived with
her cousin. They were both teachers, and they lived to be 90 years old.
And I corresponded with her until she died. She came to see me once a
year. We were friends, and she was a great, devoted teacher.
The discrimination against women in the workplace in the first part
of this century worked to drive the smartest and most gifted and most
dedicated of public servants among women into the classroom. They were
teachers and nurses--women--because that's what they could do. And the
end of discrimination among women, which has been a great thing for
women, has given women lots of other options.
But I had good teachers. So that's the good thing I will say about
that. I was very fortunate and blessed. But I went to segregated
schools, which I resented at the time. I knew it was wrong, before the
civil rights movement. And it's better today that we have a diverse
student body, and we're all learning to live together and work together
in school.
There were no computers, although we read a lot. And at the time, it
was assumed that most people would not go to college, instead
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of that most people would. So in that sense, I think things are better
today.
Now, violence was having a fist-fight on the playground. Nobody had
a gun. So there was less fear. The only thing you ever had to fear was
whether somebody that hated you was going to beat you up. You never had
the fear that somebody would pull a knife or a gun. So I'd say those
were the differences.
But if you look, on balance, we're better off today than we were
when I was in grade school. We just have to deal with today's
challenges. There will never be a time that's perfect and without
challenges. But we're better off being integrated than segregated. We're
better off with the new technology. We're better off with the assumption
that we ought to try to prepare every kid and give every child the
chance to go to college. That's my view.
Ms. Smith. As you see from the number of questions, we could do
this all day, but we're out of time.
The President. These are great questions--I mean, great.
Ms. Smith. Aren't they great? There are so many, one after the
other.
The President. I wish that they all had yes/no answers; I'd just
run down. [Laughter]
Ms. Smith. You know what, they can all E-mail you, right?
[Laughter] Just kidding.
Well, I want to thank you so much for being here, Mr. President.
This was a treat. I want to also thank the distinguished guests that
were here, thank City Academy, thank Yahoo! for providing this chat
auditorium, and of course, all of the students across the country who
logged in and participated in this. Sorry we couldn't get to all of you.
Great questions.
The President. Thank you. Great job. Thank you.
Note: The question-and-answer session was taped at 10:13 a.m. in
gymnasium at the City Academy and was broadcast on-line via the
Internet. In his remarks, the President referred to Tomas Gonzalez, 1994
City Academy graduate.