[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2004, Book I)]
[February 12, 2004]
[Pages 206-213]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks in a Discussion on Education and the Jobs for the 21st Century
Initiative in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
February 12, 2004
The President. Thank you all very much. It is nice to be back in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Thank you for such a warm welcome. Behave
yourself. [Laughter] I--we're going to have an interesting dialog today
about how our economy works, how we can make sure people are prepared to
take advantage of a growing economy. I hope that the students here at
this very fine high school are able to have a better understanding about
their future and how to seize opportunities.
Before we begin the discussion, I do want to thank the high school
for welcoming me and quite a large entourage. [Laughter]
Rich, thank you and your staff. I
appreciate the teachers of this fine high school. I want to thank you
all for teaching. Teaching is such a noble profession.
I've come to this high school--it's a high school that's willing to
raise the bar, challenge what I've been calling the soft bigotry of low
expectations, that is willing to measure, willing to change if you need
to change, willing to use curriculum that actually works, in order to
make sure every child is educated, every child has a chance to succeed.
This is a fabulous high school. I'm proud of the administrators and
teachers and students who make it such.
I also want to thank the parents who are here for paying attention
to your sons and daughters, for caring about the quality of the
education they receive. I often talk about the need for us to usher in a
period of personal responsibility. Nothing is more responsible than a
parent understanding that he or she is the first teacher of a child and
he or she must pay attention to the education of their children.
I also want to thank our panelists, who we'll talk to in a minute
here. But I also want to thank members of the mighty Pennsylvania
congressional delegation for traveling with me today.
The senior Senator--I try to downplay the senior part--[laughter]--
today is actually his birthday. That would be Arlen Specter, who is traveling with us. I look forward to working
with him. Where is the Senator? He's somewhere around here anyway.
Either that, or he knew this was going to be a long speech. [Laughter]
We're working well together. We've got some challenges in Washington. I
appreciate him working with my administration on issues such as judges.
Speaking about friends and people who I think is doing a great job
for the State of Pennsylvania, Senator Rick Santorum is with us as well. [Applause] Don't go overboard.
[Laughter] I've got to fly back with him to Washington. [Laughter]
I appreciate the Congressman from this district, Tim Holden. Congressman, thank you for accompanying us today. The
Congressman kindly allowed others from the Pennsylvania congressional
district to come into his district today, Members such as John
Peterson, Joe Pitts, Don Sherwood, Todd
Platts, Bill Shuster, and Jim Gerlach. Thank you all
for coming.
We've got senators here; we've got State representatives here; we've
got mayors here. Thank you all for being here--city councilmen, a lot of
citizens.
I'm proud to be here to share with you some thoughts about how to
make sure the American Dream shines brightly in every corner of the
country. Before we have a little discussion about economics and of what
we can do to make sure people are prepared for the new jobs of the 21st
century, I do want to herald a Lauren Simkulak. Lauren is a senior at this high school. She came out
to meet me at Air
[[Page 207]]
Force One. She was invited to do so because, you see, she is
volunteering her time. She's taking time out of her busy life. If you're
a senior in high school, your life can be very busy, sometimes with
studying, sometimes with other things, but nevertheless--[laughter].
She's involved with the Four Diamonds Fund, a fund to create awareness
for cancer. She is a volunteer in the army of compassion.
The reason I bring that up is that oftentime, you hear our country's
strength is defined as our military might. We're going to stay strong.
You hear people talk about the might of America being the size of our
wallets. We want more citizens having bigger wallets. But the truth of
the matter is, the strength of this country is the heart and souls of
the American people, people who are willing to love a neighbor just like
they'd like to be loved themselves.
Here's my message to the high school students who are listening, and
to anybody else: Find somebody who hurts and surround them with love.
Governments--you can do so in all kinds of ways. You can do so in the
Boys or Girl Scouts. You can do so in the Boys or Girls Club. You can do
so through your church or your synagogue or mosque. The strength of
America is the fact that we're a loving, compassionate, decent people
who are willing to help save America, one soul at a time. I appreciate
the service of people in this--[applause].
I want the students here to understand we've been through historic
times in this country. You hear me often say I'm optimistic about the
future. Well, one reason I'm optimistic is because I've seen what we
have just been through as a nation. Remember, this country has been
through a recession, an attack by an enemy which clearly hates what we
stand for. We had some corporate scandals, and by the way, we expect our
citizens in positions of responsibility to tell the truth. We passed
tough laws, by the way, to send those corporate criminals to justice,
which is exactly where they belong because they betrayed the trust to
employees and shareholders. And then I made the tough decision about
dealing with threats by committing some incredibly brave citizens into
harm's way to remove a danger, to remember the lessons of September the
11th and remove a danger before it became imminent and before it could
conceivably strike America again. All that affected our economy.
Think about what this economy has been through, recession, an
attack, a national emergency, corporate scandals, and war. And yet, the
economy is growing. The numbers are good, see. The numbers are good, but
I don't worry about numbers. I worry about people. There are still some
people looking for work because of the recession. There are people
looking for work because jobs have gone overseas, and we need to act in
this country. We need to act to make sure there are more jobs at home
and people are more likely to retain a job.
I've got some ideas that I'd like to share with you, before we get
to making sure we educate people for the jobs that are being generated
in the 21st century. The first idea is to make sure there's certainty in
the Tax Code. As you know, we acted by cutting taxes. We saw all the
challenges to our economy. We cut taxes, which basically meant people
had more money in their pocket.
It's kind of a simple Crawford, Texas, economic lesson. When you
have more money in your pocket, you're likely to demand a good or a
service--an additional good or a service. And when you make a demand for
an additional good or a service, in our economy, somebody will produce
the good or a service. And when somebody produces the good or a service,
somebody is more likely to retain a job or find a job. In other words,
the tax cuts stimulated growth.
The tax cuts also made it more likely that the small-business sector
of our country would be strong and vibrant. Seventy
[[Page 208]]
percent of the new jobs in America are created by small businesses. And
that's why much of the tax cuts, the individual tax cuts as well as the
encouraging of investment--those tax cuts which encourage investment,
were aimed at small businesses.
The tax cuts are making a difference, but unfortunately, they are
set to expire, which means if Congress doesn't renew the tax cuts, the
child credit will go down. So, in other words, if you're now getting a
bigger child credit because you're a mom or a dad, you're going to pay
more taxes. It's a tax increase. The marriage penalty will go up if
Congress doesn't act. In other words, they'll be raising your taxes. In
order to make sure people can find work or retain a job, we need to make
the tax cuts permanent. There needs to be certainty in the Tax Code.
People need to be able to plan. Small businesses need to be able to
plan. Individuals need to be able to plan. We do not need a tax increase
right now in our country.
Health care costs are too high. It's going to be hard to increase
jobs with health care costs going up. I put out a plan to address health
care costs, associated health plans, health savings accounts. But one of
the interesting components of making sure we control the rising costs of
health care is to make sure our judicial system doesn't run docs out of
business and run the cost of medicine up for patients. We need medical
liability reform in the United States.
We've got too many lawsuits in America. It's one thing to be taking
a lawsuit based upon a real claim. There's too many junk lawsuits which
are running up the cost of doing business. It makes it hard to increase
the job base. It makes it hard for people to retain a job when people
are getting sued right and left. We need tort reform at the Federal
level. We need class-action reform. We need asbestos reform. We need to
get less regulations on people who are trying to create jobs. Washington
oftentimes poses too many mandates, which makes it hard to retain a job.
The other day I met with an entrepreneur from Philadelphia. She runs
a small foundry. She said, ``I've got some issues. I'm worried about
jobs.'' She said, ``I'm worried about the taxes jumping up and down.''
She said, ``A lot of my customers are getting sued, which makes it hard
for them to buy products from me.''
She also said something very interesting; she said she's worried
about reliable energy supplies. You see, when you have blackouts or
brownouts and you're trying to employ people, it's awful hard to have--
to do so. In order to get jobs back, in order for people to retain jobs,
we need an energy plan in this country. We need to modernize the
electricity grid. We need to become less reliant on foreign sources of
energy.
Listen, Pennsylvanians are great entrepreneurs and farmers. We ought
to be opening up markets for Pennsylvania products. In other words,
there's a lot of things we can do. But I'm confident about the future of
this economy because I've seen what we've been through. I know the
spirit of America. I know the entrepreneurial spirit. I know the fact
we've got the best workers in the world. Productivity increases are
high. This is a fabulous country. There's nothing we can't overcome, and
we are overcoming it. And as we overcome the recession and war and
emergency, we better make sure we've got a workforce that is prepared
for the higher paying jobs of the 21st century. And that's what we're
here to talk about today.
A good education system begins at the early grades. We passed what's
called the No Child Left Behind Act. It basically says we trust local
people to chart the path to excellence. We're going to spend more
Federal money, but we want to know whether or not the children are
learning to read, write, and add and subtract. This business about just
shuffling kids through the system has got to end. It's got to end.
We've got to make sure that as we focus on primary and secondary
education, we never forget the fact that we can strive
[[Page 209]]
for higher standards at the high school level. One of the things you
hear people talking about is reading programs to make sure that those
kids who have been shuffled through now have a chance to learn to read
before it's too late and, by the way, using curriculum that actually
works, not curriculum that sounds good, not curriculum that may be based
upon some interesting theory, but curriculum that actually makes a
difference, so that when we measure, we can see clearly that children
are learning to read.
We need to expand AP courses. We're going to talk a little bit about
AP. One of the interesting things about AP courses, it says clearly that
we expect the best from our children. AP courses challenge our kids. It
also means that they're more likely to go to college and strive for
higher goals. Too many of our minority students aren't getting AP
classes. I've got a plan to make sure AP is spread throughout all
segments of our society.
We've got to make sure that math and sciences are--we've got to
focus on math and science. We've got to encourage people who have got
expertise in math and science to come into classrooms. Oftentimes you'll
hear school districts say, ``We're pinched for teachers. We need extra
help with math and science.'' We've got a program to encourage people to
come in and teach part-time to help out. In other words, we're focused
on making sure that secondary and elementary education works well and
that high schools work well.
And another interesting part of our society which oftentimes gets
overlooked is the fabulous community college system in America. You've
got a great community college here in--[applause]. Community colleges
are available and affordable. They're particularly affordable because
the Federal Government wants to help people go to community college with
all kinds of different scholarship programs, including Pell grants,
which we intend to expand, particularly for those students who are
willing to take rigorous academic programs, are willing to set their
sights.
The community college system is flexible, and you're going to hear
an interesting and innovative program that deals with your health care
system here in Harrisburg and central Pennsylvania and the community
college and the high school, to prepare folks for the jobs which
actually exist.
Listen, it used to be in job training that they never asked the
question whether jobs--do the jobs exist for the training programs. The
way I used to put it is, you used to train 500 hairdressers for 10 jobs.
And yet we satisfied our requirement at the State level because they
didn't ask whether or not the jobs actually existed. They just asked,
were you training somebody. Now we're beginning to ask the question,
when you train somebody, is there a job, and does the curriculum make
sense for the job.
So what you're about to hear is, educational excellence here in
Harrisburg exists; innovative programs exist. People who are listening
in different communities around Pennsylvania and the country might want
to pay attention to what is happening in this community.
Rich--I appreciate your hospitality--
is the principal of the mighty Rams.
Richard Mazzatesta. You're more than
welcome here, Mr. President.
The President. I guess I should have said you're the head Ram.
[Laughter]
Mr. Mazzatesta. Well, Dr. Hasson
might think that I'm the second head Ram. [Laughter]
The President. You can call her a Ram.
I'm not. [Laughter] I'm going to call her, ``Ma'am.'' [Laughter]
Barbara Hasson. Barbara.
The President. Barbara, that's right.
[Richard Mazzatesta, principal, Central Dauphin High School, made brief
remarks.]
The President. Well, I'm here to help. [Laughter] However,
educational excellence will only be found at the local level. And
[[Page 210]]
by that I mean, is that it's important to have local control of schools
so that good superintendents and good principals are able to be--adjust
according to the circumstances. The Federal Government can write checks,
and we are. Federal funding is up. What's changed is we're finally
asking the question, are we getting any results for our money? Good
schools don't mind answering that question.
Rich said something interesting about
the No Child Left Behind Act. What's interesting in this piece of
legislation is that because of measuring, you're able to determine
whether or not a child can read or write and add and subtract early. And
what the measurement system allows you to do is, one, analyze
curriculum. You know, is it working? Is the reading program we've got
working? But also, it enables you to focus attention on a particular
child that might slip behind, which will make it easier, by the way,
when this law is fully implemented, for high schools because you'll have
a more literate population coming your way at some point in time.
We've got kind of a gap in the pipeline. There's been a--because we
haven't focused that intensely on measurement, there's some kids who are
just being shuffled through, and you're having to remediate. But we're
going to correct that by having high standards early, enough money to
help--provide remedial help so that no child is left behind. That's why
we called it that law. We don't want anybody left behind in America.
Barbara--listen, I've been listening to
Barbaras all my life. [Laughter]
Dr. Hasson. And as I told the President
backstage here, he's going to listen to one more Barbara. [Laughter]
[Dr. Hasson, superintendent, Central Dauphin School District, made brief
remarks.]
The President. Let me see here--[laughter]--I think we're doing our
responsibility here at the Federal level. Most funding should be at the
State and local level, in order to make sure you've got local control of
the schools. We've increased the Federal funding at the--for elementary
and secondary school programs up by 49 percent over the last 4 years.
I think--let me say a couple of things Barbara said. First, because you measure, you know whether or
not children are learning. I hear people say, ``Well, I can't believe
you're making people measure.'' Look, I didn't like to take tests
either, but that's too bad. You see, we've got to know. If you don't
know whether a child can read and write and add and subtract, it's
likely that child will be just shuffled through. And guess who gets
hurt? Guess who gets hurt? A lot of inner-city kids get hurt. We want
the American Dream to be everywhere.
A lot of kids whose parents may not speak English as a first
language, they're easy to quit on. Let's just move them through, see.
But we're through with those days in America. Every child has worth. I
believe every child can learn, and our systems must challenge mediocrity
when we find it, must be willing to raise the bar.
Barbara, that's why I'm here. You're
willing to raise the bar. She said, ``We accept the challenge.'' It's
not my challenge. It's a national challenge to make sure every single
child can learn. If you can't read, there is no way you're going to be
able to take advantage of the fantastic opportunities being created in
America. If you can't read, you're going to be left behind when it comes
to these unbelievable job opportunities that are going to exist.
And so what we're talking about really here is the basics of job
training, aren't we? And that's to give the people the skills necessary
to take advantage of a changing, dynamic, exciting economy.
Schools can't survive without good teachers, and we've got one with
us right here. Rebecca is a--shall I tell
them 31-year teacher? No, I won't say that. [Laughter] It might give
away our age. [Laughter] She's been in the classroom for 31 years.
[[Page 211]]
She is an incredibly dedicated professional who told me that after 31
years, she still loves walking into the classroom. Rebecca is in charge
of the English AP. Would you share with us your story?
[Rebecca Deitman, teacher, Central Dauphin High School, made brief
remarks.]
The President. I appreciate your dedication. You're leading with
your heart, and you've got to be. See, the issue with AP is whether or
not teachers know how to teach AP. That's one of the bottlenecks, to
make sure more advanced placement--AP means raising the bar, is what it
means. It means challenging students to the max, which is what we want
to do in society, don't we? And part of the money that we're going to
spend out of Washington is to make sure that there is teacher training
money.
Another bottleneck is--you know, a kid goes home and says, ``Mom, I
want to take the AP exam. How much does it cost?'' And it's quite
costly. And so therefore, a lot of students say, ``Well, I'm not going
to take the course, because it's too much money to take the exam.''
We've got to help, particularly, low-income students pay for the exam.
We cannot allow the cost of a test to prevent students from reaching
high. And so part of the AP program--[applause].
[Ms. Deitman made further remarks.]
The President. What Barbara mentioned,
for example, is not only training AP teachers how to teach AP, which is
essential, but if you remember, Barbara said, ``We're making sure our
teachers have been retrained in the curriculum we're now going to use
for reading at the primary level.'' Teacher training is an essential
aspect of making sure our children get the best education possible.
And one of the reasons you measure, by the way, is to test whether
or not the curriculum is working. And if the curriculum is not working,
you need superintendents and principals and teachers bold enough to say
it's not working. And so then you pick what you think will work, and
then you've got to train teachers to teach that curriculum. That's what
the No Child Left Behind Act also does.
And you've got a vibrant school district here. You see, if you
listen carefully, what people are saying is, ``We're going to challenge
every child.'' And that's the beginnings of educational excellence. And
we need to challenge every child because the jobs of the 21st century
are going to require a lot of smarts. People have to have the capacity
to think. It used to be, you know, crank somebody out of high school,
and if they could run a backhoe, that's going to be fine. And there's
nothing wrong with backhoe drivers. We're going to need them. But we're
also going to need computer programmers or people working in the health
sciences.
There's some exciting new fields coming, and therefore, the
education system must start early, make sure the high schools continue
to raise the bar, and our community colleges must be flexible enough to
have a curriculum that actually meets the needs of the local
communities. In other words, you don't need to be training people for
jobs that don't exist.
And somebody who understands that is Edna.
She runs the Harrisburg Area Community College, which as I understand
it, is the oldest community college----
Edna Baehre. That's correct.
The President. The youngest leader with the oldest college.
Dr. Baehre. Don't I wish. [Laughter]
The President. Tell us about your school. Tell us how you've made
the curriculum relevant. Tell us what you're doing.
[Dr. Baehre, president, Harrisburg Area Community College, made brief
remarks.]
The President. Now, what--let's see if I can say--kind of summarize
what you just said. There's a lot of interesting job opportunities,
whether it be forklift drivers
[[Page 212]]
or health care providers, and there are people who need to get extra
training to be able to do those jobs. And you're helping them. And
that's good. That's what we want our community colleges to do.
[Dr. Baehre made further remarks.]
The President. All right, Roger.
Roger is the CEO of PinnacleHealth System. He's here because you're
looking for people to work. One of the most exciting fields is the
health care field--one of the exciting fields to find work. But you've
got to able to have some--got a skill set that makes you employable.
And tell us what you've done with the community college. Tell us
what kind of people you're looking for.
[Roger Longenderfer, president and CEO, PinnacleHealth System, made
brief remarks.]
The President. Thank you, Roger.
Thanks for being innovative.
The message I heard from Roger is if
you're looking for work in central Pennsylvania and you're willing to
retrain, willing to go back to school, you can find work, see. There's
jobs in this part of the world that may require a different skill set
than you have, but there is ample opportunity to retrain, particularly
at the community college level. And I'm sure there's some people
listening out there saying, ``I want to work. I'm worried about my job
security, but I may be too old to go back to the community college.''
That's not the way it works. The community college accepts all comers.
What Roger is looking for is smart, capable, hard-working people who
need just a little extra training so that he can put them to work.
Speaking about young workers, Athan's
mother is here. Athan is 4?
Cari Aftosmes. Four-and-a-half.
The President. Four-and-a-half, yes. I want to make sure
she's 4\1/2\. Cari
is a student at HACC. She's got an interesting story that I would like
for her to share with you. By the way, for the Congress to understand,
she got a $1,000 child credit for Athan, and if they don't make the tax
cuts permanent, she's going to be paying taxes next year.
[Ms. Aftosmes made brief remarks.]
The President. It's a fabulous story. Cari, first of all, understands her most important
responsibility is to love her child with all her heart and, therefore,
to be able to provide for her child. She's also willing to say, ``I can
do better. I want to do better. I want to serve my community, and I
understand it's going to take a little extra time to get the skills
necessary.'' So she actually became entrepreneurial. She said, ``How
best to improve?'' And she researched and she found a good company
willing to pay for her tuition, a community college system that was able
to develop a curriculum that matched her desires. And here she is on the
cusp of a new career, one that pays better, with better benefits.
See, education enables our workers to be more productive. When you
hear about productivity increases, what you're really hearing about is
better paying jobs. But it requires a certain spirit, doesn't it? It
requires somebody to seize the moment, some citizen to say, ``I want to
do better.'' Government can't make you do better. We can provide the
opportunities, and we all work hard to do so. But it requires the spirit
of a person like Cari to rise up and say, ``I
want to do my duty as a mom. I'm going to do my duty as a wife. I'm
going to do my duty as a citizen to provide care and comfort for people
in hospitals.'' She took advantage of the opportunity. For those of you
looking for work out there, take advantage of the opportunities
available to embetter yourself.
Listen, I'm going to tell you something. We've been through a lot in
this country. We're going to win the war on terror. We're going to
promote freedom and peace. The world is going to be more free and
therefore more peaceful. At home,
[[Page 213]]
we're going to be a society which understands the issues facing our
fellow citizens, helps our fellow citizens realize great expectations of
our society, encourages the entrepreneurial spirit of Americans, enables
people to realize their dreams by having an education system which works
and functions well.
And as well this is a society where people who hurt and are lonely
and hopeless can find solace, because there's a loving citizen with arms
open, willing to do their duty as an American by loving their neighbor.
I am so honored to be back here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I thank
you for the warm welcome. I thank our panelists for this discussion. And
may God bless you all.
Note: The President spoke at 11:06 a.m. at Central Dauphin High School.