[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2004, Book I)]
[April 30, 2004]
[Pages 693-696]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Signing the Executive Order on American Indian and Alaska 
Native Education
April 30, 2004

    The President. Thanks for coming. Glad you all are here. Please be 
seated. Thank you for coming. Welcome. I'm so pleased to have so many 
distinguished leaders in this historic place. I see a lot of friendly 
faces here. I want you to know it's a privilege to stand with you as we 
take an important step toward a shared objective, improving the 
education of all American Indian and Alaska Native children. That's what 
we're here to discuss today. It's an important goal.
    Two people are going to be important in this, in reaching this 
goal--we'll reach it, by the way. My attitude is, when America sets a 
goal and puts our mind to it, we'll meet the goal. And two people that 
are going to be very important in reaching this goal will be the 
Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, and 
the Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, 
both of whom have joined me here today. Thank you for coming.
    I'm also pleased that we're joined by some mighty distinguished 
Members of the United States Congress, two from the Senate and three 
from the House, starting with the President pro tem of the Senate, 
Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska--thank you for 
coming, Senator--a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, 
Senator Craig Thomas from Wyoming--welcome--
members of the House Resources Committee--three members are with us 
today, Ken Calvert of California, Richard 
Pombo of California, and Dennis 
Rehberg of the great State of Montana. 
We're glad you're here. I want to thank you for taking time. These guys 
are busy people, but obviously, they're committed to this important 
goal.
    I appreciate the tribal leaders who are here. I see leaders from all 
over the country. I really appreciate you coming to--you honor us with 
your presence. And you honor us with your strong commitment to making 
sure that every child learns. It's

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a really important part of our mutual responsibility, isn't it? When 
you're a leader, you've got to set important goals and follow through on 
those goals. And I know you share the same goal I've got: Every child, 
not just a few, not just some, but every child gets the best possible 
education. That's what we're here to discuss today.
    I want to thank the students who are with me on stage. They've set 
one standard, and that's the standard of excellence. And they're 
achieving that. They're scholars, high school scholars, soon to be 
university and college scholars, who are in town to participate in a 
science bowl. I told them we need more scientists in the country, and 
they picked a good area to become an expert, because there's a lot of 
demand for scientists here in this country that is changing because of 
technology.
    I want to thank the teachers who are here. I appreciate you being a 
teacher. You know, Senator, you might not remember, but I was the 
Governor of Texas once. Well, of course, you remember, what the heck am 
I thinking. [Laughter] But my predecessor was Sam Houston. He was a 
Senator, a Congressman; he was the President of the Republic of Texas. 
It's a pretty big deal when you're the President of the Republic of 
Texas. He was the Governor of Texas. They asked him the most important 
thing he ever did in his life. He said, ``Teacher.'' He didn't hesitate. 
He said, ``Being a teacher.'' So for those of you who are teachers here, 
thank you for being compassionate citizens who care deeply about the 
students of our country.
    We place a high value on education because we understand the 
importance of education to our future and the importance of education to 
tribal nations. It's really important we get it right. In the words of 
the late Sam Ahkeah, the former chairman of the Navajo Nation Council, 
``We must encourage our young people to go into education. We need 
thousands of young lawyers and doctors and dentists and accountants and 
nurses and secretaries,'' is what he said. You can't be one of those 
unless you're educated, if I could paraphrase what this great leader 
said. His vision was clear. And that's what we're here to talk about 
today, to make sure all our visions are clear, starting at the Federal 
level.
    His commitment to education has been shared by American Indians and 
Alaska Natives through the generations. Today his granddaughter, 
Sharon, is with us. Where are you, Sharon? 
Sharon, thanks for coming. There's nothing better than being a relative 
of a famous person. [Laughter] Sharon is a leader here in Washington, 
DC, following in her granddad's footsteps. So thanks for being here. 
Welcome.
    To improve education for children of every background, I was honored 
to sign what has been called the No Child Left Behind Act. This law 
challenges what I call the soft bigotry of low expectations. In other 
words, sometimes people walk into a classroom and see a child and say, 
``Well, gosh, that child can't learn.'' That's the lowest of low 
expectations. This law basically says we've got a different mindset in 
America. We believe every child can learn and expect every child to 
learn. That means we've raised standards for every child, not just a 
few.
    You know what happens when you have low expectations and low 
standards? People just get simply shuffled through the system. And you 
know who gets shuffled through, the so-called ``hard to educate,'' the 
isolated, the inner-city child. That's not good enough for America, and 
this law changes that attitude. We've spent more money at the Federal 
level. But now, for the first time, we're asking the question, ``Can you 
show results?'' If you expect every child to learn to read and write and 
add and subtract, if you believe every child can learn to read and write 
and add and subtract, it makes sense for people to show us whether or 
not every child is meeting those goals.
    The No Child Left Behind Act challenges the soft bigotry of low 
expectations

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because it helps raise the bar, and it helps identify problems early, 
before they're too late. A terrible problem we have at times is that a 
child can't learn to read early--doesn't learn to read early and just 
gets moved through the system. And then they come out of their schools, 
and they can't read at all. And we've got to stop it now, before it's 
too late. And the No Child Left Behind Act does that.
    The No Child Left Behind Act is meant for every student, not just a 
few. It's going to improve the lives of our American Indian children and 
Alaska Native children. It is an important part of making sure we have a 
hopeful future.
    It's also very important that we have people who work hard to make 
sure the No Child Left Behind Act works. One way to do so is for there 
to be teacher training. You see, if we expect children to learn to read 
and write, we've got to use curriculum that work, and therefore, we need 
people who know how to teach the curriculum that works.
    An accountability system, by the way--I recognize sometimes people 
fear it, but my attitude is, how do you know whether or not you're 
succeeding unless you measure? Or how do you know whether the curriculum 
you're using works unless you measure? It's not worth guessing anymore 
as to whether or not something that you've got in place is working. We 
need to know, see. And one of the things--we're learning how best to 
teach, and we need people to teach the teachers how to teach.
    And Marilyn Nichols is with us today. 
Where are you, Marilyn? Oh, there you are. Thanks for coming. Marilyn is 
a--she leads an intertribal teacher training program in the Haskell 
Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. She's really making a 
profound difference in a lot of people's lives by using her skills to 
train teachers on how to teach. In other words, the effort has got to be 
more than just measuring; the effort has got to be a unified effort to 
help teachers follow their hearts and to help make sure that every 
student has got a qualified teacher in their classroom. I really want to 
thank you for what you're doing. I appreciate your soul. I appreciate 
your hard work. I also appreciate your clear vision.
    And today I'm going to sign an Executive order that will build on 
the No Child Left Behind Act. First, I want to thank the tribal leaders 
who have been involved with the writing of this order. Secondly, an 
Executive order is, when it's signed by the President, means something. 
At least it does when this President signs it. [Laughter] My order 
establishes a Federal working group, cochaired by Secretaries 
Norton and Paige, with this specific mission: to help American Indian and 
Alaska Native children meet the standards set by the No Child Left 
Behind Act.
    This is an important mission. It's an important mission that will 
call together elements of our Government to put forth a strategy. This 
Commission will consult closely with tribal leaders. See, we believe 
people closest to the problem are those that can help designate the 
solutions to the problems. It will meet with members of my National 
Advisory Council on Indian Education, who were sworn in by Secretary 
Paige this morning. And thank you all for 
coming.
    The Executive order calls on Secretary Paige to develop recommendations to improve the teaching of 
reading. I'll never forget when I was the Governor of Texas, and a 
woman--I was speaking in Houston--a woman walked up and said, ``Reading 
is the new civil right.'' It's a powerful statement, when you think 
about it, isn't it? ``Reading is the new civil right.'' If we're 
interested in civil rights and human condition and human improvement, 
our kids have got to learn to read. And there needs to be a focused 
strategy to make sure that that happens--that that happens.
    We've got to strengthen early childhood education. What that means 
is, the best place to start is early in a child's education.

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The truth of the matter is, the first teacher a child has is a mom or a 
dad. And we want our parents to understand how important it is to read 
to their children. But we also want the education system to focus early 
in a child's education. We want them reading. We want to dash the false 
expectations that certain children can't learn to read.
    We want to improve preparation for college and the workforce. We 
want there to be high high school graduation rates. In other words, 
we're going to raise the standards. That's what this Commission is going 
to do. It's going to work with the leadership to say, ``How can we work 
together to raise the standards and expect the best?''
    Under this order, Secretaries Norton and 
Paige will organize a national conference 
to discuss ways to meet our goal. In other words, there's not going to 
be just a group of people huddled in Washington. We're going to call in 
citizens and get input. We want what they call community buy-in. We want 
people understanding the mission. We also want to make sure we achieve 
high academic achievement while maintaining the strong and vibrant 
tradition of cultural learning. Learning to read and honoring a culture 
go hand in hand; they're not mutually exclusive. And that's an important 
part--[applause].
    I told you I'm an optimistic person. I believe when America sets a 
goal and puts our mind to it, we can achieve those goals. I also know 
that every parent of every heritage shares the great dream of a better 
life for their children. It's a common dream we all have, and it's an 
important dream to recognize as real in all communities. We will 
continue the Federal Government's longstanding commitment to the 
sovereignty of American Indians and Alaska Natives. And we will continue 
our government-to-government cooperation as we work to meet this very 
vital goal.
    So thank you for coming. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to 
share some thoughts with you. And thank you for witnessing the signing 
of this Executive order. For those who are part of the authorship, I 
appreciate your input. I appreciate your willingness to make your views 
known.
    And now I'm going to sign this Executive order. And if the Members of the Congress would like to come up and serve as witnesses, I'd be 
honored.

[At this point, the President signed the Executive order.]

    The President. Thank you all for coming.

Note: The President spoke at 1:45 p.m. in Room 450 of the Dwight D. 
Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The Executive order is listed in 
Appendix D at the end of this volume.