[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 8 (Monday, February 28, 1994)]
[Pages 344-346]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing the Executive Order on Educational Excellence for 
Hispanic Americans

February 22, 1994

    Thank you very much, Secretary Pena, Secretary Cisneros, all the 
people here from the Department of Education, along with Secretary 
Riley, including Norma Cantu and Gene Garcia, who have been recognized. 
When I was listening to my longtime friend Dick Riley up here speaking, 
I was thinking that this group could have forgiven me perhaps for 
putting someone in my Cabinet who spoke English with such a heavy 
accent. [Laughter] You know, sometimes people from South Carolina are 
hard for even the rest of us southerners to understand. I remember once 
when Senator Fritz Hollings from South Carolina was running for 
President and he was in a roast, and Senator Kennedy from Massachusetts 
spoke at the roast. And he said that he was glad to be there in honor of 
the first non-English-speaking American ever to seek the Presidency. 
He'll probably resign this afternoon--[laughter].
    We've had a wonderful day today, Dick Riley and I have, the kind of 
day we always wanted to have, fighting for better education in America. 
We were the Governors of our respective States together for a long time 
in the seventies and the eighties. We saw what education could do and 
what the lack of it could mean. And I want to thank him personally from 
the bottom of my heart for the extraordinary work that he has done as 
Secretary of Education.
    This morning I started off the day by going jogging with about a 
dozen students from the Northern Virginia Community College, and it was 
interesting. Their average age, I'd say, was probably 26. One was a 
native of Peru; one a native of Iran, just became an American citizen; 
one a native of Sierra Leone; one a native of Scotland. And as a matter 
of fact, I think only 7 of the 12 were native-born to the United States.
    Then I spoke to the American Council on Education and was on the 
platform with Juliet Garcia from the University of Texas at Brownsville 
and others today, and we had a terrific time. I want to thank her and 
all the rest of you who are here representing various organizations, 
including the Hispanic Education Coalition. I think I have you all down 
here: Laudelina Martinez, the president of the Hispanic Association of 
Colleges and Universities; those here from the National Council of La 
Raza; the National Puerto Rican Coalition; Aspira; also MALDEF; the 
Cuban American National Council; the National Association for Bilingual 
Education; the Association of Hispanic Federal Executives.
    I'd also like to acknowledge the members of the Congressional 
Hispanic Caucus who are here, including the chair, Congressman Jose 
Serrano; Congressman Bill Richardson from New Mexico--and we thank you, 
sir, for your extraordinary Burmese mission dealing with Aung San Suu 
Kyi; all America's proud of you for what you've done--Congressman Ed 
Pastor; Congressman Robert Menendez; Congressman Carlos Romero-Barcelo; 
Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart; Congresswoman Lucille Roybal; 
Congressman Robert Underwood; Congressman--is Solomon Ortiz here? I 
don't think so. I think that is everyone.

[[Page 345]]

    Those of you in this room, including many that I have not 
introduced, have been at the forefront in pressing for educational 
opportunity for Hispanic-Americans. It must have seemed sometimes a 
lonely cause. It is, today, an even more urgent cause than ever before. 
You are here today, in part, for me to say to you, you are not alone.
    Our administration has embraced your cause and seeks to support it. 
We know that doors can be shut. We know that only about half of 
Hispanic-Americans complete high school; that between 1980 and 1991, 
Hispanic enrollment at institutions of higher education grew 84 percent 
but still lagged far behind the national average of enrollments. The 
percentage of Hispanics going to college is just about half of that from 
college students in other minority groups.
    This is a complex problem. And finding solutions, therefore, can be 
deferred, as they often are with complex problems, or we can say, 
because the problems are difficult and complex, we should take even more 
aggressive action. I am determined that we must do the latter because we 
have to succeed. After all, in the next century, Hispanics will make up 
the largest minority group in our Nation. From this pool, we will draw 
many of our leaders, our educators, our work force, our future.
    To ignore the barriers to educational opportunity only hampers our 
own future, as well as the future of Hispanic-Americans as individuals. 
If we fail the youngest and fastest growing segment of our population, 
we'll all fail. Therefore, we must do everything in our power to allow 
every American child to reach his or her full potential.
    I believe and everyone in this administration believes that every 
child can learn and can achieve. We have set world-class goals in 
education, and we want to give our schools and communities the tools to 
achieve them. That is at the heart of our general initiatives on 
education, the Goals 2000 program, the school-to-work initiative, the 
reformation of the college loan program to lower the interest rates and 
string out the repayments so that all Americans can borrow money and 
then do work that they're proud to do, knowing that they will never be 
unduly burdened in paying back their loans. It's at the heart of the 
national service program. It's at the heart of the reemployment program, 
what we want to do in replacing the old unemployment system where people 
drew unemployment and waited for their old jobs to come back, when we 
know those jobs are not coming back. We now want a reemployment system 
so that the moment someone is unemployed, that man or woman can begin 
immediately, while drawing the unemployment, to engage in retraining to 
plan for a new and better job.
    These are the things we want for all Americans. But we know we must 
do more if we are to achieve those goals for Hispanic-Americans. And 
therefore, these goals are at the heart of the Executive order that I 
sign today.
    I know that all of you here have heard of the President's Advisory 
Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans and the 
White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans; 
both previously existed. But we also know, from months of working 
closely with Hispanic groups including many of you here, that this 
administration needed to do more. Together with Hispanic leaders in 
education, civil rights, and business, we put our hearts and minds into 
finding the means to address the problems affecting the education of 
young Hispanic Americans. This Executive order is far-reaching. It is a 
commitment to education for all Americans.
    First, the order establishes a commission that will be made up from 
leaders of the Hispanic American community. Using the national education 
goals, this commission will track how Hispanics are doing and recommend 
ways to improve performance. The commission will also look for ways to 
better involve Government and the private sector in helping Hispanic 
students to achieve these goals.
    The order will also marshal together the resources of the Federal 
Government by using an interagency working group. This is important 
because the problems in the education of young Latinos are tied to other 
areas, to poverty, to unemployment, to crime, to language barriers, to 
the breakdown of family, to name only a few. We need to address these 
problems in their entirety because that is the only way to make progress

[[Page 346]]

long-lasting. Agencies will set goals, and they will not get lost in a 
bureaucracy. Each executive department in every agency taking part will 
appoint a senior official to oversee their part of this program.
    We will also move to increase Hispanic American participation in all 
Federal education programs. And every step of the way, we will continue 
to consult with the people and the organizations who have long been 
studying the education of Hispanics, and that includes many of you here 
today.
    This Executive order expands on steps we have already taken for 
education. We propose an increase of $700 million for the Title I 
provision and to increase the access to Title I funds for Hispanic 
children by removing a major obstacle, the requirement that a child have 
limited proficiency in English. We propose a 12 percent increase in 
funding for bilingual education. We proposed, as I said, direct student 
loans to lower the interest rates and the costs and ease the repayment 
of student loans. We have proposed a national service program, that has 
already passed, that this year will provide the opportunity for 20,000 
and 3 years from now 100,000 young Americans to earn money against their 
higher education by performing service in their communities.
    But we all know that with these best efforts Government can only 
provide part of the solution. We can only succeed if all of us take 
personal responsibility for our families, our communities, our 
educational institutions, and our countries. The ties of family have 
been a great strength in Hispanic America. These ties fortified by 
opportunity can nurture and keep a child on a straight and strong path 
going forward and upward through the generations. We have to continue to 
support that as well.
    And now, I would like to sign this Executive order and ask 
Representative Serrano, representing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, 
to come up. I see Representative Luis Gutierrez, from Illinois, here 
also. Did I miss anyone else in the caucus? I think I saw everyone else. 
You shouldn't hide your light under a bushel back there. [Laughter] I'd 
like to ask Norma Cantu, Juliet Garcia, Laudelina Martinez to join me, 
along with Raul Yzaguirre of La Raza, Luis Nunez from the National 
Puerto Rican Coalition, Mario Mareno from MALDEF, Gilbert Chavez from 
the Association of Hispanic Federal Employees, and Hilda Crespo from 
Aspira to come up; and we will sign the Executive order. Please come up.

Note: The President spoke at 4:31 p.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive 
Office Building. In his remarks, he referred to Norma Cantu, Assistant 
Secretary for Civil Rights, and Eugene Garcia, Director of the Office of 
Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs, Department of 
Education.