[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 12 (Monday, March 23, 1998)]
[Pages 464-466]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the Safe Schools Initiative

March 19, 1998

    Thank you very much, Superintendent Berg; Madam Attorney General; 
Senator Robb, thank you so much for your efforts. Congressman Castle, 
thank you. Mayor Donley, welcome, and I want to say a special word of 
welcome to all of the students. I'm glad you're here today, and I thank 
you for the example you're setting for students throughout our country.
    I also want to commend the students who were the winners of the 
State math and science award earlier this month. This school is proving 
that by taking the right kind of action, working with law enforcement, 
enforcing zero tolerance for guns and drugs, involving parents, 
establishing discipline and order as primary goals, we can keep our 
schools safe and give our children the chance to reach their highest 
potential.
    Now, in less than 650 days, all of us will enter a new century and a 
new millennium. At a time when we're doing everything we can to prepare 
our children for the opportunities of that new century, at a time when 
we know that the body of knowledge that human beings have is doubling 
every 5 years, and therefore, education will be more important than ever 
before, we cannot let violence, guns, drugs stand between our children 
and the education they need.
    For more than 5 years, we've worked now to make our schools places 
of learning, not fear. We have worked to strengthen and expand the safe 
and drug-free schools program, to enforce zero tolerance for guns in 
schools, to encourage communities to crack down on truancies, to support 
those who wish to adopt school uniform policies. Wearing uniforms 
instead of gang colors in many places is helping to keep our children 
safe.
    It was just a little over 2 years ago that I went to Long Beach, 
California, the first large school district to adopt a school uniform 
policy. Since then, Secretary Riley and the Department of Education have 
worked to help those schools that wanted to do that. Yesterday the New 
York City School Board announced that it would adopt a school uniform 
policy in all its elementary schools. I applaud them for taking this 
important step, and I predict it will have very beneficial consequences.
    Our budget makes an unprecedented commitment as we are moving into 
balance for the first time in 30 years to invest for our future, by 
raising standards and improving education for all our children and to 
make our schools safer. We know schools with the biggest discipline 
problems also have the highest rates of violence. Very often, there are 
simply too many students and too few classrooms with not enough 
teachers. Our

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budget, as Senator Robb said, will help to reduce class sizes to an 
average of 18 students per class in the first, second, and third grades, 
with 100,000 more teachers and funds to build or rehabilitate 5,000 
schools.
    Perhaps even more important in the short run on the violence issue--
and I was glad to hear Mr. Berg talk about this--it will quadruple 
Federal support for after-school programs to keep children in school, in 
wholesome, positive environments. We know that most children who get in 
trouble do so between the time school lets out and their folks get home 
from work. So I applaud you for what you're doing, and I hope now if 
this budget passes there will be many, many more schools, until every 
school in America will offer this kind of community support to our young 
people and their families.
    The fundamental issue here is that we do not need to and we must not 
ever have to make a choice between safety and high standards, between 
crime-free schools and modern classrooms. We must do both. I regret that 
the present budget, reported out by the majority in Congress, does not 
embody that kind of commitment to education and our future, does not 
embody the recommendations I made in the State of the Union Address.
    Today I ask the Republican leadership to join with the leaders of 
the other party, to get with the Democrats, and to work with the White 
House so that we can once again, as we have in the past, pass a 
bipartisan budget that puts education beyond politics and says yes to 
safer schools, yes to new teachers and smaller classes, yes to 
modernizing our schools, yes to investing in high standards. We need to 
have a budget that says yes to our children's future.
    The Nationwide Report on School Safety that is being released today 
by the Attorney General and the Secretary of Education shows clearly 
that the majority of our schools are safe, free of violent crime. That 
is good news. It also shows, however, that too many of our children face 
a far more frightening reality every time they walk through the 
schoolhouse door. In 1996 alone there were more than 10,000 physical 
attacks or fights with weapons in schools; 7,000 robberies; 4,000 rapes 
and sexual assaults. The threat of such violence hangs over children's 
heads and closes their minds to learning. When children have to worry 
more about guns and drugs than math and science, when teachers are more 
concerned with maintaining discipline than achieving excellence, when 
parents would rather keep their children at home than risk their safety 
at school, then we know we must do more. And if there is even one school 
in America where that is the case, we must all be committed to change 
it. We already know the difference community policing makes.
    Since we began to help our local communities to put 100,000 more 
community police officers on our streets, crime has dropped to record 
lows all over our country. Indeed, in the Nation overall, crime is at a 
24-year low. I thank Senator Robb for his sponsorship for the $17\1/2\ 
million in the balanced budget bill which is now being awarded today in 
grants to communities, parents, and law enforcement groups to put these 
community policing strategies to work in our schools, to stop violence 
before it starts.
    The more we know about school violence, the more we can do to ensure 
our children's safety. Last December I asked the Attorney General and 
Secretary Riley to develop an annual report on school safety. Today I'm 
pleased to accept their framework for these reports. From now on, at the 
beginning of every school year, parents and principals, lawmakers and 
law enforcement will have a valuable tool that tracks school violence, 
gives examples of school programs that are working, and suggests actions 
parents can take to make their children's lives safer at school.
    We know one of the best ways to reduce violence is to involve the 
young people themselves. In the last several years, AmeriCorps 
volunteers particularly have helped hundreds of students to resolve 
their conflicts peacefully. This adds to AmeriCorps' remarkable record 
of helping improve our schools and communities through volunteer 
service.
    Parenthetically, I want to say that today we had an announcement up 
on the Hill, with the First Lady participating, that we are sending 
legislation to Congress to extend our

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national service program into the 21st century; I hope Congress will 
support AmeriCorps as it has in the past.
    Let me say, finally, as Mr. Berg said so eloquently, we know that 
all of our schools need parents to play the primary role in their 
children's safety, both in the school and in the home, and when 
necessary, in the neighborhood. Today I ask all our parents who are 
concerned about this to become involved in your communities and your 
children's schools, to join a community policing partnership. Senator 
Robb got the budget; we're releasing the funds; we can talk about what 
works; but in the end, real live American citizens are going to have to 
show up in every school in this country to make this work.
    You know, if you look at these young people here today, if you think 
about the remarkable achievements of this fine school we honor, if you 
imagine the interesting, fascinating lives they can have, and you 
remember that, as they have good lives, it will make all the rest of our 
lives better, it is clear that we all have a responsibility to ensure 
that their educations will be safe. We can do this, and America's future 
in the 21st century depends upon it.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 2:09 p.m. in the Grand Foyer at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Herbert Berg, superintendent, 
Alexandria City schools, Alexandria, VA; Mayor Kerry Donley of 
Alexandria, VA; and students from T.C. Williams High School.