[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 20 (Monday, May 24, 1999)]
[Pages 935-936]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Departure for New York City

May 19, 1999

Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act

    Good morning. I'm delighted to be joined this morning by the 
Secretary of Education and by my Domestic Policy Adviser, Bruce Reed, to 
discuss the very important issue of our children's schools.
    In my State of the Union Address this year, I said that in order to 
meet our responsibility to create 21st century schools for all our 
children, we have to do a far, far better job of spending the $15 
billion in Federal aid we send to our schools every year.
    Building these kinds of schools has been a passion for me, for the 
Vice President, for Secretary Riley, for our entire administration. We 
have worked with Members of Congress and education leaders, people in 
every State of the country, for over 6 years now. We have supported 
higher standards, better teachers, new technology, modern facilities, 
innovations like charter schools, character education, school uniforms.
    But we know fundamentally that if we are going to change the way our 
schools work, we must change the way we invest Federal aid in our 
schools.
    On the way down here, just down the walk, the Secretary of Education 
said we have been working very hard to promote school standards around 
the country; now we have to get the standards actually into the schools. 
This week I am sending legislation to Congress designed to do just that.
    First, this legislation strengthens accountability for results. It 
says that States and school districts that choose to accept Federal aid 
must take responsibility for turning around failing schools, or shutting 
them down. It says they must give parents report cards not just on their 
children but on the children's schools. It says school districts must 
have strong discipline codes that are fair, consistent, and focused on 
prevention. It says they must make sure that teachers actually know the 
subjects they are teaching. It says they must stop the practice of 
social promotion, not by holding students back but by making sure they 
have the support to meet the higher standards.
    This legislation triples funding for after-school and summer school 
programs, provides for smaller classes, and requires other early 
interventions that lift students up.
    Second, this legislation will put more highly trained teachers in 
our Nation's schools. It requires that all new teachers pass subject 
matter and skills tests, that all teachers be given the support they 
need to improve their knowledge and skills. It allows Congress to finish 
the job we started last fall of hiring 100,000 new, highly trained 
teachers to reduce class size in the early grades.

[[Page 936]]

    Finally, the legislation will help give all our children safe, 
healthy, and disciplined learning environments. For the first time, it 
will require schools to adopt comprehensive school safety plans, use 
proven antidrug and antiviolence prevention programs, intervene with 
troubled youth, establish security procedures for schools, and give 
parents an annual report of drug and violent incidents at their 
children's schools.
    It also expands the character education efforts the Secretary of 
Education has done so much to advance, promotes alternative schools for 
disruptive students, and strengthens our policy of zero tolerance for 
guns by requiring that any student expelled for bringing a gun to school 
receive appropriate treatment and counseling before being allowed back 
into class.
    As I said yesterday, we must do everything we can to keep guns out 
of the hands of our children. I want to commend the Senate for 
yesterday's overwhelming, bipartisan support for child safety locks. And 
I commend Speaker Hastert for his leadership in supporting background 
checks at gun shows and for raising the age of handgun ownership to 21. 
I urge the Senate to keep working on the justice bill--the juvenile 
justice bill--and to bring these commonsense measures to a vote.
    Now, these education ideas are not Democratic or Republican, nor 
were they dreamed up in Washington. They were invented and proven 
successful in the laboratories of democracy at the school, city, and 
State levels. They preserve and enhance the flexibility that States and 
districts need to run successful schools. If the Federal Government 
fails to act, the best of these practices will spread, but much more 
slowly. Just remember, it took 100 years for laws mandating universal 
education to spread from a few States to every State. That pace of 
change might have been all right in the 19th century; it won't do in the 
21st. We do not have the luxury of waiting and continuing to subsidize 
failure.
    Nothing we can do will more surely unite our people and strengthen 
our Nation than giving all of our children a high-quality education. We 
know what works. Our schools, our educators have shown us what works. It 
is time to put that as a condition of success in the investment of 
Federal aid in every child in America. And I want to thank the Secretary 
of Education and Mr. Reed and everyone else who has worked on this 
program.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 8:40 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White 
House.